tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32904146636048155882024-03-04T20:09:53.998-08:00Dan's Blog- Space, Videogames, and Everything ElseXeormhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14892002456605134331noreply@blogger.comBlogger77125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3290414663604815588.post-66345405519088399702021-10-20T05:38:00.007-07:002021-10-20T05:38:58.123-07:00DSP: Logistics Towers<p> <span style="color: black;"><a href="https://seacdev.blogspot.com/2021/09/new-aar-dyson-sphere-program.html">First</a> - <a href="https://seacdev.blogspot.com/2021/10/dsp-aar-one-more-step-to-towers.html">Previous</a><a href="https://seacdev.blogspot.com/2021/10/dsp-aar-space-flight-made-easy.html"> </a>- Next</span></p><p><span style="color: black;"> </span></p><h2 style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #2b00fe;"><span><span>Logistics Towers<br /></span></span></span></h2><p><span style="color: black;">I made it back safely to the bootstrap base. That was a fun little scare. Nothing major, but hey, when you're all alone even small bits of craziness like that can be fairly shocking. Forever onwards though. Now that I have the titanium and processors from the mining base, I can begin construction of the logistics network. My habit until now is to bring the resources via belt to a location near where I've built all my other buildings, and then had the fabricators produce the items for me. But not this time! I want to use these damned things finally.</span></p><p><span style="color: black;">I have the Icarus construct a few using its onboard fabricator. It's slow and annoying, but the first few pop out, and I indulge myself.</span></p><p><span style="color: black;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZBsuQGjBFYeGWO5kE8olUvs0brFgcFz5sAG8rbhr4k2qbG1mODC4BxeykUhy_JW5-jtcO41RwNF4XQbolkaw5Undsq11SNvM_I5wM5me7SfAozUpDqb3lmTWvMTDkCz_pwHKGh6mHLQY/s2048/DSPGAME_mQd2zZqMNN.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1152" data-original-width="2048" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZBsuQGjBFYeGWO5kE8olUvs0brFgcFz5sAG8rbhr4k2qbG1mODC4BxeykUhy_JW5-jtcO41RwNF4XQbolkaw5Undsq11SNvM_I5wM5me7SfAozUpDqb3lmTWvMTDkCz_pwHKGh6mHLQY/w640-h360/DSPGAME_mQd2zZqMNN.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Don't ask me how the Icarus could construct those, much less carry around multiples of them.<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br /> See how disorganized and sloppy that looks? Welcome to the power of the logistics system! Each of these planetary versions can store up to 50 logistics drones and have three types of items each. Each item it can choose to either supply to the logistics system or demand from it. In this case, I have a tower that is demanding the three items I'd need to produce more planetary towers. Plus one from the lower tower. Each drone consumes power for flight proportional to distance, but power is essentially free and the ease of construction means I'm not too worried about them. </span></p><p><span style="color: black;">All of which means that once I plug in the materials into the system, I'll be able to demand from anywhere. Halfway across the world? No problem. I can tweak the settings too if I'd like, but for now this should work out fine. </span></p><p><span style="color: black;">But why bother? The sloppiness is intentional to a degree. The quicker I can construct buildings, the quicker I can build the dyson sphere. Having to carefully construct transport lines so I don't muck things up later takes valuable time, and I'd rather not waste it if possible. There's also the relation of raw materials to outputs and further down the chain. As I mine out worlds the production will by necessity be decreased. Under the old system that means that unless I go back and tidy things up items further down the chain will slow production as well. By adding things to a larger network I can much more easily notice changes in production and change them. Lastly there's the problem of splitting and evening out lines getting more problematic. The preference is that I have a guaranteed input line to each fabricator where I know how much is being added. The shared pool will even that out as well, so I don't have to worry that I have one line only producing 75% of what it could while another is producing 50%, as an example.</span></p><h2 style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #2b00fe;"><span><span>Middle Managers In Space</span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><br /></span></h2><p><span style="color: black;">I won't change things immediately. But this is a major change that has me fairly excited. And it seems like the "supervisors" back home have rolled out some new initiatives. Namely some goals they'd like me to reach, and little awards to give when I hit certain thresholds.</span></p><p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBE-y5dF0ykfQ4ja-M3kODwvnv4RVjVy9zHAM7KqkYsvCAMs_g07NUQHtwPRNxgdqY771TKmbBoEX7Zl9-36ewzTDE0NYnCHseY9J3IgOdbpoAPeZOcpNG3MYinAvUVGqPMoIFw9nIuhI/s2048/DSPGAME_I91JqbFqvH.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1152" data-original-width="2048" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBE-y5dF0ykfQ4ja-M3kODwvnv4RVjVy9zHAM7KqkYsvCAMs_g07NUQHtwPRNxgdqY771TKmbBoEX7Zl9-36ewzTDE0NYnCHseY9J3IgOdbpoAPeZOcpNG3MYinAvUVGqPMoIFw9nIuhI/w640-h360/DSPGAME_I91JqbFqvH.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I mock a little, but I do like achievements to pop up when I hit bits like this. And goals to hit are great for new players to use as guidelines<br /></td></tr></tbody></table>They brainstormed a bunch of these things, and even added some retroactively for me. But hey, it's kinda neat to see that my bases combined have used 1 terajoule of energy so far. That's not an insignificant amount of energy. Helps relieve the monotony I suppose.</p><p>Back to base building. Obviously nothing is going to come out of these towers unless I build other towers to supply the materials, so that's next on the list. My plan is to only introduce items steadily to the transport network. Working backwards of a sort. There's no reason to tear up the infrastructure I already have right at this point. But any new construction is going to go through the system, so it'll gradually end up being on these lines. And that's for this planet. It's coming up soon where I'll be expanding further out, on multiple planets. That'll be quite the experience.</p><p><br /><span style="color: black;"><br /></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6nsZjWgeldloY76hqoqTMxaL6Titmde_LgS9I2eh9dDOdOYbtjQR14AypMSHL53WAwX4VeY0vDzBIl_GpiDz_VK36StsEReCTw9_yvQTGF4RPftbyxA4I0YfHuiR2fj21tAzkpa2wXv4/s2048/DSPGAME_pM30yUaiCC.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1152" data-original-width="2048" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6nsZjWgeldloY76hqoqTMxaL6Titmde_LgS9I2eh9dDOdOYbtjQR14AypMSHL53WAwX4VeY0vDzBIl_GpiDz_VK36StsEReCTw9_yvQTGF4RPftbyxA4I0YfHuiR2fj21tAzkpa2wXv4/w640-h360/DSPGAME_pM30yUaiCC.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Each tower can have some drones in it. These drones can fly to collect items, or to deliver them<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><p>Isn't it pretty? The sky will be bustling here shortly as I increase logistics usage. Thankfully the onboard processors are good about managing collisions so I shouldn't have to worry about them at all.</p><p style="text-align: center;"> <span style="color: black;"><a href="https://seacdev.blogspot.com/2021/09/new-aar-dyson-sphere-program.html">First</a> - <a href=" First - Previous - Next">Previous</a><a href="https://seacdev.blogspot.com/2021/10/dsp-aar-space-flight-made-easy.html"> </a>- Next</span></p><span style="color: black;"> </span>Xeormhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14892002456605134331noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3290414663604815588.post-48460930328169832612021-10-11T05:57:00.005-07:002021-10-20T05:38:59.997-07:00DSP AAR: One More Step to Towers<p> <br /></p><p> <span style="color: black;"><a href="https://seacdev.blogspot.com/2021/09/new-aar-dyson-sphere-program.html">First</a> - <a href="https://seacdev.blogspot.com/2021/10/dsp-aar-space-flight-made-easy.html">Previous</a><a href="https://seacdev.blogspot.com/2021/10/dsp-aar-space-flight-made-easy.html"> </a>- <a href="https://seacdev.blogspot.com/2021/10/dsp-logistics-towers_044744975.html">Next</a></span></p><h2 style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #2b00fe;"><span><span>One More Step to Towers</span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><br /></span></h2><p>Processing chips done, I'll head back to the base with a fresh load of Titanium for my industry there. One step closer to logistics ships and the ability to build a better base. There's some setup and research still to be done, but I'm almost there. Annoyingly this is when the constraints of the bootstrap base really start rearing their ugly heads. One of the things I've tried to do is keep items sourced closely to the other bits that need them. Oil products have generally been by themselves, so I could keep things tidy by separating them from the more metallic items.</p><p>That luck can't continue as I build more exotic items. And the logistics systems are actually quite the exotic item. Flight is harder than it seems at first glance. Humans didn't get it going until industrialization and even then they used some shortcuts. Unlike back on Earth, I can't count on resource planets having an atmosphere worth anything, so I'll need a system that works without air. And preferably one that doesn't involve consuming resources that I'd rather put into making a Dyson sphere. Of course, I'll also need a system that can go between planets in the void of space. Early rocketry can technically work, but that's not nearly efficient enough for me. Instead we'll use a variant of the engines on the Icarus for flight. </p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7KReMkvTQLEYDeoNOlRLZ10ICQBh2JdTJjuGW-rPGdKAer9oS4S3AnjEtwqlAxn78Orkjpn1D9TNiwjLq8Rx5AKa0u_yEkfQTwObqfny8_FNUCZNOkLZskPfgHQ-vCiC6HUJ_fV9aDpU/s2048/DSPGAME_hbpl9nC8xV.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1152" data-original-width="2048" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7KReMkvTQLEYDeoNOlRLZ10ICQBh2JdTJjuGW-rPGdKAer9oS4S3AnjEtwqlAxn78Orkjpn1D9TNiwjLq8Rx5AKa0u_yEkfQTwObqfny8_FNUCZNOkLZskPfgHQ-vCiC6HUJ_fV9aDpU/w640-h360/DSPGAME_hbpl9nC8xV.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The idea of space flight without using some sort of propellant is funny to me, but nice to have<br /></td></tr></tbody></table> <p></p><p>A new addition to the old line, and showing exactly what kind of nonsense I'll need to do to get things working. Sorters stack, so I went the easy route and trucked over graphene over to build my particle containers. What kind of particles you ask? I really don't know. The stuff we're working with now is downright <i>strange</i>.</p><p>How will this system work? Get a tower. Get it good and high with an elevator to make take off easier. Take some simple drones with a large cargohold. They don't need to be complex, the tower machinery and the particles involved will do most of the work. Load them in, power the entire thing with a frankly large amount of power, and we should have flying cargo ships that only use up electricity. And with the green energy I'm producing now, that makes it practically free!</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhibCXkOFgi5S2J1sMPiCQgvOhyphenhyphenOEcU66qoGKhCk2UkO3xF6kclSEWOqlbQE_qrS9B2_ASrWfeUPCYmK7ZBIN4wUS_R2rZtK5s0KzmYduPr1GpU_KZl11YWp0iGvVCMHCX4DZRrXI6mHJg/s2048/DSPGAME_skcuyOp786.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1152" data-original-width="2048" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhibCXkOFgi5S2J1sMPiCQgvOhyphenhyphenOEcU66qoGKhCk2UkO3xF6kclSEWOqlbQE_qrS9B2_ASrWfeUPCYmK7ZBIN4wUS_R2rZtK5s0KzmYduPr1GpU_KZl11YWp0iGvVCMHCX4DZRrXI6mHJg/w640-h360/DSPGAME_skcuyOp786.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A slightly different way of doing construction. The thrusters only go to making drones, so might as well keep them connected<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><p>Two more constructions. Unfortunately I only brought the few processing units I had made before, so it's off to Zibel 1 again to pick some up. Same as with titanium, I'm almost ready to get things completely automated, but I'm not quite there yet. I still need to research the exacts for some of this technology and I'll need the titanium and chips. A quick jaunt over and back and uh oh...</p><h2 style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #2b00fe;"><span><span>Space Flight is Maybe Not so Easy</span></span></span> <br /></h2><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBDGaC_q7Qlz0sKz3iFLJSQgS192AjxvZLLWaXAfteuwNAnad1UIcTdGaR8jo7HVMQOFr8vxn3PRiGREIx5ubceaspippR5M7T24OmUHvYptR-6GyF3Il93RMG9cA89GKAuxAP0Dh0BbI/s2048/DSPGAME_SmqoAeZOjr.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1152" data-original-width="2048" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBDGaC_q7Qlz0sKz3iFLJSQgS192AjxvZLLWaXAfteuwNAnad1UIcTdGaR8jo7HVMQOFr8vxn3PRiGREIx5ubceaspippR5M7T24OmUHvYptR-6GyF3Il93RMG9cA89GKAuxAP0Dh0BbI/w640-h360/DSPGAME_SmqoAeZOjr.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p>I wasn't reading my checklist before I left for a routine mission. I forgot to pack extra hydrogen! No hydrogen means no extra energy generation and I'm forced to resort to the zero point energy generator the Icarus started with. It's infinite energy, but a tiny amount. It's not a major scare, but the idea of spending so much time to reverse course if I were to miss the location makes me shudder. I made it back safely, but I'd have preferred to not run into that trouble at all! Clearly the next energy source is on the cards for development. </p><p>So far I've gotten by with burning fuels. Mix a fuel with oxygen and you get energy. Oxygen isn't plentiful in space, but it has been plentiful enough on these two planets that the Icarus can grab it constantly with little processing required. Easy to store and plentiful, I don't need to think about it. But the energy source is less plentiful, and hydrogen is the best possible burnable fuel I can use. If I want to get more energetic I'll need to go nuclear. There's a simple reaction available where you smash deuterium together with a single proton to produce quite a bit of energy. For me it means I can store eleven times the energy I could with burning the hydrogen and burn 50% quicker to boot which is quite the upgrade. But that's only soon. First, flying cargo ships. Next, turning the inside of the Icarus into a mini star.<br /></p><p style="text-align: center;"> <span style="color: black;"><a href="https://seacdev.blogspot.com/2021/09/new-aar-dyson-sphere-program.html">First</a> - <a href="https://seacdev.blogspot.com/2021/10/dsp-aar-space-flight-made-easy.html">Previous</a><a href="https://seacdev.blogspot.com/2021/10/dsp-aar-space-flight-made-easy.html"> </a>- <a href="Next">Next</a></span></p>Xeormhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14892002456605134331noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3290414663604815588.post-38906237261106535892021-10-01T06:18:00.001-07:002021-10-11T05:57:45.577-07:00DSP AAR: Space Flight Made Easy<p> <span style="color: black;"><a href="https://seacdev.blogspot.com/2021/09/new-aar-dyson-sphere-program.html">First</a> - <a href="https://seacdev.blogspot.com/2021/09/dsp-aar-new-meaning-to-lunar-calendar.html">Previous</a> - <a href="https://seacdev.blogspot.com/2021/10/dsp-aar-one-more-step-to-towers.html">Next</a></span></p><h2 style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: #2b00fe;">Space Flight Made Easy</span> <br /></span></h2><p><span style="color: black;"></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj794_-d-X9fVvkMpfUrMbWNpXa74ZtZctpIL2wVuylIeHsHh45xJGeDNJyHZF7Ji-XJ-BSztBt0bNU7uB9S8d6VgROKIFuKVmDOUe7TkLPu7qql3uUOJDyvHr2845vAC3x93tL61_8SmI/s2048/DSPGAME_ql9xVCZKvX.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1152" data-original-width="2048" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj794_-d-X9fVvkMpfUrMbWNpXa74ZtZctpIL2wVuylIeHsHh45xJGeDNJyHZF7Ji-XJ-BSztBt0bNU7uB9S8d6VgROKIFuKVmDOUe7TkLPu7qql3uUOJDyvHr2845vAC3x93tL61_8SmI/w640-h360/DSPGAME_ql9xVCZKvX.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">For fact: Jupiter has the volume of 1321 Earths. The scale here is a little off.<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="color: black;"><br /> Cargo acquired, time to head back to Zibel 3. Space travel is already a little dull. Though there are further upgrades to Icarus that should make things nicer. Higher speeds, more energy to hit those higher speeds, and more inventory capacity to make those trips worth it more. So that's ok. Soon enough I'll have it more automated. Easier to have machines do the work for me.</span><p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiK1uaEUekk02sJMdsnPmc9DY7OMA8Zed4OUPCpmSLiRIt9mEQyCYBmao9pYLHsxH3xQHOl4PyGjVX8ko6DPtgsAgtwaYcIQ4LurCXvz6HMpsduO5iYsx1_9hGge6_uNGNLO0ruLcPCfDE/s2048/DSPGAME_sAn7cdZOzC.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1152" data-original-width="2048" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiK1uaEUekk02sJMdsnPmc9DY7OMA8Zed4OUPCpmSLiRIt9mEQyCYBmao9pYLHsxH3xQHOl4PyGjVX8ko6DPtgsAgtwaYcIQ4LurCXvz6HMpsduO5iYsx1_9hGge6_uNGNLO0ruLcPCfDE/w640-h360/DSPGAME_sAn7cdZOzC.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><span style="color: black;">Back at the base, production is setup for analyzing some new construction techniques. It primarily researches using two of the toughest materials I can create right now, titanium crystals and diamonds. Crystals are quite the unique type of material, and should allow for some very nice technologies soon. I'm particularly eyeing the tech for a ship-based logistics network. Being able to send materials across the world or from world to world in a point-to-point manner will help immensely. Belts are great, but they very much do have their own limitations.</span><p></p><p><span style="color: black;">It is the odd case indeed though that I know enough of what I'll need in terms of materials, but yet not knowing how exactly to get it done. Research is still ongoing. And as usual, as soon as I fix one thing, another thing starts lagging behind.</span></p><p><span style="color: black;">And so it's a good time to start thinking of the next project: building the materials so I can build my logistics towers. There's two types of towers: planetary and interstellar. Both can employ logistics drones that'll transport materials between two towers on the same planet. The interstellar towers also have an additional height for easing the launch of logistics vessels that can go to other planets; at this star or others. Each come with their own set of materials that are still in the research phase that I'll need to develop the basics for. And after that, I can really start designing a better base. More options means a much better possible design.</span></p><p><span style="color: black;">The nice bit is after this I can develop a base with all the tools, and make something I wouldn't call a "bootstrap base" after its done. Unfortunately, the additional materials will make for some headaches in design. If you'll see, I've got science production in the center. To the east of it was production related to the beginning metal resources. To the west I've had products primarily relating to oil products, carbon, and now some titanium. Now I'll need to mix the two.</span></p><p><span style="color: black;">I say "now" but realistically I mean soon. More immediate is that my first burst of titanium is gone, and I'll need a lot of computer parts. Which are best sources from Zibel 1. So off I go again! Time for the Icarus to serve as a courier.</span></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAs1MtjIdn4FbPYhJaiFDYhPVpnu7knQo7CoPOz2-UULuttXb5ClVGCpMNqC8kMEQkITYL0RN8A0QrTYZcq6k6YqemGm4jjyRRCksqP-umPM8ilueBNswYfU0x7zm_-lMGKh9clW0RpUw/s2048/DSPGAME_3tzMEjSOWX.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1152" data-original-width="2048" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAs1MtjIdn4FbPYhJaiFDYhPVpnu7knQo7CoPOz2-UULuttXb5ClVGCpMNqC8kMEQkITYL0RN8A0QrTYZcq6k6YqemGm4jjyRRCksqP-umPM8ilueBNswYfU0x7zm_-lMGKh9clW0RpUw/w640-h360/DSPGAME_3tzMEjSOWX.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I decided to go with a white overall paint job with purple highlights<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><span style="color: black;">Luckily for me the two planets are close by in their orbits so this should be a quick jaunt over. I'll bring over some equipment to build processing units and bring back titanium while the constructors do their work. So 2-3 trips total. It's nice that the planets are so close. Did anyone ever tell you to make a list before you go on a trip? Well I forgot. I had everything but the very many smelters I'd need to for the process. Ah well. I'll take a load of titanium back with me when I go to pick them up so it's not a complete waste. </span><p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_y5g272KuvyWki0t6ny0sLrEjJ8OrBlVTZb7h-NArncHmwD_TlQGmRvAACsU1TQUbZemyMRwGzyQIkIj5MpiZ9KHIs8WYvmzAV5reXI2iBJu-mKKaegj8XdnUNII2FqHmWNh_dWGkSRo/s2048/DSPGAME_N4ZIcCL6Ts.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1152" data-original-width="2048" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_y5g272KuvyWki0t6ny0sLrEjJ8OrBlVTZb7h-NArncHmwD_TlQGmRvAACsU1TQUbZemyMRwGzyQIkIj5MpiZ9KHIs8WYvmzAV5reXI2iBJu-mKKaegj8XdnUNII2FqHmWNh_dWGkSRo/w640-h360/DSPGAME_N4ZIcCL6Ts.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><span style="color: black;">And voila! Processor hot off the press. Almost literally, in a fun turn of events, considering how that term initially came about.<span> You may notice that these lines are nothing like what I have back on the original planet, and there's a reason for that. The bootstrap base is ideal for producing many different types of items, and keeping them close together cuts down heavily on transport belt usage. So it's both efficient from a materials standpoint, but also thinking time. </span></span><p></p><p><span style="color: black;"><span>Here I'm not so worried about either. I have numerous transport belts that I can pick up and reuse eventually, so I'm fine with maybe being a bit wasteful, and I'll only produce a few products here. in this case I have multiple lines of raw resources only going to the eventual goal of producing processors. If I want to produce different items on this planet, I'll do it in different locations around the world. Logistics vessels will vastly change what my planets end up looking like.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: black;"><span><span style="color: black;"><a href="https://seacdev.blogspot.com/2021/09/new-aar-dyson-sphere-program.html">First</a> - <a href="https://seacdev.blogspot.com/2021/09/dsp-aar-new-meaning-to-lunar-calendar.html">Previous</a> - <a href="https://seacdev.blogspot.com/2021/10/dsp-aar-one-more-step-to-towers.html">Next</a></span><a href="https://seacdev.blogspot.com/2021/10/dsp-aar-one-more-step-to-towers.html"> </a><br /></span></span></p>Xeormhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14892002456605134331noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3290414663604815588.post-69646703728534652032021-09-15T18:29:00.004-07:002021-10-01T06:18:08.258-07:00DSP AAR: A New Metal<p> <span style="color: black;"><a href="https://seacdev.blogspot.com/2021/09/new-aar-dyson-sphere-program.html">First</a> - <a href="https://seacdev.blogspot.com/2021/09/dsp-aar-new-meaning-to-lunar-calendar.html">Previous</a> - <a href="https://seacdev.blogspot.com/2021/10/dsp-aar-space-flight-made-easy.html">Next</a></span></p><h2 style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: black;"> <span style="color: #2b00fe;">A New Metal</span></span></h2><h2 style="text-align: center;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjT2t_uJ5f31WlFqtY1lDU6iHJ5IWk8Pn_kmMhXqt_0eAq4kInacewkVx-yKuw0F_B2b5b2hbfgJBPicAm1nDdeX36m15tcK-t1CE3Bkfj3SftRjulBUSvFMcBJb0ddiYjIMe0hE98vxQo/s2048/DSPGAME_VaVKAqzl1T.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1152" data-original-width="2048" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjT2t_uJ5f31WlFqtY1lDU6iHJ5IWk8Pn_kmMhXqt_0eAq4kInacewkVx-yKuw0F_B2b5b2hbfgJBPicAm1nDdeX36m15tcK-t1CE3Bkfj3SftRjulBUSvFMcBJb0ddiYjIMe0hE98vxQo/w640-h360/DSPGAME_VaVKAqzl1T.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">As a handy rule of thumb, you can roughly tell how production is doing based off of the belts. If the belts are full, like in this case, that means production is greater than usage</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr></tbody></table></h2><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: #2b00fe;"><span style="color: black;">Metals are an amazing material and are almost <i>the</i> sign of humans and their drive to subjugate the natural. Metals are so integral to how society works and the advantages it gives humans that early history can be roughly split into ages based off of the metals that are widely used at the time. You start with copper, a soft and easily smelted metal that nonetheless can be useful as in tools or weapons. It doesn't take long at all for people to start experimenting with alloys, with bronze bearing special mention for being a large improvement and seeing usage well into the gunpowder age. Next came iron, a metal that required increased heat and one that was worse than bronze in most aspects, except for cost. Never underestimate how much cost can influence the effects of a material.</span></span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: #2b00fe;"><span style="color: black;">Steel is a special metal. It's technically an alloy, and humans have been technically using it almost as long as we've had iron. Costs and quality concerns kept steel from seeing widespread usage, but we still knew of it and intentionally used it. But knowledge moved on, and humans learned better methods for steel production and created an age that might have been known as the steel age - if not for all the other advances that were being made at the same time. A general knowledge of chemistry and metalworking allowed for multiple types of steel that we could use. New metals we could access with a knowledge of chemistry and electricity, such as the cheap usage of aluminum. Or other synthetic materials like semi-conductors and gases.</span></span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: #2b00fe;"><span style="color: black;">History lesson aside, I'm interested in only three different metals: iron, copper, and titanium. Iron serves the bulk of my needs, especially early on. It's strong, and works well as a building material, while also serving as a great magnet when needed. Copper's soft and conductive, and therefore useful for anything involving electricity. Then there's titanium, which lacks the raw strength of steel, but is so much stronger for weight which is absolutely a characteristic I will require. I can combine the three to suit my needs too. Need more strength? Steel. Strength with low weight? Titanium steel. </span></span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: #2b00fe;"><span style="color: black;">Annoyingly, there's no titanium on my starting world. If I want some of this great metal, I'll need to do some traveling. </span></span></span></p><h2 style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: #2b00fe;">The First Spaceflight<br /></span></span></h2><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: #2b00fe;"><span style="color: black;"></span></span></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi11mzppnpezfM7x7eunxOpUNTP-4Xise825ov2n09XuwLqWR8ZsxUwOuRXpTut3DibQUEZ-niBDdyzGqmR57A0IZgZWPC76blmkQc7eeK3DyehyphenhyphenaAIIJmLpBNuM1abfWOs8KrwdlK05ro/s2048/DSPGAME_giHEkH5wiR.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1152" data-original-width="2048" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi11mzppnpezfM7x7eunxOpUNTP-4Xise825ov2n09XuwLqWR8ZsxUwOuRXpTut3DibQUEZ-niBDdyzGqmR57A0IZgZWPC76blmkQc7eeK3DyehyphenhyphenaAIIJmLpBNuM1abfWOs8KrwdlK05ro/w640-h360/DSPGAME_giHEkH5wiR.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">With lots of silicon and copper, this world will also be fantastic for producing computer parts<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: #2b00fe;"><span style="color: black;"> </span></span></span><p></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: #2b00fe;"><span style="color: black;">Enter Zibel 1. It doesn't have the most titanium, but it is close and with an atmosphere allowing for wind turbines. Perfect place to nab some titanium. Conveniently, I've recently upgraded the Icarus's thrusters for interplanetary flight. "Sailing" is the term we use for it, as it's not quite rocketry, but similar.<br /> </span></span></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZOLuEJBDnV4vbqGKNDYm4FRzCO3exkEC0bpSLhLhX5-y_h_srLfaRapDihZ6vwkvv1608SV6vSt6axZdMiLyAsBaADXAIKo7UDYna3FU0Pey4IuZui5UJQDuZgv0Nm_D10oA0H1slV0Y/s2048/DSPGAME_kUlT9sDRj0.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1152" data-original-width="2048" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZOLuEJBDnV4vbqGKNDYm4FRzCO3exkEC0bpSLhLhX5-y_h_srLfaRapDihZ6vwkvv1608SV6vSt6axZdMiLyAsBaADXAIKo7UDYna3FU0Pey4IuZui5UJQDuZgv0Nm_D10oA0H1slV0Y/w640-h360/DSPGAME_kUlT9sDRj0.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Units and distances not at all to scale. <br /></td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: #2b00fe;"><span style="color: black;">Thankfully the two planets are relatively close to each other so the trip doesn't take very long. I'm an engineer and not a physicist so I'm not entirely sure how the sailing process works, but in effect I pour a lot (and I do mean <i>a lot</i>) of energy in and get a fairly steady speed out.</span></span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: #2b00fe;"><span style="color: black;"></span></span></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmhQGX37uNPkSEDrYAKPax7DYvnmbkgtXYIj6ls8rP9zpUW5-qL67n2ysDIyb7CxfghbYDgK3NZk6i71FOwg_vLG-q2BXE4T73-32fOzDcfdaMq4WuoWE1qJETtuApiGfrDmfWtDFTcHI/s2048/DSPGAME_c7BjO0fxYf.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1152" data-original-width="2048" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmhQGX37uNPkSEDrYAKPax7DYvnmbkgtXYIj6ls8rP9zpUW5-qL67n2ysDIyb7CxfghbYDgK3NZk6i71FOwg_vLG-q2BXE4T73-32fOzDcfdaMq4WuoWE1qJETtuApiGfrDmfWtDFTcHI/w640-h360/DSPGAME_c7BjO0fxYf.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This is listed as a "rocky salt lake" planet. There's zero water. It's great for ease of building.<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: #2b00fe;"><span style="color: black;"> </span></span></span><p></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: #2b00fe;"><span style="color: black;">Welcome to Zibel 1! It's pretty dull, I've gotta say. offwhite to red are the only colors here, but I didn't come here for sightseeing. I came here for titanium. Now I could certainly start harvesting other materials while I'm here. This planet has silicon and copper in high quantities, which would make it perfect for producing computing parts. But, I don't yet have any way of getting those materials back to Zibel 3 outside of carrying it via the Icarus, and I'd far prefer to have something automated first. And wouldn't you know it, but a light and strong metal like titanium would be perfect for objects meant to fly.<br /> </span></span></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSRXQs80fgUES3VrerW0RoACjMQArlhdbMucoXTYuz4e-bp_aMdkqt2EbqZ_d14gvlvZJC41ePNfXJAli0AM4HhtmC-HA_8bXff39JJ2HDg6ZBUn1HWeZm2TvladW1XM33YmtQTFetUG8/s2048/DSPGAME_9PRUgqPkcc.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1152" data-original-width="2048" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSRXQs80fgUES3VrerW0RoACjMQArlhdbMucoXTYuz4e-bp_aMdkqt2EbqZ_d14gvlvZJC41ePNfXJAli0AM4HhtmC-HA_8bXff39JJ2HDg6ZBUn1HWeZm2TvladW1XM33YmtQTFetUG8/w640-h360/DSPGAME_9PRUgqPkcc.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">These are the only titanium veins on the entire planet<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: #2b00fe;"><span style="color: black;">A flurry of construction later, and I have titanium bars being produced for transport back to the boostrap base. While they're producing, I'll give Icarus time to recharge for the flight back as well. Man, you'd think traveling to new worlds would be more exciting than this, but sadly not. Dull is the word of the day here. But not for long. Hopefully.</span></span></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: #2b00fe;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: black;"><a href="https://seacdev.blogspot.com/2021/09/new-aar-dyson-sphere-program.html">First</a> - <a href="https://seacdev.blogspot.com/2021/09/dsp-aar-new-meaning-to-lunar-calendar.html">Previous</a> - <a href="https://seacdev.blogspot.com/2021/10/dsp-aar-space-flight-made-easy.html">Next</a></span><a href="https://seacdev.blogspot.com/2021/10/dsp-aar-space-flight-made-easy.html"> </a><br /></span></span></span></p>Xeormhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14892002456605134331noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3290414663604815588.post-41342368801697369602021-09-12T20:16:00.004-07:002021-09-15T18:29:31.933-07:00DSP AAR: New Meaning to a Lunar Calendar<p> <span style="color: black;"><a href="https://seacdev.blogspot.com/2021/09/new-aar-dyson-sphere-program.html">First</a> - <a href="https://seacdev.blogspot.com/2021/09/dsp-aar-building-up.html">Previous</a> - <a href="https://seacdev.blogspot.com/2021/09/dsp-aar-new-metal.html">Next</a></span></p><h2 style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: #2b00fe;">New Meaning to a Lunar Calendar</span> <br /></span></h2><p><span style="color: black;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="color: black;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWN0LVye84VCNxWF2khfWdszomemVJgv5R4dqN0cOrxElc15Mz8_fmiLNhZb8mrQ3i2OJklA2F5Gbo7mGh_bLcZnnAugaxWnSfWfzx91jQ9akRCHGp9O9eRP7L8lK_EA4Qgkl9Gh0RFVs/s2048/DSPGAME_iaXJwyJUM1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1152" data-original-width="2048" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWN0LVye84VCNxWF2khfWdszomemVJgv5R4dqN0cOrxElc15Mz8_fmiLNhZb8mrQ3i2OJklA2F5Gbo7mGh_bLcZnnAugaxWnSfWfzx91jQ9akRCHGp9O9eRP7L8lK_EA4Qgkl9Gh0RFVs/w640-h360/DSPGAME_iaXJwyJUM1.jpg" width="640" /></a></span></div><span style="color: black;"><br /> Do you know one of the things I'm happy I don't have to build here? A freaking calendar. One of the oddities of being on a moon is that there's no consistent solar schedule. The moon rotates same as Earth did, but there's this giant planet that's sometimes in the way of the sun. What would you even call it when it's supposed to be daylight but yet it's dark out? Darn. We got our day skipped?</span><p></p><p><span style="color: black;">Random ramblings aside, yes this matters. I've recently rediscovered the technology for solar panels. It's a simple technology, and the basis for the Dyson Sphere I hope to construct later, but not quite useful on this planet. It spends too much time dark for me to think it a consistent power supply. But that's alright. Wind power is quite the energy source, and for this moon the most efficient way to turn solar power into usable work. </span></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj413f41xH5EVzCfpefDlpuJyTe5XKAlxeTonKp6J6dFMwnfW_kPrzA-k8cciY0Hd2x_ZXw9lCSJzTqquBLSIGA74ibh29_mZlOAN0g_HKdUWQfeIzLgyUXTyXOP8NND1yjZkMDe9L1LPY/s2048/DSPGAME_pz45C9m6AU.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1152" data-original-width="2048" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj413f41xH5EVzCfpefDlpuJyTe5XKAlxeTonKp6J6dFMwnfW_kPrzA-k8cciY0Hd2x_ZXw9lCSJzTqquBLSIGA74ibh29_mZlOAN0g_HKdUWQfeIzLgyUXTyXOP8NND1yjZkMDe9L1LPY/w640-h360/DSPGAME_pz45C9m6AU.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">For reference, I'd need 125 wind turbines to handle the current load<br /></td></tr></tbody></table>Not that I necessarily have enough to supply the entire base all the time. Every now and then I'll spend time upgrading the network by adding yet more wind turbines to the mix. Energy consumption with the bootstrap base can be odd. It takes time to construct new segments, and as I do some belts back up as they fill to capacity. Then the new belt comes online, and items further down the chain also activate to start filling the new line, which all drain power. Made especially worse if I grab more items to replenish my supplies, which again require more power to fill.<h2 style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: #2b00fe;">Black Gold<br /></span></span></h2><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghFSTjSbX_NWz4U3MNryfzoeD1JKxN_kntZ_cmOiwOhQQS9Bd8FouYzC0N3SoT6cq8fDScmiA8mLynH8oPYDqW2dsvo76CKEZTShJyA9WKj8b6uj4W-rEqSvgfCjRtaRuZTzgJdPpzTfk/s2048/DSPGAME_ENV83HtMSa.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1152" data-original-width="2048" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghFSTjSbX_NWz4U3MNryfzoeD1JKxN_kntZ_cmOiwOhQQS9Bd8FouYzC0N3SoT6cq8fDScmiA8mLynH8oPYDqW2dsvo76CKEZTShJyA9WKj8b6uj4W-rEqSvgfCjRtaRuZTzgJdPpzTfk/w640-h360/DSPGAME_ENV83HtMSa.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">You can stack some buildings to save on space if you want. Science buildings are the ones I'll use this capability most for.<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="color: black;"></span><p></p><p><span style="color: black;">And red science is online! The red cubes are a mixture of carbon and hydrogen being supplied to allow for experimentation. Given that those two elements are the heart of most oil products, it's important to experiment heavily with them. </span></p><p><span style="color: black;">The process starts out straightforward. Take crude oil out of the ground, and run it through a first round of processing. This will separate some of the hydrogen from the mix as a byproduct with a more useful form of oil. Then I have some options. I can further crack the oil and separate it into carbon and hydrogen. Given that I can far more easily use coal for my carbon needs, I'm really only interested in that process if I require extra hydrogen.</span></p><p><span style="color: black;">Alternatively, I can turn the oil into plastic. An eminently useful construction material that I'm sure I'll need quite a lot of. Or use additional oil and water to reinforce titanium into a crystalline structure. There's even some faint amount of sulfur in the oil for the sulfuric acid I'll require. I could even burn it for power generation if I wanted to. See? Super useful stuff oil is.</span></p><h2 style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #2b00fe;">Working backwards</span><span style="color: black;"><br /></span></h2><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmtZv6G7TaABa4R6oe3cuNRM8naThH8kU6jBcr5k9cVutPPCh-kMgyV_c3XyDqmKNap3Bu-rfCU3b-6DNsrqFVSGLKVn2ZTqZc0jxAFfcqOtmGxijwZcNXQ9VXPHIidjjO3Imyetzgn3Y/s2048/DSPGAME_7cAWGMgM46.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1152" data-original-width="2048" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmtZv6G7TaABa4R6oe3cuNRM8naThH8kU6jBcr5k9cVutPPCh-kMgyV_c3XyDqmKNap3Bu-rfCU3b-6DNsrqFVSGLKVn2ZTqZc0jxAFfcqOtmGxijwZcNXQ9VXPHIidjjO3Imyetzgn3Y/w640-h360/DSPGAME_7cAWGMgM46.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">There is a very satisfying feeling to see rows of production like this<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><p>And now to reap the benefits of the oil products. One major improvement is with better belt and sorter technologies. The new belt runs at double the speed of my initial one, which makes adding on more products a breeze. Two regular belts would carry the same density, but come with additional hits to organizational complexity. I have to worry about the extra space of the second belt, make sure it fits, and potentially that it's added correctly to the entire mess of other belts. But upgrading is easy, assuming I don't mind spending the extra resources. Which I don't. I do have more than enough for a good long time.</p><p>Which makes for an odd construction flow. I'll research new items, add them on as production, then backtrack over the system to add on production elsewhere as needed. Building better belts means using more iron and steel bars, so hopping back through and setting up additional mining and smelting facilities became a thing. After that, I'll look into increasing the amount of red science I produce, and then work on unlocking the yellow structural science cubes. It's all coming together and moving steadily along. I like it.</p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: black;"><a href="https://seacdev.blogspot.com/2021/09/new-aar-dyson-sphere-program.html">First</a> - <a href="https://seacdev.blogspot.com/2021/09/dsp-aar-building-up.html">Previous</a> - <a href="https://seacdev.blogspot.com/2021/09/dsp-aar-new-metal.html">Next</a></span></p>Xeormhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14892002456605134331noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3290414663604815588.post-52804207866285663142021-09-11T20:51:00.001-07:002021-09-12T20:16:51.668-07:00DSP AAR: Building Up<p> <span style="color: black;"><a href="https://seacdev.blogspot.com/2021/09/new-aar-dyson-sphere-program.html"> First</a> - <a href="https://seacdev.blogspot.com/2021/09/dsp-aar-raising-robot-by-his-bootstraps.html">Previous</a> - <a href="https://seacdev.blogspot.com/2021/09/dsp-aar-new-meaning-to-lunar-calendar.html">Next</a></span></p><h2 style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: #2b00fe;">How to Design Your Very Own Base</span></span></h2><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: #2b00fe;"></span></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHGrxRaI7vXjssgr82YEizXC1Qc0uqJB54alvm7d8B2qlTTiyxctc-4MaKIxVNsYg-ey8BYkfkef82565sntpf22t4kbSl_Ome0fSbgQZn7sUD-TieUM-1MjUdntQiLFiJsORGSUFY7EU/s2048/DSPGAME_WbuxrZer3i.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1152" data-original-width="2048" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHGrxRaI7vXjssgr82YEizXC1Qc0uqJB54alvm7d8B2qlTTiyxctc-4MaKIxVNsYg-ey8BYkfkef82565sntpf22t4kbSl_Ome0fSbgQZn7sUD-TieUM-1MjUdntQiLFiJsORGSUFY7EU/w640-h360/DSPGAME_WbuxrZer3i.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">If you look closely you can see the flying drones that construct the buildings<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: #2b00fe;"><br /> <span style="color: black;">Forgive me if I get a bit technical here, but this is what I'm here for. As an engineer I can't help but be technical at times, and boy does it feel good when I am. Now I want to design my bootstrap base, which means considering some design principles that I can follow (and how to know when it's acceptable to break those design principles).</span></span></span><p></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: #2b00fe;"><span style="color: black;">First thing to consider is how best to use my logistics methods. With my current technology I have only conveyor belts and the Icarus for transporting goods. Later on I'll be able to use logistics drones for transporting goods long distance or for organization, but right now belts will be my bread and butter method. There's some limitations on how I can build them, mostly relating to height and making sure they don't get in the way of each other. You can see here that I'm building them with struts when they're going north/south above my line of facilities for just that reasoning.</span></span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: #2b00fe;"><span style="color: black;"> The other major concern is throughput of each belt. With some upgrades I'll be able to build better belts, but for now my belts are limited to 6 units per second. This means I'll need to consider whenever I'm building just how much throughput the line can handle. There's no point in building more facilities if they're going to be starved of ingredients.</span></span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: #2b00fe;"><span style="color: black;">Lastly I want to consider the design for my design. If these facilities were more permanent I'd build a blueprint first before placing, but the items are so modular that I don't have to! I'll build as I go, and modify the construction as needed. It's like building a blueprint, but with buildings instead of ink. I'm pretty sure that I if I did this in Engineer School I'd be thrown out, but hah! The beauty of being all alone is there's no one to be upset with your decisions.</span></span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: #2b00fe;"><span style="color: black;">My simple plan is to have a ring of facilities, each "line" going north/south and producing one item, with storages at the beginning to provide easy access if I personally need a bunch of said item. There's three exceptions to this rule. To the left I'll have one line for producing the factories and other buildings I'll require. There are numerous buildings I'll need, but most share similar components, and I'm not worried about throughput, so it'll be fine if the later factories are starved to start. They'll all fill in time, and I won't have to worry too much there. Next to that line will be the construction lines for conveyor belts and the sorters that move items from the belts to the factories. New upgrades will require items of the previous tier, so I'll gradually add on production there as technology allows.</span></span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: #2b00fe;"><span style="color: black;">Lastly I'll need raw materials of some sort, which will all come north of the factories. Most of those products will also require some amount of refining to be usable by my factories, so to save space I'll refine them on site. So rather than shipping copper ore in, I'll smelt it first and then ship it. </span></span></span></p><h2 style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #2b00fe;">A New Dawn for the Base</span><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: #2b00fe;"><span style="color: black;"><br /></span></span></span></h2><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: #2b00fe;"></span></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilKEhnsCgNcAYTDeFZkKsSUjYXmA2wureAGu65Zrz1bZnyhS0V6tNApoZqX8kWhr843f2ExRGq0JvVH6VTNcIiPhV81cgzT9WJ7tNd5u-FtJjUivdQycTUxOhSvNWJiaoofAXgFmnUdAI/s2048/DSPGAME_yLkvPYbgBR.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1152" data-original-width="2048" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilKEhnsCgNcAYTDeFZkKsSUjYXmA2wureAGu65Zrz1bZnyhS0V6tNApoZqX8kWhr843f2ExRGq0JvVH6VTNcIiPhV81cgzT9WJ7tNd5u-FtJjUivdQycTUxOhSvNWJiaoofAXgFmnUdAI/w640-h360/DSPGAME_yLkvPYbgBR.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Flying gives both a speed boost and is easier to avoid collisions, but does increase energy usage<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: #2b00fe;"><br /><span style="color: black;">And the design starts taking form. The small buildings to the north of the factories split the belts evenly, allowing for one incoming belt to service multiple lines. As I need more of an item, I can easily extend the construction southward to allow for more factories to produce that item. If I need more incoming capacity, I can always build belts above the original ones allowing for multiple incoming and outgoing belts in each line. To make things easy I've been keeping the raw materials to come from the north. <br /></span></span></span><p></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: #2b00fe;"><span style="color: black;"> See that facility too down the line? That's constructing foundation. As you might have noticed, there's a good amount of water on this planet. And while water is great for some industrial processes and large bodies of it are needed for starting a biosphere so I can get that sweet sweet oil, it's not very good for building. So I'll pave over it with metal and stone to provide sturdy ground for my facilities. </span></span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: #2b00fe;"><span style="color: black;"></span></span></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjw7VFiIwWf5BULBJmuTpwvKx39ovy7-BY5VebdgQH6ew2VlQz16tBnxeC5qyCmm-NG3Ttx_2OnCaSMy8KnQnyG2MBx45Qd4P9LUfAnBhQa_KwsVUCb_QpsaHM9rEkROh6eJpcXHgBdXX8/s2048/DSPGAME_iVHqApoGH2.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1152" data-original-width="2048" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjw7VFiIwWf5BULBJmuTpwvKx39ovy7-BY5VebdgQH6ew2VlQz16tBnxeC5qyCmm-NG3Ttx_2OnCaSMy8KnQnyG2MBx45Qd4P9LUfAnBhQa_KwsVUCb_QpsaHM9rEkROh6eJpcXHgBdXX8/w640-h360/DSPGAME_iVHqApoGH2.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Not pictured: The fields of wind generators I planted to the south to power all of this<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: #2b00fe;"><span style="color: black;"><br /> There's a few things left to add on, and then I'll have the oil production ready to go. With that will be more opportunities for additional upgrades. Icarus is quite enjoying the new upgrades I've already gotten. Increased speed, thrusters planetary flight, and more energy. Cleaner energy too, with the tech for graphite. Gets rid of all the nonsense that you'd find in regular coal, leaving only well-organized carbon to burn.</span></span></span><p></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: #2b00fe;"><span style="color: black;"> <span style="color: black;"><a href="https://seacdev.blogspot.com/2021/09/new-aar-dyson-sphere-program.html"> First</a> - <a href="https://seacdev.blogspot.com/2021/09/dsp-aar-raising-robot-by-his-bootstraps.html">Previous</a> - <a href="https://seacdev.blogspot.com/2021/09/dsp-aar-new-meaning-to-lunar-calendar.html">Next</a></span><a href="https://seacdev.blogspot.com/2021/09/dsp-aar-new-meaning-to-lunar-calendar.html"> </a></span></span> </span></p>Xeormhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14892002456605134331noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3290414663604815588.post-80270150765468307402021-09-10T21:36:00.016-07:002021-09-11T20:51:05.970-07:00DSP AAR: Raising a Robot by his Bootstraps<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: black;"><a href="https://seacdev.blogspot.com/2021/09/new-aar-dyson-sphere-program.html"> First</a> - <a href="https://seacdev.blogspot.com/2021/09/dyson-sphere-program-aar-first-steps.html">Previous</a> - <a href="https://seacdev.blogspot.com/2021/09/dsp-aar-building-up.html">Next</a></span><br /></div><h2 style="text-align: center;"> <span style="color: #2b00fe;">Raising a Robot by his Bootstraps<br /></span></h2><p> </p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-SmLyKtskJdZmeuQPnRG14Bw7xZjHmZhHjLtkrylZVcQAVwanbYvwlq9ZhSXRkLGf-gIyA7NtnMZV56oAqTXEYi39UJF3IXc5AEV9CukDRin0ziwX6h7aC_mkdADCLYisq6dNx3j8pag/s2048/DSPGAME_CsFr1RRRzI.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1152" data-original-width="2048" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-SmLyKtskJdZmeuQPnRG14Bw7xZjHmZhHjLtkrylZVcQAVwanbYvwlq9ZhSXRkLGf-gIyA7NtnMZV56oAqTXEYi39UJF3IXc5AEV9CukDRin0ziwX6h7aC_mkdADCLYisq6dNx3j8pag/w640-h360/DSPGAME_CsFr1RRRzI.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The conveyor belts are about the only thing you can build on the water<br /></td></tr></tbody></table> <p></p><p>Have you ever heard the phrase of "Pulling yourself up by your bootstraps"? It's a fascinating bit demonstrating how languages everywhere are living things. Way back when in the ancient period before computers, there was a sarcastic phase about pulling yourself up by your bootstraps. It's clearly impossible, and it was first a sarcastic and then legitimate phrase about the difficulty of raising your socioeconomic station. </p><p>Later on it morphs again, primarily with computers. Where does a computer start when it needs to load information, but first needs to load information to load information? Why, it boots up, that's how. Bootstrapping and booting thus became a verb in its own right, referring to something similar but completely different from the original intention. And so I find myself here with another example of bootstrapping, as I need to construct facilities to make materials so that I can make the facilities and so on. I have to start somewhere, so I may as well start by lifting myself up with my non-existent bootstraps. </p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUHYIFy6KjGaOLR7wGfV4IfwHSTO0ti3VJrv9MBd-n8iuRgCisnWjynbbzb8IvEOzCUbywtdtW1qewkjmZmJDD3iu1FnUtp5WKz-sfYhTGDnnLaopfwkxToS2E_IxOyN_iJ3RrBcBVEwA/s2048/DSPGAME_ug0t1vatio.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1152" data-original-width="2048" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUHYIFy6KjGaOLR7wGfV4IfwHSTO0ti3VJrv9MBd-n8iuRgCisnWjynbbzb8IvEOzCUbywtdtW1qewkjmZmJDD3iu1FnUtp5WKz-sfYhTGDnnLaopfwkxToS2E_IxOyN_iJ3RrBcBVEwA/w640-h360/DSPGAME_ug0t1vatio.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">You can only burn fuels so quickly. Energy generation is a constant concern for the entire game<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><p></p>Turns out it's easier to raise yourself up with back-mounted thrusters, but still. They are noticeably energy hungry, but convenient for keeping the mech from getting wet, given that I have no boots to protect myself.<p>All the production items I know of currently I can produce for myself with the Icarus's onboard replicators, but they work too slowly. Far easier to have a mining machine do part of the work, transport the ore with conveyor belts to a smelter, and then from the smelter to fabricating facilities. Even having the facilities build the intermediate products for me is a major time saver, and thus I from all that I'll begin. </p><h2 style="text-align: center;"> <span style="color: #2b00fe;">The Plan</span></h2><p style="text-align: left;"></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFfmpFM_K7F9lTZk2BfsswKGrijSraXiHamZAg5zNodE72I-4EJvEJ1KmCXAhV-ogSg7a7Kc2Jg3im5GI9hWXnKze-IuXO3HDY7t2xAum-hJvB80CfWA4-U8428yEczq6Ma_2R8Q48BYU/s2048/DSPGAME_bgSzyGxyHF.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1152" data-original-width="2048" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFfmpFM_K7F9lTZk2BfsswKGrijSraXiHamZAg5zNodE72I-4EJvEJ1KmCXAhV-ogSg7a7Kc2Jg3im5GI9hWXnKze-IuXO3HDY7t2xAum-hJvB80CfWA4-U8428yEczq6Ma_2R8Q48BYU/w640-h360/DSPGAME_bgSzyGxyHF.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The upper section all deal with upgrades to the mech itself, below that are facilities and drone upgrades<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="color: #2b00fe;"></span><p></p><p style="text-align: left;"></p><p style="text-align: left;"></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #2b00fe;"></span></p><p>Roughly, my initial plan is to get the basics all squared away. Some buildings to make the intermediates and conveyor belts along with a small section for the initial research.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglUwsWvBqdHeBGeVWNG_w4LQgLjPlbNHpp5gj2C2yxhMDXkFgmjJDYCOMb-ZHWwKi7DNDmorHrPDKazIkmXu-yOCHI42XGg1BFKnXXoEOoYmeuOjqKccrqOWU4ywNM1XSsGFX3A5_SRYY/s2048/DSPGAME_YmdggSqSvv.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1152" data-original-width="2048" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglUwsWvBqdHeBGeVWNG_w4LQgLjPlbNHpp5gj2C2yxhMDXkFgmjJDYCOMb-ZHWwKi7DNDmorHrPDKazIkmXu-yOCHI42XGg1BFKnXXoEOoYmeuOjqKccrqOWU4ywNM1XSsGFX3A5_SRYY/w640-h360/DSPGAME_YmdggSqSvv.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Initial research involves using intermediates. After the initial stage all research consists of one or more colored cube "matrix" instead to keep things simpler and easier to automate.<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p>While that gets started, I'll then want to build a more long-lasting setup. One I can build on as I go to more efficiently work, rather than having a "spaghetti" set of lines going every which way. By doing that, I can get stacks of the buildings I'll need, negating the need to have Icarus do all the hard creation work so I can focus on constructing more. Research too has been out-sourced to matrix laboratories.<br /></p><p>Once that initial framework is complete, I can start working on oil products. Oil itself is a fantastic construction material and I'll use it heavily as my production and the materials I require become more complicated. As well, I'll be able to work on getting the Icarus upgraded, allowing for more basics like increased speeds and energy storage, but also game changers like stronger thrusters for going off planet. Because while Zibel 3 has a good range of materials, it lacks silicon and titanium in any large quantity. I'll need to go off-planet to get those in the numbers I require.</p><p>And with both of those materials, I'll be able to construct an interplanetary (and soon interstellar) logistics network. </p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgU1H4ECjDI23L-jY_yX3k9zpYMq_fZxQqplPIq99j7wN2vLXfUkJZCMjeQlFl-xrlZ8-4Cv61jMQ3OlT95W2BPgUA4bcEMyFinvE4fzmjrWrP9i2pJyapoAskkXiUYY30DIZelyvsWv0/s2048/DSPGAME_0EtMbMkqLN.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1152" data-original-width="2048" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgU1H4ECjDI23L-jY_yX3k9zpYMq_fZxQqplPIq99j7wN2vLXfUkJZCMjeQlFl-xrlZ8-4Cv61jMQ3OlT95W2BPgUA4bcEMyFinvE4fzmjrWrP9i2pJyapoAskkXiUYY30DIZelyvsWv0/w640-h360/DSPGAME_0EtMbMkqLN.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Every planet has a summary section like the one to the right. Decent amounts of iron, copper, and stone, with large amounts of coal and oil. For ease of the simulation, all planets are the same size.<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><p>First steps first though. Booting this process up properly will take time. I'm glad I have plenty of it, alone out among the stars.<br /></p><p><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://seacdev.blogspot.com/2021/09/new-aar-dyson-sphere-program.html">First</a> - <a href="https://seacdev.blogspot.com/2021/09/dyson-sphere-program-aar-first-steps.html">Previous</a> - <a href="https://seacdev.blogspot.com/2021/09/dsp-aar-building-up.html">Next</a></p>Xeormhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14892002456605134331noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3290414663604815588.post-70331914942127925572021-09-07T06:47:00.005-07:002021-09-10T21:44:49.080-07:00Dyson Sphere Program AAR: First Steps<div style="text-align: left;"> <a href="https://seacdev.blogspot.com/2021/09/new-aar-dyson-sphere-program.html">First</a> - <a href="https://seacdev.blogspot.com/2021/09/new-aar-dyson-sphere-program.html">Previous</a> - <a href="https://seacdev.blogspot.com/2021/09/dsp-aar-raising-robot-by-his-bootstraps.html">Next</a></div><h2 style="text-align: center;"> <span style="color: #2b00fe;">The First Steps<br /></span></h2><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1xHTLPR95i6WR_AbEmE_wU_58K-cAcUG_66MxqiPTUu11HN_-pUoLL9FRn46rVqeXqcHmjA0rPQYy0-TmXtRIshqOAUcQiRQuypOSIBokZlJsEurieffASq2agg7wztS6tP5zB4wuPDs/s2048/DSPGAME_LK75k4LD0m.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1152" data-original-width="2048" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1xHTLPR95i6WR_AbEmE_wU_58K-cAcUG_66MxqiPTUu11HN_-pUoLL9FRn46rVqeXqcHmjA0rPQYy0-TmXtRIshqOAUcQiRQuypOSIBokZlJsEurieffASq2agg7wztS6tP5zB4wuPDs/w640-h360/DSPGAME_LK75k4LD0m.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">In case it wasn't clear, the scale of objects is not at all close to what you'd see in reality<br /></td></tr></tbody></table> <p></p><p>My pod is on the final approach to Zibel 3 now. On my right is a giant ball of fiery death we've named "Zibel", with that small speck in front of it the large moon that is our destination. It's planet sized and decently rich with resources and importantly for our purposes it has oil. It's one of many planets that has a thriving ecosystem, but never got to the large animals stage. Humanity still hasn't found any sign of intelligent life out there, and from what we can tell it seems that animals in general are exceptionally rare. We've found planets with lush forests and thriving waters, but few animals. Plants aren't suited for thinking, and so no other sentients. Therefore, all of the resources everywhere belong to us. Pretty nifty.</p><p><br /></p><h2 style="text-align: center;"> <span style="color: #2b00fe;">Icarus<br /></span></h2><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoo4BO84y2_OJYsmizmaY_9DjR8baO6Z9VVOXigfUxOJ6qYuYrrfekkkti5-fL8lr6hAc_NOkaUXzSoKhyphenhyphenWw_7p4QkS_EUOSAf6gewyosKOgV6pPoVaiVo3tcQ98klcsEG1gWhSlVT364/s2048/DSPGAME_pzUL6YXjkW.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1152" data-original-width="2048" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoo4BO84y2_OJYsmizmaY_9DjR8baO6Z9VVOXigfUxOJ6qYuYrrfekkkti5-fL8lr6hAc_NOkaUXzSoKhyphenhyphenWw_7p4QkS_EUOSAf6gewyosKOgV6pPoVaiVo3tcQ98klcsEG1gWhSlVT364/w640-h360/DSPGAME_pzUL6YXjkW.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I'm hopeful that later in the development cycle we'll be able to customize the look of Icarus<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p>Meet Icarus. This is my mech/bodysuit. It's an amazing piece of engineering and the plan wouldn't have worked at all without him and his one-of-a-kind capabilities. He comes with a mini-factory to process raw materials into more useful things and construction drones to build the facilities I'll need. He's got a computer to run my code so that I can leave the CentreBrain, and a zero-point generator to provide power eternally. And all with thrusters to get across the galaxy and the sensors to see it. Solid piece of machinery this is.</p><p>It's also incomplete. Big surprise right? They didn't finish the CentreBrain, and neither did they finish this mech. Or make more of its kind. Part of my mission therefore involves using the raw materials I find along with some research to upgrade the capabilities of Icarus, because right now its somewhat limited.</p><p>Awkwardly too, we have the science about what we could possibly make and a general idea of what would be required. But the actual specifics of constructing the facilities and parts we need? Nah. Not with the tools we have at least. It's an interesting problem to have. Back when humanity was first exploring space, they quickly managed to get to the moon. Quite the accomplishment when you're new to space travel and computers are still new. They spent their time afterward with smaller launches, which was very much the correct strategy. When they wanted to go back to the moon, they had a conundrum. They had all the plans for their larger spacecraft, but they lacked the tools and expertise to make them! </p><p>Manufacturing had changed since then, with computers having a larger role in the entire process. So even though they knew what went into these old spacecraft, they couldn't make them without relearning from scratch all the lost techniques they had used. Which is almost mind-boggling considering how few years separated their return to the moon and how much more experience they now had with space in general. This meant redesigning a new set of larger spacecraft, using modern techniques of manufacturing. And return they did. Eventually. Space is too tempting to ignore for long.</p><p>So even though I know the principles behind converting high energy photons into anti-matter, but the exacts of the process aren't something I know right now. My knowledge doesn't get far beyond heating up iron ore to make something useful out of it. </p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguHAONEz0nGEuGobSJexj1GDSicGPxkv6_rs9Y3Xhc2D5meTbtZ-dXMPF1Y76kk3w1-GbQj5VwZJtkEbn0RANUodpumSDzr6rbd-GKwt9XnEmYsLi55B4nqiby53BsILexvh3aBPGbIsM/s2048/DSPGAME_kOnpSUi77i.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1152" data-original-width="2048" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguHAONEz0nGEuGobSJexj1GDSicGPxkv6_rs9Y3Xhc2D5meTbtZ-dXMPF1Y76kk3w1-GbQj5VwZJtkEbn0RANUodpumSDzr6rbd-GKwt9XnEmYsLi55B4nqiby53BsILexvh3aBPGbIsM/w640-h360/DSPGAME_kOnpSUi77i.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Down below you can see how much energy is stored and which direction the bar is going.<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><p>I'm not sure if using a mech suit and a plasma cutter counts as getting my hands dirty, but here goes. Obviously I can't harvest everything I'll need with one small mech suit. So the first step is to get some basic materials, bang them together to see how they work, and build facilities. Those facilities will then do the work to make more tools, so I can research further, and so on and so forth. As well, I'll need to worry about powering my mech. The zero-point energy reactor won't run out of juice, but it doesn't produce much more than the basic upkeep. If I'll want to do high energy activities like mine, I'll need to throw something else into the reactor. </p><p>Yes. This means I'll be powering a high tech mech by throwing some wood into the fire. It's almost embarrassing how low tech I'll have to go for awhile until I can use proper power sources like fusion or antimatter.<br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjSZgTl_1mAAUwaLXU45DSOF7QIwbiSDw0OTcb9qHBQaLOFZNtBcvpKRVKuXbTXTf-J5vQQgkGK7RbKqHtHQxnJiLw1mY1tk9fAKh2gNn9W4D2gOf2uEGee4AcSUj6nHmk9g1hj7UIcTA/s2048/DSPGAME_4CCPvl2C5c.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1152" data-original-width="2048" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjSZgTl_1mAAUwaLXU45DSOF7QIwbiSDw0OTcb9qHBQaLOFZNtBcvpKRVKuXbTXTf-J5vQQgkGK7RbKqHtHQxnJiLw1mY1tk9fAKh2gNn9W4D2gOf2uEGee4AcSUj6nHmk9g1hj7UIcTA/w640-h360/DSPGAME_4CCPvl2C5c.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Wind turbines produce a steady amount of power, though different planets will have different rates. Some even have no atmosphere, and thus no wind power.<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p>And so we start with some low tech but surprisingly useful machines. The mining machines are obvious, but we'll start by powering them with wind turbines. It's certainly one way to harvest power from the sun, if a few degrees removed. The simplicity of wind power means it'll be the main staple of my power generation for a good long while. If not for the entire trip.</p><p><br /></p><div style="text-align: center;"> <a href="https://seacdev.blogspot.com/2021/09/new-aar-dyson-sphere-program.html">First</a> - <a href="https://seacdev.blogspot.com/2021/09/new-aar-dyson-sphere-program.html">Previous</a> - <a href="https://seacdev.blogspot.com/2021/09/dsp-aar-raising-robot-by-his-bootstraps.html">Next</a></div>Xeormhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14892002456605134331noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3290414663604815588.post-6840521542585786142021-09-05T04:59:00.006-07:002021-09-10T21:44:13.001-07:00New AAR: Dyson Sphere Program<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #2b00fe;"><span style="color: black;"> <a href="https://seacdev.blogspot.com/2021/09/new-aar-dyson-sphere-program.html">First</a> - Previous<a href="https://seacdev.blogspot.com/2021/09/new-aar-dyson-sphere-program.html"> </a>- <a href="https://seacdev.blogspot.com/2021/09/dyson-sphere-program-aar-first-steps.html">Next</a></span> <br /></span></div><h1 style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #2b00fe;">Introduction</span><br /></h1><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiR9El83dnHPPdrZwjGMInvWeb_v5-5lP9wTFAmYzRcLvg5WtIJXL0UsRk2N1KQNDRVrasWU_LFKX1m7P1geofaS0kjIOznnb7uRrd2eP9ST95o2QHuvpUCrPARYFLxoJMuCss6t3RQMp4/s2048/DSPGAME_kah4Ufc2ML.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1152" data-original-width="2048" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiR9El83dnHPPdrZwjGMInvWeb_v5-5lP9wTFAmYzRcLvg5WtIJXL0UsRk2N1KQNDRVrasWU_LFKX1m7P1geofaS0kjIOznnb7uRrd2eP9ST95o2QHuvpUCrPARYFLxoJMuCss6t3RQMp4/w640-h360/DSPGAME_kah4Ufc2ML.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">It looks even cooler in motion<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><p>Hello, and welcome to my new writing project for Dyson Sphere Program (DSP). If you're unfamiliar at all with this form of writing, the idea is to construct a narrative out of a game, and accompany it with pictures or videos. Personally I find it entertaining to write them out, and I find they give me a good amount of motivation to play through the games further than I might otherwise. Games like these without a definite end-point and long play times can really make for difficulties in getting very far, as I'll often want to do something else partway through. Always with the intention to return later, but still.</p><p>I do hope you enjoy! Please do share and/or comment if you like this. Or even if you don't like it! It's always great to see people interact with your works.</p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSKOgBWaeD_kOiX4w-iqoI5w1oDCiCDvoPJMhX8OKmLZM31jowfcdWQSsDY-VcjGqjUWOfiIwcoCnA4FESCinqpcGVy5Vhxk0rX-ZcHtbNWXcZHRamVvDRvTKjvRQg1pFBfE2wkUyxcqc/s2048/DSPGAME_9vcJ0G4ZbN.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1152" data-original-width="2048" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSKOgBWaeD_kOiX4w-iqoI5w1oDCiCDvoPJMhX8OKmLZM31jowfcdWQSsDY-VcjGqjUWOfiIwcoCnA4FESCinqpcGVy5Vhxk0rX-ZcHtbNWXcZHRamVvDRvTKjvRQg1pFBfE2wkUyxcqc/w640-h360/DSPGAME_9vcJ0G4ZbN.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Both of these pictures come from the default main menu. They make for a great introduction.</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><p>Let's get on with thing shall we?</p><h1 style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #2b00fe;">A Brief History Lesson</span></h1><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #2b00fe;"> <span style="color: black;">Some indeterminate time ago, humanity built themselves a supercomputer, one so advanced that calling it a supercomputer doesn't do it justice. With it they could upload themselves to the computer, and there live virtual lives. They turned it on, uploaded everyone, renamed the supercomputer the CentreBrain, and people were happy. The designers were smart and built larger than they needed to. More computing power meant more virtual people, and better simulations. Except they unloaded everyone before finishing the power requirements to run the thing at full capacity.</span></span></p><p>It's time to dream big. The CentreBrain is well equipped to live a long, long time with what it currently has. There's no rush, which means we have plenty of opportunity to dream big. <i>Real big.</i> Have you ever heard of a Dyson Sphere? Popularized by one Freeman Dyson, the proposed sphere is to built around an entire star. That way you'd collect all of the solar energy coming from the star. <i>All of it.</i> If you're unfamiliar with the size of stars, that might not seem like much of a challenge, but let me assure you, stars are massive. Correspondingly the energy output from such a device would also be massive. Why build a fusion plant if you already have one that's naturally occurring?</p><p>This would be a huge undertaking, obviously. Unfortunately for me there's only enough spare parts lying around for one mech. The ancients didn't exactly think of what to do to keep manufacturing going when everyone moved into the CentreBrain. Which means building this massive megastructure has become a one-man job. Yay me? How hard could it be?</p><p>I have some support at least. Me and others have formed the group COSMO, and while I'll be piloting the mech, they'll be there to help research and provide morale support. And training. Using a real body in the real world isn't something I've ever had to do before, having been "born" in the CentreBrain. Should be fun to visit the vastness of the Real World. My supervisor has selected a world in a remote system for me to start. It has all the raw resources I'll need to get my journey started.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJMQ8U_LQhA73hlqMH6OaTA2iZo9_pShK5ipme8Z3krcrgmF9EW-G65qQij_P_O_ZGehyphenhyphenXmw49oJJXVMkztRmtc2gyQRxYSoE_yJaF1cNJIscEpPa7HCfTbOU5fetjg56jOY1AWu2nF8g/s2048/DSPGAME_5AfXifRYyZ.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1152" data-original-width="2048" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJMQ8U_LQhA73hlqMH6OaTA2iZo9_pShK5ipme8Z3krcrgmF9EW-G65qQij_P_O_ZGehyphenhyphenXmw49oJJXVMkztRmtc2gyQRxYSoE_yJaF1cNJIscEpPa7HCfTbOU5fetjg56jOY1AWu2nF8g/w640-h360/DSPGAME_5AfXifRYyZ.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">You can see the planet off in the distance, the one orbiting that gas giant<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><p> </p><p>I think it needs to be said. The real world is beautiful. The stars and planets are a real sight to behold.<br /></p><p><br /></p><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #2b00fe;"><span style="color: black;"> </span></span><span style="color: #2b00fe;"><span style="color: black;"> <a href="https://seacdev.blogspot.com/2021/09/new-aar-dyson-sphere-program.html">First</a> - Previous<a href="https://seacdev.blogspot.com/2021/09/new-aar-dyson-sphere-program.html"> </a>- <a href="https://seacdev.blogspot.com/2021/09/dyson-sphere-program-aar-first-steps.html">Next</a></span></span></div>Xeormhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14892002456605134331noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3290414663604815588.post-68382196413359129602017-10-07T22:44:00.004-07:002017-11-08T20:34:58.928-08:00Factorio AAR part 35th Log Entry:<br />
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The walls are made, but there's a decision to make on where to put them. More space to cover doesn't increase the amount of biters I have to deal with, but getting to and from the edges takes time, and I'm on the clock. Also, lazy. Running sucks. I could build the wall out to cover what I've already built and slowly creep outwards, but I think it best to grab the area I want now before the biters get to it first. They've been steadily encroaching, their expansion fueled by the smog I've been spewing. Because they can't swim and all the good resource patches are near the water, I elect to set the wall between the lakes to the east and west.<br />
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Iron, more precious to me than gold right now. And in biter territory. If I want it, I'll have to clear their spawners from the area and push them back. The biters aren't truly active yet so this should be straightforward. I establish a line of turrets and move forward. The turrets behind support the ones in front. The biters are fiercely protective of their bases, but aren't communal. Far away bases won't assist, and once these ones are down it'll be the same as before, except I've got more territory and a wall.<br />
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The carnage is both sweet and painful. Quite painful, really. If you ever find yourself on the planet make sure to check out the local fish. They're good pain relievers, and like all meat will heal wounds quickly by eating. Mmm, tasty.<br />
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Biters not scaring you if they're so easily killed you think? After all I'm already destroying their bases and taking territory. Can't be too dangerous? Then you've forgotten that they evolve. No sooner did I get the wall up and turreted that the biters evolved two new forms.<br />
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<a href="https://wiki.factorio.com/images/MediumBiter-anim.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a><a href="https://wiki.factorio.com/images/SmallSpitter.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="32" data-original-width="32" src="https://wiki.factorio.com/images/SmallSpitter.png" /></a><img border="0" data-original-height="80" data-original-width="119" src="https://wiki.factorio.com/images/MediumBiter-anim.gif" /></div>
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The new red biters are tougher, stronger, and all around meaner. Takes a lot of my current bullets to take just one down, much less a swarm. Better bullets is on my ever growing list of things I want to build. Copper jacketed steel rounds should do well against the new armored biters.<br />
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The other form is weaker and less armored, but able to spew acid from afar. Even works over my fancy new wall. How rude. Easy to kill, but hard to prevent damage from them, so they'll wear my turrets and walls down.<br />
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Frustrating. All I want to do is build and get off this planet. Not spend time killing biters and getting hurt. What a waste.<br />
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[Dan speaking: Quick belt tutorialish thing:<br />
So, belts. You've probably seen them already, they move items on the ground forward, so I can get items from point a to point b. Simple and straightforward. But if you want to take advantage of what they can do and really get a well designed base, there's other things you want to keep in mind.<br />
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Each belt has two sides that don't mix. Inserters will only move items onto the far side of the belt, and if a belt is pointed into another belt, it will only spill items onto one side. If you keep track of which items are on which sides, you're able to do things like improve throughput by ensuring both sides are used or to have two sets of items on the same belt.<br />
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Good example of this are my furnace lines. The line on the left has ore+coal, in between is a furnace that needs ore and coal to produce plates, and outputs those plates onto a belt, with a similar setup mirrored on the other side. Beauty of the setup is that if I were to have two sides of ore and another line of coal, I'd need to change the belt setup anyway, as they only place onto one side. There are other designs for later, but this one makes for a great early game setup as it's cheap and works well with the starter buildings.<br />
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As well, there are splitters. You can see them here along with the underground belts (that do what the name implies). Splitters work both to split a belt into two belts or two merge two belts. They've got two input belts and two output belts, and take and give as equally as possible. This setup here is a balancer, and works roughly to take each input lane and output it as evenly as possible.<br />
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And here's a more zoomed in image of the belt lines in the main section of the base. Belts go horizontally, split off by splitters for factories above. Crossing is handled by having some go underground.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgk74UY4kNV6rNP-tygj1lL8-CnbFSB1A97jVe_PdOMt82iAg5gHkhIXobsVJWh-OYSSB-JTs0agBk4kA9wF4WtaC1JapSmWRqD6GDNWDKZ4ZthWf6tNjUQlzrzx9c9ION-1rO5sKR_rww/s1600/vlcsnap-2017-09-10-01h38m20s834.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgk74UY4kNV6rNP-tygj1lL8-CnbFSB1A97jVe_PdOMt82iAg5gHkhIXobsVJWh-OYSSB-JTs0agBk4kA9wF4WtaC1JapSmWRqD6GDNWDKZ4ZthWf6tNjUQlzrzx9c9ION-1rO5sKR_rww/s400/vlcsnap-2017-09-10-01h38m20s834.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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If anyone has questions, feel free to ask!]<br />
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<a name='more'></a>6th Log Entry:<br />
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[Dan speaking: random aside:<br />
As an aside, has anyone ever played/heard of the game Neverwinter Nights 2? It has an infamous quest door that you spend a substantial time getting unlocked by doing a weird set of quests that have little to do with the actual door. Fun, and meaningful in a way, but that one door is almost all of act 1. Feels silly when you finally return to open it because you've likely forgotten why your party actually went to do all those quests. Factorio can feel similar, but with you setting those goals. I set a goal to get oil production up and running. But wait, iron production is a little slow. Let me fix that, then steel, then oh dear. There's another biter attack and so on.<br />
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This will be the main reason why random bits and pieces of the factory change, but aren't mentioned. Part of the charm of the game is this distracting quality - nothing is ever quite done, so there's always something to do.]<br />
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The plan was: build a wall, get oil, use oil to make fuel for the base, ?, get off the planet. We got the first done, but strangely, building a wall did not magically make everything better. Biter attacks continued to expand and ammo production became a bottleneck. The new ammo is quite effective, but not the most efficient. The steel refining process takes longer than I'd like, so the obvious answer: make more steel production. I make the additional steel, and iron ore becomes more of a problem than it already was, so we go grab more. There's an entire field sitting up there, waiting to get exploited. I look at my power and coal production and think "yea, we can squeeze this in". And it works, steel production is booming, the network is holding, and life is, well, not good but better.<br />
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We're throwing steel and copper down the drain in order to kill the biters, but ya gotta do what ya gotta do. I'd rather not have any more of this kind of destruction happen.<br />
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I take this cool picture meaning to show the devastation, and manage to get the one frame where the depowered sign isn't showing. Not pictured: none of the miners have power​</td></tr>
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But we're close. I've got everything I need to put this together, and the time to do it. I've got my pumps set up. My refineries are spewing waste like there's no tomorrow, and the tanks are filling with intermediate liquids that I can use for the stuff I really want - fuel, batteries, and plastic.<br />
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Remember when I said we could squeeze it in? Know what we can't squeeze in? Refineries and pumpjacks.<br />
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Red is bad. We're not generating any power whatsoever. Let me explain. Power generation works simply: miners take energy and produce coal. Coal is put into boilers, which create steam. Steam is used to run generators to produce power. The cycle continues. Until more power is being used than is generated. Now each building runs as a percent of total power. I'm not requesting much more power than I can generate, so I don't notice the change. 95% power looks similar to 100%. But the miners notice. They generate a little less coal, and I was already producing barely enough coal to meet demand. The boilers run out of coal to burn, and the power supply drops accordingly. By the time it's noticeably slowing objects down it's too late. Everything's stopped.<br />
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It could be worse. I've got plenty of ammo made and my defenses don't rely on electricity so the walls will hold while I get things sorted out. I race down the line, picking up coal as I go. There's a decent amount left still traveling on the belts. More than enough to hand feed the boilers and get things going again. Add a few more generators for more power, and things are set. A slight base change later, and a new setup is built: the oil refineries produce gas for the furnaces at the north to burn, and the boilers run off of coal - none of the coal goes north. More crude is grabbed from the west, and things seem mostly set. Next step: use the oil products, and figure out a way to generate more power.<br />
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[Dan speaking: Quick tutorialish for pipes and liquids:<br />
Liquids are a different beast than the other material products. For one, you can't carry them. Any product that is made from or produces liquids can not be made by the player. Instead, they're held in pipes or in the temp storage every production building has (one stack's worth of the item. Each liquid stacks to 100)<br />
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Pipes work by pressure, but can only hold one liquid at a time. You'll see me keep my pipes very separated because of it. Nothing quite like accidentally hooking up a pipe and having to remove a whole slew of them to get rid of the unwanted liquid. Add on that pipes (unlike belts) block movement of the player, and keeping the separate with liberal use of the underground variant becomes a necessity.<br />
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Same picture again, I've got my refineries setup like this. Refineries take crude and put out heavy oil, light oil, and petroleum gas. (in that order) The setup is built so that I can extend it easily to the west, while keeping the area open for movement. The tanks up top store liquids like a pipe, but store 25k units instead of a pipe's 100. Be warned, pressure is based off of percentage filled. A tank that's 50% full will output as if it were a pipe with 50 liquid.<br />
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Refineries are odd for the new player, and a common hiccup. Pipe mechanics are new, as is having a production cycle that outputs multiple items. If one type fills, the entire refinery stalls, but early game you likely only want petroleum. Hence, the three storage tanks. Storing the liquids gives me time to utilize all of them, without much of a worry of backing up.<br />
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As usual, if you have questions, feel free to ask! I'll try to answer them quickly.]Xeormhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14892002456605134331noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3290414663604815588.post-39043486800642966612017-10-07T22:36:00.000-07:002017-11-08T20:52:37.534-08:00Factorio AAR Part 23rd Log Entry:<br />
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We've got visitors! The others made fun of me not liking the dark, but then we end up with biters at night. Really glad I grabbed that survival pistol.<br />
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Biters - an ecoterrorist's crazy construction. How do you stop humans from despoiling new planets without breaking the bank? You bioengineer a species that grows with pollution and is incredibly violent towards that growth source. No pollution and they have a minimal presence. Start polluting and they grow to terrific sizes and can overwhelm an unprepared settlement. All it takes is a few spores and the planet's safe from harm. Quite genius. They're why the space-engineering course came with a mandatory military course. Combined with aim assist and I can make a shot between furnaces and drills and only hit my target.<br />
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The guys in the ship get all proud when they make a head shot in Halo 27, by comparison.<br />
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But why do all the work myself when I can automate the killing? Next on the research list: turrets. As soon as I mass produce research, at least. The clock is ticking.<br />
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Doesn't take long for the biters to wreak destruction. The next night they target my road production again, but do a much better job. Production will be stalled until I can do heavier repairs. The turrets must take priority. Then lights. This flashlight ain't cutting it.<br />
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[Dan here, here's some more base pictures:]<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This is my first time putting down bricks to speed things up and I'm really liking them. Especially with that long trek down to the boilers/iron ore and back. Things are looking good though, mass production is really starting and I'm enjoying not being resource starved.</td></tr>
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<a name='more'></a>4th Log Entry:<br />
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Turrets are great. Biters are dying and I don't have to lift a finger. Even better, they don't feel pain when the biters nibble on them, while I'm still sore from the bite I took last night. Since not getting bitten is a good goal, I'm expanding the furnace lines to include a stone brick and steel line. The bricks I'll make into walls, while the iron goes through an extra refining step to make good quality steel for -<br />
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Ow. Clearly there's a hole somewhere in my defenses. My turrets aren't exactly setup for full coverage - I don't have enough turrets yet for that. Hoping the guys in the ship didn't hear my panicked screams as I ran for the nearest turret grouping. What? Don't think they're that scary? Clearly you've never played Starcraft. But picture this: it takes a non-zero amount of time to kill a biter. (.2s for me) In that time each biter moves forward just a little bit. If there's not many like earlier then they're harmless. But get past that number where they actually reach you? Suddenly that time they spent running is spent biting. And biting hurts. Iron armor does surprisingly little to stop them, and they'll gleefully tear through turrets if they can reach them.<br />
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So what if dozens of biters die? They've got more. I'd call it unfair, but it's not like I don't have more turrets. Nor am I the one dying. Or the one getting shot at. Really, I'm quite comfortable now that the pain meds are kicking in. Poor biters. All these died to destroy maybe 100 iron. Which according to my handy dandy chart is about 8 seconds worth of production.<br />
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(Note: the Y axis is not the same between the right and the left)</td></tr>
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We'll get that wall setup, and then oil. I need me some of that black gold. Both for making different products (hello plastic!) and for powering the factory. My coal mine isn't big enough. More burning is required.<br />
<br />Xeormhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14892002456605134331noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3290414663604815588.post-40659697560107306712017-10-07T22:29:00.000-07:002017-11-08T20:54:04.294-08:00Factorio AAR Part 1<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Hello! I started this Factorio (<a href="http://store.steampowered.com/app/427520/Factorio/">steam link</a>) AAR a few weeks ago and posted it on a gaming forum that I frequent. Given that the forum itself is behind a registration block, I'm reposting the content here. The nature of the reposting and this site's somewhat lackluster formatting options means that some of it may feel a little out of whack. Still, shouldn't need more than a little leeway for the read to still be enjoyable.</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">To explain the format a little, an AAR (stands for After Action Report) where the writer plays the game and effectively narrates what happens from the perspective of the ingame persona. The narration uses both pictures and the written word to tell what is hopefully a good story.</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">If anyone is interested too, feel free to message me if you want to hop in and play with me. The multiplayer experience with this game is quite good, and I heartedly recommend people give it a go. There's plenty to do, even if you're completely new to the game, and I can give a decent tutorial if you're interested. It even has a demo version if you're on the fence about buying!</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">I've got two mods for this run. Resource Spawner Overhaul (RSO) to spread out resources and make for a better looking map, and Space Extension (SpaceX) that extends the end game a bit so I have time to play with all the fancy end stuff while still having a meaningful goal.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">As well, I'm playing on the "deathworld" setting. Enemies are more plentiful, power up quicker, and are more of a pain. In addition, everything is more expensive, and research takes 4 times as much time and resources. Essentially though, it's the same game as normal, but a little stretched out.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">I hope anyone that reads this enjoys! It's been fun to make so far, and I'd love to know that others enjoyed reading too.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
1st Log Entry:<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">That lake wasn't quite so big before we got here<span style="background-color: #315267; color: #d7edfc; font-family: "lato" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">​</span></td></tr>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">Well, that was unexpected. I take a quick nap and find that we've crashed down on a planet the ship's log has named "Nauvis". Everyone else was content to sit back and play video games while we waited for rescue, but not me. "It's crazy for one person to build an FTL ship" they said. I'll show them! How hard can it be? I've got my trusty engineering suit, some scrap metal from the ship, and a condensed copy of space-wikipedia. I've got this nooooo problem.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">First step is to get production started and the electricity running. I'd prefer not to be alone out here in the dark and I'll need the soothing glow of molten metal to get a good night's sleep.</span></span><br />
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<a name='more'></a><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">2nd Log Entry:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Have you ever paid attention to the idea of compound interest? I didn't pay much attention to most of the economics class, but I did remember some of those equations. Money=Principal*(rate+1)^year. Each year you add on the money you've made, and then make money off of that money. Who doesn't like free money? The base at this stage works on the same principle, except instead of money, I've got iron. I start with a single drill for iron ore, combine that with wood in a furnace and I have iron. Take that iron and make a new drill, and now I have two drills that are both making iron. Continue on, and then I have loads of iron, enough to make a big honkin steam generator to produce electricity.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Or maybe that's how investing works and not savings? Either way, I have more iron now than I did earlier, which is great. Electricity means I can make better drills. Ones that can support two furnaces instead of one, and don't need to be refueled manually. As long as the boiler keeps making steam, I'll be great. The old drills get relegated to coal mining duty. Can't waste good drills.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Up north we have other drills, fueled by cutting a road through the trees. Good times. All too soon we have too much money iron for me to use all by myself. Even I can only do so much by myself. The solution is to build assembly machines that will build things for me. The new problem is not knowing how to make them. Thankfully space-wikipedia has enough of the information to make do. Getting useful info means unzipping the bits I need and do some other fiddly bits in order to make them useful. Bad news is it'll take awhile, but the good news is I can automate the process, which we'll call "researching".</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">All the essentials set up, we can continue using our resources at an expanding rate to further expand the base itself. Preferably, it'd be nice if more things could be automated, as I'm lazy. Relatively. The real lazies are sitting at the bottom of the lake playing useless old historical simulators. Crusader Kings 3 is one I heard over the radio once. Me I've got work to do.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">[Dan here, more pictures:]</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Starting mass production of plates. Ore+coal comes from the south up through the trees</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Paving lets me go faster, but I don't produce as much as I'd like, so only small sections to start. Hopefully you can see the start of the factory here.​</td></tr>
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<br />Xeormhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14892002456605134331noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3290414663604815588.post-60983020532556339132016-10-20T10:53:00.002-07:002016-10-20T10:53:22.773-07:00XCOM 2 AAR - We're on fire!It's guerrilla ops time! Same mission as last op; aliens have an unsecured terminal up. Go in, grab the data we need before they lock us out, and make sure all hostiles in the immediate area are eliminated. The battlefield today is a small town out in the suburbs, with a large group of aliens on one side of a small bookstore, and us on the other. I hope he has insurance, because that store isn't going to survive the fight.<br />
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The team sets up, hidden from the alien squad, and Lovenought begins the ambush with a cute little trick on his modified GREMLIN: set off a large discharge, potentially stunning and damaging any foes within reach of the blast.<br />
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That little machine is a beast. The uninjured soldier rushes towards us and is met with a rather unhealthy sight:<br />
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Boom! Headshot! Gedierond gets a kill with his first shot. Culise takes up a forward position and grenades the wounded trio, killing the trooper and viper, leaving the archon disoriented and horribly wounded. Susanne is forced to retreat from the roof by a surprisingly nimble heavy MEC bearing down on her. The aliens aren't able to do much besides fire suppression fire down on the newbie. We're that well setup. Hyme can't get a good shot from her position, so instead opts for a grenade on the MEC to damage and distract it.<br />
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Whatever this shop was selling, it's clearly out of business now. Susanne gets her revenge on the poor MEC with a burst from her cannon, finishing it off. Lovenought misses his shot on the disoriented archon, but Gedierond lands his second shot for a second kill. That's the first group down. Next to destroy is the restaurant holding our target. Susanne spots the next patrol, two sectoids and an andromedon having tea or something. Culise blows out the side of the restaurant with an acid grenade, shredding the armor off the andromedon and exploding the gas tank injuring him further.<br />
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But the hulking thing is far from dead and manages a brutal bunch on his aggressor. Her anger and pain prevent the first sectoid from messing with her mind, and the second does his ol resurrection parlor trick. Fires everywhere, Hyme lands a quick pistol shot on the andromedon, killing the alien but leaving the suit still intact. Gedierond lands a grenade on the nearby sectoid, destroying the rock it was using for cover. Gaius fires two shots into the andromedon, but fails to kill it. Hyme finishes it off with her rifle, then kills the wounded sectoid with her pistol, which also ends the puppeted soldier. The last sectoid is held down with suppressive fire from Susanne, giving Culise a chance to outflank and kill it.<br />
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A squad of reinforcements comes to try and salvage the situation, but we've already gotten our information with a rough hack from Gedierond. The elite trooper drops down and is immediately killed by Susanne and Hyme. The accompanying shieldbearer drops from Lovenought and Gedierond's combined fire, leaving only an unwounded heavy MEC to contend with. Lovenought has it handled though and easily executes the machine. All that's left is to find the last remaining patrol and deal with them. Preferably without taking any damage from the numerous fires we've started. Or the fumes of deadly acid we dropped that are currently eating through the roof of the restaurant.<br />
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Gaius's stealthy movements let her spot the new patrol undetected. Two soldiers and an archon, taking a stroll through the nearby woods. Apparently not understanding that the smoke and fire in the distance means they should probably be helping.<br />
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Susanne enlightens them as to why they should have helped by firing her rocket from a far-off defensive position. (And starts a forest fire). Lovenought easily handles the soldier on the left, while Gedierond gets his first miss of the day firing on the archon, missing and setting the fridge on fire. Culise makes his shot though and brings it down. Susanne seems angry, using a strong grenade to obliterate the last soldier.<br />
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I have a feeling Smoky the bear would be very ashamed of us right now, if he weren't already dead from the alien invasion. Sixteen aliens dead and a town and forest on fire, we head home for the day.<br />
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Back at base, life is boring. The science team is still waiting for enough supplies to start researching the psionic gate we brought back, or for additional corpses to carve up. Shen lacks the resources to use our new weapons tech to build weapons for the team, but does manage to construct a new suit of armor from the leftover bits and pieces we have in storage.<br />
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The wraith suit. Less armored than the warden suits the rest of the team prefers, it does contain an interesting "Screw you physics" device that lets the wearer phase through solid objects. Should come in handy. Shen also attached a grappling hook to the suit for maximum mobility. Will be handy for any additional missions.<br />
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Such as the new rescue the VIP mission that Mr. Mysterious now has for us.Xeormhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14892002456605134331noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3290414663604815588.post-16095522087737110402016-10-17T23:21:00.002-07:002016-10-17T23:21:08.656-07:00XCOM 2 AAR - Chryssalids!That mission done, we've bought ourselves some time on stopping the alien's AVATAR project. I certainly want to investigate the coordinates we found in the last codex brain, but Tygan has sent news that he's almost finished with a new type of plasma weapon and we do find ourselves with a fair amount of supplies on hand for a weapons upgrade. I can't resist a good new weapon.<br />
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He gives me an even better surprise: not only does he have a new sniper plasma rifle, but also a plasma pistol and a fusion sword. Those should all come in hand for future missions.<br />
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Our waiting does give the aliens time to launch another retaliation strike against the resistance, so off the team goes to stop them. The new weapons are perfect for this kind of mission, and I send two each of the rangers and snipers. The area we land in is typical for the resistance: lots of trees and good cover, away from any population center, and with most of it burning. Seems like they even have a bug infestation this time around:<br />
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Chryssalids. Bradford tells me of them when he fought them occasionally after my capture. Their claws are quite sharp, able to cut through armor with a fair amount of ease, and they reproduce by killing humans and injecting their larva into the corpse, creating a zombie that will eventually mutate into a new chryssalid. I'd think he was pulling my leg if I thought he had a sense of humor. Lucky for us, we're heavily armed and our armor should be capable of withstanding at least one blow from these bugs.<br />
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JCan starts the battle with a grenade into their group, as they for some reason decided on sticking together. The entire battle seems a bit different this time around, as both Gaius and Van Wezel are quite skilled with melee combat, wading into the fray and each getting a kill. Culise follows up with cannon fire to kill the final beast. A fourth chryssalid comes from out of the darkness. Health manages a glancing blow on it with her pistol, followed up with a second for a kill. A wandering soldier and heavy mec come around the corner, but we're ready for them. Health fires three pistol shots into the soldier, easily killing him. (Don't ask me how the new pistols fire so quickly)<br />
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Gaius shoots twice into the heavy mec, weakening it enough for a plasma blade slash from Van Wezel to kill it. Another chryssalid appears and slashes at him, but he dodges. Spyhawk shoots from his perch but the darned thing is too nimble for him to get a solid shot in. Culise tries the same but his cumbersome weapon isn't quick enough. The beast can't dodge quick enough for JCan though.<br />
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In a blasted out church is a horrid sight: two ADVENT soldiers, a heavy mec, and a chryssalid attacking a civilian. If Bradford is to be believed, that means zombie time. The mec advances towards us and JCan gets two good shots in, but the mec's armor holds. A grenade from Culise and a pistol shot from Health later and it goes down. The grenade also removed cover from the heavily armored shieldbearer, giving Spyhawk the opportunity for a well-placed head shot. Gaius takes down the nearby chryssalid, and JCan manages a good shot on the remaining soldier.<br />
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Spent, we wait for the upcoming zombie. Instead, what pops out is a very quick, very angry baby chryssalid which promptly starts tearing away at Van Wezel. JCan heals him up, reports that the poison from the baby was also cured, and then shoots it dead. Poison? Baby chryssalids? Time to uncover what's going on over there. I have Van Wezel toss a grenade in and destroy the cover blocking our view of the dead body.<br />
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That...does not look like a zombie. Gaius and Culise both burn the cocoon out with heavy fire. No more baby chryssalids for us. Off in the distance we hear the sounds of mimics transforming. Why are these aliens so disgusting?<br />
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Out from behind JCan comes the mimic, ready for a strong swipe at him. JCan has his weapon ready, and his aim is true, but these things are too tough even for a plasma rifle. Thankfully, Spyhawk is watching and his aim is also true, bringing the alien down before it can do any damage. The other mimic targets Gaius, but she's experienced with melee combat and easily able to dodge the cumbersome blow. Van Wezel cuts at the the thing with his blade and even manages to set it on fire, but it stays standing long enough to get cut down with cannon fire from Culise.<br />
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9/13 civilians saved. Our best record yet. Why Bradford is so scared of these things, I don't know. The mission went so well, I have the team suit up for another mission, with a few replacements.<br />
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The coordinates lead to a rather lonely looking place in the middle of the Asian desert. With what looks like purple psionic rain. Something seems fishy here. We land near an abandoned house, inside of which is a group of three chryssalids standing near the gas container. Culise starts the ambush by igniting the container and leaving them easy kills for the rest of the team. One kill each to Health, Lovenought, and Trajan. As long as we stay cautious, I don't see the chryssalids being any real threat. No civilians around here to reproduce with.<br />
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Near the house is a small ADVENT storage area guarded by a turret. Turrets seemed tough with ordinary bullets, but it's nothing against plasma weapons. Two other soldiers and a heavy mec guard the outpost. The first soldier goes down to a burst from Gaius, while the second soldier hits only cactus with his return fire. Trajan locks the mec behind a psionic stasis wall, giving JCan the chance to get close enough for a successful hack. Gaius kills the second soldier with her new blade. The team advances, mec first.<br />
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Another chryssalid appears in the open, and Culise nets another kill. Lovenought fires at the mec, because it certainly doesn't look like the chryssalids will kill it before the hack wears off.<br />
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The mec spots more chryssalids in the distance, this time springing out from the ground. Guess that explains why the chryssalids are guarding the area. Why they don't wait before springing out, I have no clue. Gaius lands a shot on the approaching chryssalid, followed up by Culise and Health. The thing stood no chance having to traverse so much terrain. Oddly enough, Lovenought managed to protect the mec from the attacking chryssalid. The mec lands a shot on another chryssalid, weakening it for Lovenought to kill. The mec, having done it's duty, is killed by Health with a headshot in the back.<br />
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The last chryssalid is too far away for the team to reliably hit, but too close to allow to roam free, so Trajan binds it with another stasis. I'm beginning to think she might have a thing for that kind of work.<br />
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Before now it's been standard desert terrain (if you ignore the purple crap falling from the sky), but behind this chryssalid the land turns alien. Lovenought lands his hit on the chryssalid, with a followup kill from Culise. I get everyone in range before I start walking on that...whatever it is.<br />
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At the end of the alien pathway sits a psionic portal. Creepy. Looks like this is where the coordinates lead.<br />
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Out of the portal comes what I can only describe as a giant, mechanical, psionic eye. It quickly rockets forward, well in range of the team. It wants to die, I see.<br />
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Culise fires his acid grenade right on top of it, but it still has plenty of armor. JCan uses his precision fire to strip the armor off the eye, leaving it vulnerable. Health fires five pistol shots at the eye, and while you'd normally expect the sound of "plink plink plink" coming off the shots, her laser does serious work on it. Trajan ends it with a blast straight into the center. We group up and reload in case another eye comes out of that portal.<br />
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Instead, three chryssalids come from behind the portal. Trajan and Gaius take out the first, while Culise kills the second. The third makes it surprisingly far before JCan and Lovenought kill it. JCan moves up towards the portal, but the last chryssalid, the smartest chryssalid, stays buried until he gets close. It pops out of the ground and gets him in the face. He and Culise kill it, but we'll have to see how he does with that injury.<br />
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We bring the gate back and hand it off to the research team. They think they can manage it, but will need additional supplies - supplies which we don't have. We'll have to wait for the next supply drop.<br />
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Our newest recruit has finished his training. I hope he's luckier than the late Ms. Potassium.Xeormhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14892002456605134331noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3290414663604815588.post-87438888364942032362016-10-17T10:03:00.002-07:002016-10-17T10:03:36.530-07:00XCOM 2 AAR - Forge AssaultWe're in luck. The day we pick is a dark and dreary night lit only by the evil red glare the aliens seem to prefer for lighting, perfect for a quick smash and grab. The aliens have the place too fortified for us to take down or even better to comb through. Like the refinery, we're here to see what they're up to, take what we can, and get out. Hopefully without any major injuries or death.<br />
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Out in front is another heavily armored andromedon and a codex. The alien forces certainly have evolved since we first started this mess. The ambush goes off flawlessly. Susanne begins with a plasma grenade, weakening the andromedon's armor and scaring the codex into cloning. The rest of the team batters the suit with a barrage of fire, Health landing the killing blow on the andromedon. The suit, naturally, begins working autonomously, but Trajan is there to put it into stasis and eliminate the original codex. A followup shot from Hyme kills the clone.<br />
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The stasis lasts long enough for us to catch our breath and give it another barrage of fire. JCan,as usual, tries for a hack but the software is a little too strong. Our snipers take it down instead. We spot another patrol, two soldiers and a heavy mec. They take some weakening fire from our team, giving Van Wezel a good opportunity for a sword strike. His initial blast had missed, but did hit the vehicle they were using as cover. Trajan thinks fast and works to distract the soldier's mind with a psionic attack. Her first attempt and she mind controls him, keeping him nice and close for when the car inevitably explodes. The last soldier, wounded and clearly outmatched, retreats back to the bridge.<br />
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We give chase, but aren't fast enough to catch him before he reaches the next squad, an archon and an armored shieldbearer. The archon moves to fly over the chasm, while the hybrid soldiers fortify the bridge. Unfortunately for them, their fortifications haven't advanced enough to really protect against our new weapons. Van Wezel's plasma grenade blasts their cover and kills the wounded soldier, leaving the shieldbearer vulnerable to cannonfire to the face from Susanne.<br />
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The aliens bring in reinforcements in the form of a sectopod. These things are massive, and were used extensively to defeat conventional forces in the initial war. It's going to be tough to bring down. This thing walks through cover as if it weren't there, when I was proud of this cover being blown up by a grenade. The remaining archon makes a foolish leap across the chasm, running into fire from Trajan and JCan that drops it down into the chasm. Now it's just us and that sectopod.<br />
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Can you guess what happens next? JCan attempts a hack! Which fails, of course. But he couldn't resist. We're going to need conventional weapons instead. Susanne fires an acid grenade right on top of it, melting the armor and leaving it's unprotected innards available to a lucky shot from Health. Down goes the sectopod from a single shot.<br />
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Earth's armies were pansies if this was what killed them. The team reloads and makes their way across the bombed out bridge, thankfully made out of rather stern stuff.<br />
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Ahead of us looms the building we've come to investigate. The aliens don't seem to build anything that isn't intimidating. No more troops are in front, the rest remaining inside to defend whatever it is that's in there. The ADVENT troops take up a fortified position along the walls and behind the door, ready to shoot. Susanne drops a grenade from above to make her own "door". JCan goes for a hack on the heavy mec, "Making new friends" he calls it. He succeeds, and the remaining hybrid soldiers are really looking at a bad day. Van Wezel hacks the shieldbearer, burning out his mind and Trajan puts the officer in stasis. He gets to watch as a full squad of XCOM soldiers surround him and train their weapons down upon him. JCan gets the honors with two shots to his noggin, and then has his new "Friend" go scouting down the halls for the next patrol.<br />
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Tygan and Shen, working off the feeds from our soldiers, look along the halls and speculate on what's happening. As far as they can tell, this seems to be a factory of sorts. Hybrid soldier clones are being grown here. No wonder there's been so many; they don't need to recruit. Who care about losing a bit of meat and metal? At the back of the facility is a peculiar looking stasis pod, like the one they initially found you in. Looks like we've found our prize, as the techs want it brought back for investigation.<br />
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Guarding the pod is another archon and two codices. Our new friend is inside, but they're smart enough not to fire on it. It's beefy and hard to kill, but it doesn't have the aim to hit such quick targets.<br />
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There's no hiding from Trajan though. In a real display of power she sends a null lance through the wall into both codices. The blast of psionic power outright kills the nearest codex, while the second clones out next to our resident sword wielder who puts it down quickly. The remaining codex teleports out and creates a null field, but fails to find any cover. JCan ends it with a well-placed shot. The archon and mec have a bit of a duel while this goes on, neither doing much damage.<br />
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The aliens regain control of the mec, but Health is there to put it down before it can damage any in the team. Hyme works on the archon, weakening it for a melee attack from Van Wezel to put it down. The pod secured, we move in.<br />
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(At the beginning of the mission there was an evac zone put up near where we started. I thought initially that we'd need to make a run back to it , as there's usually only one evac zone and I had the squad setup for a run back the way we came. As it turns out, opening the pod leads to a new zone being created ahead of us, which makes this next bit fun)<br />
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Inside the pod is another stasis suit, exactly like the one you were found in. Just what are these aliens doing here? Time to grab it and run. The aliens are already setting up reinforcements for us, it won't be long until we're overrun. Just to keep things interesting, the new evac zone is ahead of us, behind the reinforcements. Two soldiers and a heavy mec, oh joy! Susanne uses her last remaining explosive to wound the mech and shred its armor. Hyme follows up with a strong sniper shot, but can't bring it down. For once, JCan neglects attempting a hack and instead just shoots it to bring it down. He follows up with a grenade into the first soldier, who's finished off with a pistol shot from Health. Health uses her pistol and grenade to kill the last soldier, leaving the field open for us to move towards that evac zone.<br />
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The reinforcements arrive before everyone is safely away, and they're setup to shoot anything that moves. Rather than fight them, Susanne runs forward attracting their fire so the others can get out unharmed. She's armored, but that still did some damage.<br />
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Given a little bit of time, Tygan sends words that he's discovered what that thing in the suit was. It's a template of sorts, with holes in the genetic code that the aliens could potentially add in codes from other species. What seems bad about the situation is that they seemed to be focusing on the psionically gifted portions of humanity. More soldiers that looked vaguely like humans is scary, but not the worst that could happen. We've been lucky that very few of the ADVENT forces are psionically gifted. Having hordes of them against us would be quite deadly. And that's before factoring in that the elders seem to be looking for something to stave off their muscle degeneracy. Perhaps this is what they were looking for? Moldable human DNA?<br />
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We'll need to visit the final site to find out. We'll go as soon as the team is healed.Xeormhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14892002456605134331noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3290414663604815588.post-44032381145305340422016-10-17T09:00:00.000-07:002016-10-17T09:00:06.025-07:00XCOM 2 AAR - InterludeI said before that it was time to hit that blacksite at the vial's coordinates and I meant that, but previous experience has taught me that bringing a specialist along for healing would be much appreciated. I'd like our entire squad to come back in one piece, if possible. Six days and JCan would be out of sick bay. That's short enough for me.<br />
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In the meantime, there's another UFO just waiting to be looted. For a longer mission I dont' want to go without a specialist, but a short mission like this should be just fine. Shen even has a present for us: a new W.A.R suit, she says is an upgrade over the previous EXO suit. Heavily armored, with a heavy weapon hard point, and the ability to generate short range shielding. Could come in handy.<br />
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Culise is given the new suit, while Susanne keeps her old EXO suit.<br />
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At the mission site, the group sets up in a very favorable position. Couldn't ask for better terrain. The archon goes down in three shots, finished off by Van Wezel, but surprisingly both mutons stay alive. One grenades Spyhawk and Susanne, the other bashes Culise upside the head, hurting and disorienting him. Perhaps he should have worn a helmet?<br />
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Susanne finishes off the injured muton and Health fires three pistol shots from her perch to end the second. The rest of the team gets up close to the UFO. As per the last attempts, we'll have to move quickly if we want to stop that distress signal, especially without a specialist handy to unlock it from afar. As is also usual with UFOs, there's a whole wealth of cover inside. Normally I might say to reduce damage so as to make sure we get as much as we could from this place, but we've got more than enough supplies at the moment. Susanne and Culise get the go-ahead for a full bombardment.<br />
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A patrol steps outside and sees our forces just beyond the door. They retreat inside, but Susanne fires in a grenade to break it all open. Behind them is another patrol, this one filled with heavier elements. Culise fires his own grenade, destroying what was left of the original patrol and shredding the armor off the new heavy mec. Van Wezel goes in for a skulljacking on the advanced officer, but fails and spots the last patrol of two vipers and an archon. It's an all out brawl here! Gaius goes in for a slice on a viper, but fails to land a killing blow. Well, this looks ugly. Spyhawk takes care of the pesky codex clone behind our lines with a well-placed grenade.<br />
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We're now outnumbered, Gaius and Van Wezel are behind them, cut off from the rest of the team, and they're all relatively healthy. Health has a perfect view for a good kill zone over the entire UFO, but things still look ugly. Van Wezel takes a shot from the soldier, but the new armor is more than capable of absorbing the blow. Gaius is hit by the plasma staff and then grabbed by a viper, but she should be alright. The wounded viper is, thankfully, finished off from a sniper shot by Health.<br />
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Susanne continues her shelling of the entrance, launching a rocket and then a grenade into the heavy mec and archon. The archon goes down and gives Culise a good angle on the viper holding Gaius. He frees her from the viper's grasp, giving her the chance to cut it down. Spyhawk kills the wounded mec, leaving two soldiers behind still working Van Wezel.<br />
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Just look at all that destruction. Van Wezel is easily able to take care of himself, killing the soldier on top of him, leaving the final officer surrounded and vulnerable to every member of the team. Everyone gets a shot before Gaius finishes it off. Mission well done.<br />
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The more *ahem* gung-ho nature of that little brawl did leave the team with many small injuries. Nothing too major though.<br />
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It does mean though that Gaius, Spyhawk, and Culise won't be available for the blacksite mission.Xeormhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14892002456605134331noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3290414663604815588.post-53024582563914082782016-10-15T12:40:00.000-07:002016-10-15T12:40:51.752-07:00XCOM 2 AAR - FailureIn contrast to the last mission taking in place in a rather rich city, this one more clearly shows how bad things can get for Humanity under alien rule. Trash and propaganda everywhere, it seems some citizens have taken to driving tanks, even in town.<div>
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Up above on the highway is our first wandering patrol with a new alien combatant: a being from a world so toxic it needs a heavy environmental suit in order to function. It looks ugly, and any release of what's in the suit would surely be rather bad for any nearby human. We setup, and the firing starts with a sniper shot from Health on the unsuspecting codex.</div>
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The rest of the group's fire focuses on the dropping andromedon. Three solid shots, and it's still at half health. That thing is armored! Rather than deal with it right now, Trajan puts it in stasis while the rest of the team works on the 3 codices still up. Trajan's first shot misses the alien, but does explode a nearby car. She'll fit right in. The null field from the injured codex does a number on the group. 4 out of 6 suddenly find themselves out of ammo. The aliens themselves group up though and Susanne grenades them, killing two codices and leaving the andromedon vulnerable to a blast from her cannon. A pistol shot from Health is enough to finish it off.</div>
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Of course, nothing is ever easy. The alien inside is dead, we're very sure of that, but the suit itself is over-engineered enough that it can still function without its host. Disgusting. JCan attempts a hack on the suit, but fails to gain control, accidentally empowering the thing. Trajan makes her shot on it as it advances forwards, but Van Wezel misses the follow-up to bring it down, and JCan takes a brutal hit to his face. </div>
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It even leaves a trail of toxic goop as it walks. Ugh. Susanne moves to flank the codex, giving Health and Lovenought the opportunity to kill its clones. In a twist, Trajan misses her next shot on the suit, but Van Wezel makes his, bringing it down. An ADVENT troop carrier follows it up with reinforcements. Why they do this I don't know, as the group is brought down in a hail of overwatch fire. Bradford, smartly, yells at us that the terminal is soon to be locked out.</div>
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Oh. Yea. The aliens aren't here to <i>kill</i> us. They've got hundreds of troops available. Stopping us is just fine. Even given all the aliens we've killed so far, our one death with Potassium felt like it hurt us more than all the deaths we've dealt to them. It'll be a rough race to make it in time. Guarding the terminal is a heavily armored group, 1 mec, 1 heavy mec, and an advanced soldier. That's a lot of hp to work through. The heavy mec gets a good shot on Lovenought, that looked like it hurt.</div>
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Susanne fires a rocket into the group, but it looks like they're merely scratched. With the help of a grenade from Van Wezel, JCan is able to finish off the mec. Lovenought misses his key shot on the heavy mec, and Trajan is too far away to be of assistance. The soldier lands another hit on Lovenought, yikes. The heavy moves into Health's range, and she brings it down. Susanne grenades the remaining soldier and then cannons it, bringing it down, but it's too late. We're too far away from the terminal to reach it before we're locked out. The mission is a failure. We continue to kill the remaining ADVENT forces, as grabbing what we can is useful, but morale is low.</div>
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Not sure where the remaining forces are, we reload, regroup, and get people healed. Lovenought is the first to spot the new troops, hiding behind a building, he'll be the sole focus of that group for some time. The archon is able to get to Lovenought roughly unharmed, and hits him with his plasma staff. Third shot today. Susanne runs forward and launches her acid grenade on the remaining two soldiers. Looked like it hurt. The rest of the team works on the archon, but it narrowly survives. Now is when I'd use Trajan's stasis ability again, but she's placed herself just out of reach. (Not sure what happened. XCOM is a little buggy. Said she was able to target him, but wasn't). She does kill the nearby soldier though.</div>
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The archon takes a second swing at Lovenought. He's horribly injured, but alive. He responds back with enough of a shot to take it down, and Health kills the remaining trooper. The mission was a failure, but everyone is at least alive. I think it's time we paid a visit to the codex sites though. The aliens are advancing quicker than we are, best to go now.</div>
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Xeormhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14892002456605134331noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3290414663604815588.post-30821891842485138432016-10-15T10:53:00.002-07:002016-10-15T10:53:55.809-07:00XCOM 2 AAR - Why is the bar on fire?!Another day, another human betraying Humanity by allying with the aliens. Mr. Myterious has another mission for us: capture a collaborator and bring him back to base for some well-needed intel. The collaborator does seem to be living the rich life. A nice place, rich looking, with its own bar and a muton escort. All it cost him was his soul.<br />
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The group moves in, landing quietly on the nearby gas station. We have our prey in sight, a squad of heavy mecs to our right and in front the target and his escort.<br />
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Unfortunately, we wait a little too long in setting up the ambush, and the patrol spots Van Wezel. (Woops, misunderstood the concealment mechanic) Our squad can handle it though. Some of the squad was in place, enough for a decent ambush. The soldier and regular mec both go down, to Health and Hyme respectively. Lovenought gets two solid shots in on the archon, leaving a very injured archon, two mutons, and a heavy mec up against us. Susanne takes a shot from the mec (who I didn't realize went into overwatch on discovery) and she grenades it. Van Wezel fires two quick bursts into the heavy mec to bring it down. Hard to withstand close-range shots from that heavy looking shard gun.<br />
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On top of the building the muton has aggressively charged in. If it lives, it's in a great position to get some killing in. Lovenought finishes off the archon below, firing through the floor to kill it. He tries a shot on the muton but hits only cover. Health's pistol is more up to the task though and the muton goes down. Hyme uses her position lob a grenade on the muton. It works, giving Gaius a clear shot with her blade for killing the muton, but it does set the very nice bar on fire. The Germans of the team let out a yell of anguish as the bar continues burning.<br />
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All that's left is a small group of sectoids standing near our evac zone. And the VIP of course. Hyme drops down, but attracts the attention of the group to the north, which also contains a hiding archon. The small amount of fire we're able to bring to bear isn't enough to take the archon down before it gets to Hyme's position, and she finds herself the victim of a very painful plasma staff attack. Gaius as well gets disoriented from a sectoid's psionic burst.<br />
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Health kills a first sectoid, while Susanne and Van Wezel take down the archon. Hyme, handily enough has a medkit available for use. When the sectoid leaves its cover for a better firing angle, Gaius and Hyme are easily able to take it out. Damn, these things are stupid.<br />
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Incoming reinforcements, but we're very ready for them. Yay for target practice. The team has the drop zone mostly surrounded. The only way out is via the nearby parking lot. The squad drops down, and the captain is immediately killed. One soldier stupidly hides with his back to health, and she double taps right to the head. The trooper is a bit smarter, hiding in good cover behind a mini-van, but then he finds out <i>why</i> we left that avenue open. Susanne's rocket is more than capable of bringing him down in a fiery explosion.<br />
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Then what follows is a surprisingly quiet period. We could, if I wanted to, go hit the coordinates that we've obtained from the codex brain's dismantling, but I'd rather wait. Tygan and Shen both say they've got interesting things for us.<br />
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First online is a new laboratory for Tygan and his team. Should help. (Base reward is you effectively get an additional scientist. Two if you upgrade it. The European continent bonus, which we have, also gives a 20% boost to science)<br />
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Trajan finishes her psionic training. Well, finished isn't exactly accurate. She's able to use psionic powers, but she'll have to continue training to learn new ones. If she's not out on a mission or in sick bay, she'll be here in this dark chamber learning new <strike>spells</strike> abilities. (Psionics work very differently compared to other classes. They don't gain any benefit by going out in the field, as they don't go by experience. Instead, they train if they can. You're given the option of three abilities each time you finish, with a heavier weighting towards abilities nearer to your skill level.) She should prove useful with a bit of training.<br />
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Tygan also unveiled a new armor upgrade: powered armor. Now our troops can be heavily armored, while suffering no penalties from the heavy weight. Truly amazing. It also looks fantastic. I couldn't ask for a better upgrade. (Comes with +2 health and +1 armor over the previous armor)<br />
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Finally, we have new weapons. The new plasma rifles should serve us well, but the added difficulties in producing different plasma weapon variety compared to the ease of adapting magnetic weapons means that for most of the squad they won't have any upgrades for some time. Plasma varieties, at least. Shen does have some time to spare, and enhances the grenades and grenade launchers for the team.<br />
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The quiet must end though, and a new guerrilla op presents itself: get to an open security terminal and hack our way in to stop the aliens from armoring their troops for the month.The squad readies itself with the new equipment, and Trajan joins us. We're all eager to see how she does.<br />
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<br />Xeormhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14892002456605134331noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3290414663604815588.post-87722680197131647992016-10-14T09:33:00.000-07:002016-10-14T09:33:09.344-07:00XCOM 2 AAR - Purple EverywhereAnother day, another mission. A new wave of guerrilla ops for us to choose. The two we've learned about seem easy to deal with, so the hidden one it is again. A simple op, one we've had before: resistance members set up a data tap on the ADVENT network, and the tap needs to be defended while it does its thing. Main difference? We're after a skulljack on the codex the shadow chamber says will be here. Top crew this time. I'd like to get some experience for the newer of the team, but after last mission I want to avoid another death.<br />
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We land in a town out in the boonies. Wide street between us and the tap, but with good cover on our side. We'll head up to the roof, secure it, and move on. Should be a good location for the snipers.We find our target, the codex patrolling with an advanced trooper. No idea what will happen, so we don't set up for a proper ambush. Susanne gets her shot from above on the poor trooper and he goes down quick. Gaius rushes in for the skulljack, and does succeed.<br />
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In what should not be a surprise to anyone, a being pops out from ...somewhere, looking dangerous and ready to shoot.<br />
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What follows is a rather frustrating experience. The thing is quick, each time we shoot it, it teleports away, finding a new location to hide. It's tough to boot, but our team has this covered. Culise uses his new acid grenade on it removing the armor and giving it a nasty burn. Health gets a pistol shot, followed by an assault rifle burst from JCan before teleporting inside the building. Health is able to follow it in and get a final pistol shot for the kill.<br />
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Not sure what that was all about, but it's dead and our scientists will have something to do for the next week. The mission continues, with Gaius stumbling into a patrol of two mutons and an archon. Yikes. Hyme manages a sniper shot on the archon, but it doesn't go down and they're well able to get some shots in. The archon attacks Gaius, but she's well able to dodge, and the mutons shots on the team both impact harmlessly on the store walls.<br />
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Health and Hyme work together to bring the archon down, leaving Susanne and Gaius for the first muton. Culise suppresses the last muton, but the muton is able to fire through the hail of bullets back at him, dealing critical damage and definitely making Culise angry. Thankfully his armor stops most of the damage and he's fine. Hyme's supporting position from above gives her a good shot on it for the kill. Now to find the last group before they can eliminate the tap.<br />
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The final squad is a group of two soldiers lead by an officer. The first trooper makes an aggressive move towards Gaius, but is met with a rocket blast from Susanne, a shotgun blast from Gaius, and a final sniper shot from Hyme. The officer tries a similar move, and finds himself on the short end of a shotgun blast and a burst from JCan. The final soldier tries to fire at Gaius, but JCan's protective GREMLIN and her natural agility keeps her unharmed, giving Susanne chance to fire a grenade, wounding him in the explosion and demolishing the roof he was standing on. Unlike the earlier mec, hybrids aren't built to withstand a long fall like that and his body remained unmoving in the rubble.<br />
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I'm not entirely sure why, but Tygan is calling the purple being we killed is an "avatar" and highly related to the avatar project. I'm not sure what to make of it, to me it seems a cross between a human, a codex, and a super saiyan. The aliens are always full of surprises.<br />
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While everyone stays busy on board the Avenger, we complete a few new projects. Shen completed her crash course on using the viper autopsy results to enhance our medkits. That should come in handy. Her engineers also completed the new psi lab.<br />
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Looks creepy if you ask me, but it should do its job. Shen highly recommends that we don't send anyone already experienced in the field to train here, so I grab a new recruit, a Ms. Jamie Trajan.<br />
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She seems rather excited and all around happy. Hopefully her experiences in the chamber don't crush her spirits.Xeormhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14892002456605134331noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3290414663604815588.post-68120361393618283082016-10-13T13:30:00.002-07:002016-10-13T13:30:43.870-07:00XCOM 2 AAR - Failed AmbushAfter the "technical difficulties" we start again and Tygan has good news for the team: new weapons! The grenadiers and snipers both receive weapons using similar magnetic technology as was used for the assault rifles and shotguns the other classes used. Like the other weapons, this means they'll do more damage, and have a second slot for weapon upgrades. They don't have long to practice though as the resistance spots another grounded UFO. Time for more loot and plunder!<br />
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The aliens have certainly upgraded their defenses this time around. Standing guard outside the door we find a muton, sectoid, two vipers, and a new alien type we call an "archon". There's a lot of health in that initial group, and they don't know we're here yet. If I wanted to be safe, I could choose to wait for one group to get separated to make for a more sure ambush. But, up until this point ambushes have been quite overkill. Health especially has talked about a new technique she learned that would allow her to watch down an entire corridor. Anything moving within that would be a viable target, and given her new sniper rifle has both upgraded damage and ammo capacity, the potential here for damage is staggering.<br />
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The rest of the team sets up, and unusually for us we'll start off with a boom instead of a bang. Susanne loads up one of her specially upgraded grenades, and the fight is on! The archon dashes off, and meets up with overwatch fire, avoiding any direct shot and suffering only minimal damage from Lovenought and Potassium. The rest of the aliens go into cover, and Health gets a shot on each one, but the result is the same for each. Miss. Miss. Miss. Miss. Gaius and Culise were both on pickup duty for any alien that lived and threatened our position too much, but there's no way they could conceivably completely salvage this situation.<br />
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Culise manages a grenade on both the archon and the wounded viper, killing the viper and leaving the archon open to a strong shotgun blast from Gaius.<br />
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Three aliens still left. As if things couldn't get worse, a patrol of two soldiers and a codex wander in. Health uses her last bit of ammo to damage the codex, but we suddenly find ourselves outnumbered 7 to 6 as the codex clones itself.<br />
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Gaius dodges a tongue grab, but a followup poison blast can't be pleasant. The mutons, smartest of all alien forces, uses a grenade on our position. Blasting apart trees and leaving Potassium, Gaius, and Lovenought all out of cover and reeling from the blast. Inspired by his intelligence, the remaining sectoid uses his gun instead of his psionic powers and blasts away at Potassium, knocking her dead to the ground.<br />
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Things looking bleak, Susanne uses a rocket on their position, killing the codex clone and heavily damaging the muton. Lovenought follows up with a risky play. "Rampage!" he yells and gets up close and personal with the aliens.<br />
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He eliminates the viper with a clean shot, then turns and goes for the muton, but misses his shot. Rampage over. Good for him, Gaius is able to power through the poison and easily kill the sectoid. Culise eliminates the original codex, but that still leaves two soldiers and an angry muton. The battle devolves into a large brawl as the trooper cuts into Susanne with his sword and the muton bashes at Lovenought, stunning him and leaving him vulnerable.</div>
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Health gives the trooper a glancing blow with her pistol, removing the shield and giving Susanne a chance to bring the big guns to bear.</div>
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The muton in his rage neglected to get behind cover, giving Health a clear shot to his vitals, bringing it down. Gaius uses her skulljack on the remaining soldier, failing to jack in, but distracting him long enough for Culise to unleash a devastating attack to outright kill the soldier. (Hail mary attack, 28% chance to hit, 30% chance to crit. 8.4% chance to kill and he nails it) The team emerges battered, but mostly alive. The clock is ticking though on that distress beacon. (For anyone wondering, the walls were fixed this time. No visibility problems)</div>
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Lovenought finds himself doing something different this mission: becoming the team's healbot. Or at least ordering his GREMLIN to be the healbot. He patches up Susanne, Gaius, and himself quite well. They should be in good shape for the remaining forces guarding the distress beacon. Inside is a squad of hybrid soldiers lead by an officer. The UFO is a challenging area to fight in, as high cover is all over but shooting angles are scarce. Missed shots abound. Thankfully, Lovenought's GREMLIN is able to flow and easily dodge any fire, so we don't have to get into the open in order to disable the console.</div>
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A soldier runs out towards a better firing position and is caught by Health's shot, injuring it and leaving it low enough that a grenade from Susanne can finish him off. The group loops around the center and catches the remaining two troops in their flanks. Health lands a shot on the shieldbearer, who is finished off by a slice from Gaius. The officer sits huddled in a corner as cannon fire from Susanne and Culise bring him down.</div>
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The mission is a success, but a somber one. Minor injuries for some, but Potassium's death dampens the mood. One mission, one shot, one damage. Such a short life she lead. The aliens will pay.</div>
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In honor of her memory, I have Shen work on some new armor. A new vest that will help protect them, and heal them if they take damage, keeping them in the fight. As well, Tygan finishes his work on examining the codex data. He says it should help us understand why the aliens are doing all this, making Humanity's life hell.</div>
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The data contains information on the elders. The caste of aliens with strong psionic powers, powers that make the sectoid look like child's play. They haven't been seen on Earth for almost a decade, likely because they're experiencing severe muscle atrophy. They're dying. They've been roaming the galaxy, taking what they can find of other aliens and incorporating them into their army through psychic and genetic domination. With Earth, they decided to stay, whether because they saw something useful in us that was special, or that they've become unable to look further. Whatever the case, it seems likely they're going through our genetics to find something of a cure.</div>
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But that's all he was able to obtain from the fragments of data. Filling in the final pieces will requiring skulljacking a codex. This should be fun.</div>
Xeormhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14892002456605134331noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3290414663604815588.post-66282984495639613272016-10-12T10:10:00.000-07:002016-10-12T10:10:12.396-07:00XCOM 2 AAR - Technical difficultiesWell, this is embarrassing. The recording for my previous session recorded only the audio, neglecting to do any of the video. While I try to take pictures as I play to make things easier, a number of good shots are ones I miss, and so rely on the recording to get many of them. As well, remember who shot what is difficult, so you'll have to forgive me on missing out on the kill counts. Rather than make a traditional narrated one, I'll just do the highlights:<br />
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<li>Yea, there are a lot of injuries. </li>
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<li>New soldier: <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<li>Potassium is next in line, but I wanted a specialist first, so she was busy training when the mission came up. Galleblaere requested the heavy class, so best to give him the opportunity to chance into it. (Side note: gender is easy to change, so if I've gotten the wrong one, let me know. I default to the soldier's default gender)'</li>
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<li>We finished psionics research, along with researching tier 2 GREMLINS. Construction underway for the new psionics lab</li>
<li>First mission involves destroying an AVATAR site, removing two "blocks"</li>
<li>No one died, few injuries. Susanne blew up a car with her rocket launcher, killing three enemies and earning me an achievement.</li>
<li>Galleblaere did, in fact, random into the grenadier class as hoped.</li>
<li>Second mission was a guerrilla ops mission. Potassium still in training. Received a scientist and stopped supply drop from being halved.</li>
<li>Highlights from the mission: Susanne blew up another car and killed more soldiers in a fiery explosion. Galleblaere grenaded a mec, dropping it down a story. Which doesn't do any damage, surprisingly.</li>
<li>New acid grenade. Shreds 2 armor instead of 1, does ticking damage afterwards. Viper was autopsied, leading to new proving grounds research for enhanced healing.</li>
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Xeormhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14892002456605134331noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3290414663604815588.post-41216812850796963062016-10-12T09:04:00.001-07:002016-10-12T09:04:20.554-07:00XCOM 2 AAR - OutnumberedThe team is quickly formed and sent out to assist the resistance on the ground. It's another brutal attack from ADVENT, and it's our job to stop it. The team itself is much more variable than it once was. The med bay, unused for so long now sees itself as a rotating door. New patients come in, and healed patients leave to get shot again. The injuries are well within our capabilities to treat, but it is still a sobering though. Some of these soldiers have only narrowly missed being classified as dead instead of merely injured.<br />
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We arrive on the outskirts of town. We didn't have time for a proper, stealthy insertion, but this should still do nicely. The shadow chamber had warned us of a new variant of alien, and the team does spy it quickly: the hulking muton berserker.<br />
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Just look at the health on that thing! Good grief. JCan and Culise both fire into it, but only serve to enrage it. Van Wezel uses his shotgun for the killing blow, felling the beast. Susanne and Lovenought work together to bring the supporting trooper down. The final trooper retreats backwards towards the main building that ADVENT has focused their attention on. Shots from a mec trooper killing harmless civilians can be heard in the distance.<br />
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The team advances slower than I'd prefer, but the river between us and them provides little in the way of cover. ADVENT has the building clearly defended, with a mec and two soldiers standing on the roof ready for us. It's rare to see them smart enough to use a height advantage against us and I don't relish the thought of taking that building from the ground, but it needs to be done.<br />
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The mec rains missiles down upon Culise and Van Wezel, throwing Culise into a panic and he retreats in temporary fear. Susanne joins the fight, only for the aliens to unleash another foe upon us.<br />
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In surprise, her shots go a little to the right, impacting a fuel container and blowing the cover of two more troopers and a berserker. The blast strips the shielding from them, but does prompt them to attack earlier than I would have liked. We've found all the patrols, but we are outnumbered 8 to 6. Target rich environment. JCan attempts to even the odds by hacking into the mec, succeeding and giving a large tempo swing. Van Wezel and Lovenought eliminate the faceless behind Susanne, which at least keeps the team from being flanked. For now.<br />
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ADVENT in a display of true cruelty neglects to fire on us, choosing instead to target the nearby helpless civilians. It makes our job in killing them easier, but I mourn the useless loss of life. One of their troopers makes a break towards Lovenought, using his blade and rendering him unconscious. I wonder if he intentionally targeted the one member of the team that could have cured the stunning effect. No other civilians in sight, the new berserker charges Susanne, while the other soldiers fire at the mec, destroying it.<br />
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JCan tries to awaken Lovenought, but to no avail. Opting instead to fire on the berserker, he sends it into a blind rage. Van Wezel flanks the trooper that took down Lovenought, but fails to kill him. Spyhawk does not fail in his shot from afar. Culise recovers from his fear and throws more bullets into the raging hulk. JCan and Susanne find themselves the victim of an ADVENT grenade, only to watch their grenader attract the attention of the hulk. The hulk smashes into the ADVENT soldier, stunning him and injuring him. Out of cover, JCan takes a brutal wound from another soldier.<br />
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Susanne and JCan use grenades of their own on the stacked group. Susanne sets JCan up with three kills in a single grenade. The odds are much more in our favor now. Van Wezel uses the new skulljack to great effect, quickly killing the shieldbearer but taking large feedback damage in return. He'll definitely feel that later. Culise eliminates the last trooper. Seeing the rest of the ADVENT forces go down, a nearby faceless gives up the charade and charges our forces, serving no threat but giving us ample firing practice. Or in the case of Van Wezel, fencing practice.<br />
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The mission is a success, but at a cost. Only Spyhawk came out uninjured. The rest of the team will have to spend time in med bay, some for at least a month. Unfortunately, soon after the mission, a request comes from Mr. Mysterious to rescue a VIP, an engineer that would do well to assist us and provide some much needed intel. We don't have the troops available for such a mission, and I decline. (In retrospect, I should have recruited newbies to attempt the mission. They're cheap and I could use a few more bodies. I didn't realize that recruitment was instant, in the original you spent a few days for them to be flown over.) Seeing weakness, the rest of the resistance are disheartened, and pledge fewer supplies to us each month. (At least supposedly. The flavor text says this happened, but my income remains the same)<br />
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Shen comes to me with a new finished project from the proving grounds; the E.X.O Suit.<br />
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It comes with more durability (+1 health over the other heavy armor, and +1 armor) and a hard point for a heavy weapon. Shen only has a wrist-mounted heavy launcher for use currently, but says she might be able to come up with new and better weapons, if she had the time and resources.<br />
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(Let me quickly go over how armor works. Like the first game, armor adds health points to the soldier. The first upgrade we have is the predator armor, which adds 4 health and an extra utility slot to each soldier. The armor stat decreases damage done by the amount of armor, but can be stripped by explosives. Unlike the first, damage to armor health does require recovery time. Lovenought took 3 damage, well under the 4 from armor, but still required 7 days in the med-bay. As well, like weapons most armor is done as a "squad upgrade". Pay one cost, and the entire squad is upgraded. No need to build individual sets of armor.<br />
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The proving grounds though allows for projects that each award only 1 item. Some, like the EXO suit always give the same item, while others like "Experimental Ammo" reward a random ammo utility item. One beauty of the proving ground is that it uses salvage to create new items, rather than supplies. Mostly. The skulljack takes 25 supplies, but it's unusual.)Xeormhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14892002456605134331noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3290414663604815588.post-33356485654753290142016-10-11T15:47:00.000-07:002016-10-11T15:47:06.011-07:00XCOM 2 AAR - Pirates of of the European ForestIn a surprising development, the resistance informant that had helped bring us the info for the last operation sent in his request to join up with us. Getting these requests are really quite common. There's a whole backlog of them available in case we need the extra assistance, but so far we've managed with our own team. What makes this one special is he's already quite skilled, and we are finding ourselves with more injuries than I'd prefer. Another man on the team would help for when the squaddies are stuck in med bay. We get a new soldier, he gets good equipment and all the perks that go with living in the Avenger. Win/win for all sides.<br />
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A few days after he's settled in, and we get another mission update: the aliens have a landed UFO in the wilderness of Europe. Your guess is as good as mine as to why it's there, but there it is. Years of alien occupation and experience with the Avenger means we're familiar with the tech involved. This won't be a mission of exploration, but of plunder. We be pirates today mateys!<br />
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Well, they've certainly made their ships look nicer in the last twenty years. Added a sun roof and everything. Well, the richer they are, the more plunder we can grab. All we need to do is kill the crew and disable any distress calls and we can off with the loot.<br />
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The aliens have a squad of two sectoids and a codex in front. No need to make the humans feel comfortable around them out here, so they have plenty of opportunity to use all their alien variety for defense. Unfortunately for us, the codex is naturally hanging behind a tree, making the ambush harder than normal, but it should still work. Van Wezel starts us off by showcasing his sword skills with a clean sectoid kill. Health and JCan both manage solid hits on the codex but it stays up and even clones itself. Gaius finishes the last sectoid off with another clean cut.<br />
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The codex clone then does something very interesting.<br />
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The clone teleports down behind a tree, leaving the squad no chance for a good firing angle. Then it summons this vortex around Gaius and Van Wezel. The vortex looks dangerous, and also disables their weapons. They'll need to reload the guns before they can be used, but the swords seem to be working fine. The original codex makes a run for it. Health shoots after it and misses, but Spyhawk nails his shot and brings it down. Van Wezel kills the clone with his sword, leaving Gaius a chance to reload and the rest of the team to get in position. The clock is ticking on that distress beacon.<br />
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The swirling vortex looks to implode on itself behind our soldiers, but doesn't seem to have done any lasting harm. Gaius sets herself up in front of the door, giving time for the rest of the squad to get closer and for her to be able to dash in and do her thing, except she makes a startling discovery.<br />
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The walls are see-through and don't provide the cover she thought they would.<br />
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(Realistically, I have no idea what's going on here. The walls...don't work like other walls. Rather big pain, because they're treated as walls for cover purposes, but aren't. The protrusions still act properly though)<br />
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The mec walks forward into our line of fire. Susanne and Van Wezel miss their shots, but Spyhawk injures it. Gaius goes for a skull-jacking on the defending trooper, but is forced to kill him with her blade before retreating. From the rear of the ship comes the rest of the forces. Our squad finds itself against a viper, 3 soldiers, a shieldbearer, and an injured mec. 6 v 6.<br />
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Van Wezel and Susanne try their aim on the mec again. Susanne misses for a second time, but Van Wezel makes his shot. Must have needed more time to get familiar with his new shard shotgun. JCan provides support for Gaius with his GREMLIN. The team finds itself under fire, but the ADVENT forces don't land a single shot. Susanne attempts to grenade their fortified position, but the strong materials of the UFO withstand her explosion. Grenades won't server her well here. JCan successfully hacks into console to stop the console to stop the distress beacon, and even finds a "Hacking for Dummies" PDF inside. Gaius makes her shot on an advanced soldier, doing major damage and bringing him down.<br />
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The viper recognizes her as a real threat, flinging her tongue out and grabbing Gaius, pulling her back through two walls before strangling her with her coils. Without assistance she'll quickly suffocate. JCan tries to free her, but only hits the shield from the shieldbearer. Susanne continues to fire uselessly. Van Wezel misses his shot as well and Gaius continues to lose her precious oxygen.<br />
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More shots from the aliens, more misses. Neither side seems very accurate today. At least, until JCan takes careful aim and shoots the viper straight in the head, giving Gaius the opportunity to take out her frustration with a strong sword blow. Only the shieldbearer is left alive, but I forget the walls are only fake cover, leaving Health in plain sight for the shieldbearer to land a good shot. Ouch. She shreds the soldier's armor with a grenade, giving Susanne an easy target. Which she misses, giving JCan an opportunity that he passes up. Van Wezel finally takes the kill.<br />
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Van Wezel seems to fit in well with the team, and we make off with quite a bit of plunder. Yar!<br />
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The good mood is shattered however as the resistance is hit with another retaliation attack, lead to the camp by a defector. Dark times ahead.Xeormhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14892002456605134331noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3290414663604815588.post-11059375566616886682016-10-10T13:19:00.000-07:002016-10-10T13:19:11.369-07:00XCOM 2 AAR - SkulljackingThe mission done, I returned to get some well needed rest. I'd prefer to never again make so many obvious mistakes in a single mission. What followed was another period of inactivity from the aliens. They were working behind the scenes on their nefarious designs, while we were continuing our efforts to build up the resistance and discover just what it was they were doing.<br />
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The techs have a new home for the week: The Shadow Chamber. An ominous name for a location. I hope it won't end up deserving it. Their new task: Discover just what is up with that vial we stole. What makes this chamber so special you ask? It has tools setup for decryption, but it also has a link with the ship's computer. Given the ship's alien origins, utilizing the computer for the large computing load involved with the research would give us a major advantage. We'd need more than human minds and traditional computers to solve this enigma.<br />
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In the meantime, the engineers were busy working on clearing out and building a new communications array. The AVATAR compound in west Africa still needed dealing with.<br />
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A week of dull scanning later, and the techs had an answer about this vial. The aliens never cease to amaze me with their depth of cruelty and unimaginable objectives.<br />
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Shen's initial guess on the blacksite's objective was correct: The place was a refinery. A genetic refinery, to be more precise. Millions of civilians were taken against their will and brought to locations like this one and processed down into bits of information. This singular vial that can be held in one hand contains the records of millions of people. Even worse, they were able to cross-reference some of the information with records of the gene clinics the aliens had setup as part of their "uplifting". These people had gone to the aliens for help, and had been repaid by being turned into this...sludge. Disgusting.<br />
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We're not quite sure what all this is for, even now. Knowing what the vial is does not help us in that regard, beyond confirming what we knew beforehand: that the aliens seemed very interested in genetics and human genetics in particular. In addition we did obtain some coordinates of another site related to the vial. This, also, is located down in west Africa. The guys there will be busy as soon as we make contact.<br />
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We get another lazy week before the aliens make their move against the resistance. Three operations designed to hamper our efforts. We can only reach one. Our best bet is to hit their efforts in Europe. They've managed to hide the purpose of this little operation from us, which worries me. Tygan informs me that with the construction of the Shadow Chamber, they're able to process numerous small bits of information and from that construct a very reliable knowledge of exactly what types of enemies we'll face and how many troops in total. We're in luck, there will be an officer at this location for us to skulljack.<br />
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Gaius and her knowledge of melee combat gets the skulljack and an upgrade to her sword. The sword has a small increase in lethality, but also gains a substantial chance to incapacitate stricken foes that we've cleaned from studying the stun troopers. Improvements to the skyranger also allow for an extra squad member to head out. Our 6 to their 8 sounds like much better odds to me. Our objectives are to destroy the alien relay and jack into the officer, without killing him first. Normally I'd hear grumbling from the soldiers about <i>not </i>killing an alien, but the word "skulljacking" seems to elicit such...flair that they seem happier about this course of action.<br />
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For once the geography of the area seems very much in our favor. We land behind a store building, with the alien relay across the street. Around us is wide open terrain, a patrol to our north with the captain, and another patrol of two sectoids to the east.<br />
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Normally we'd prepare a proper ambush, but in the chaos of such a situation it's likely the officer would be gunned down. We need him alive, and so we'll have to better coordinate our shots. The shots will be harder, but I'm confident in the squad. Health gets the first shot, terribly wounding the stun trooper, followed up with a strong barrage against the mec from Susanne. The initial plan was to have Gaius go in after the escorts were down, but instead she went for the reckless approach: rushing forwards for the skulljack while they were still up and trusting in her squadmates.<br />
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Her attempt is a success and we gain access when something very strange happens.<br />
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Out of some sort of portal comes something Tygan calls a "Codex" that is responsible for protecting their data. To say the least, it's a bit above my paygrade, but they assure me with their next recommendation: shoot it with bullets until it dies. That we can do. Culise gets a solid shot on it, but it's very tough. As if it couldn't get any stranger, the codex then creates a clone of itself. Luckily, the process seems to weaken it, but I doubt whatever weapons it has will be affected. Same health, double the danger.<br />
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The team finding themselves in dire straits, Lovenought yells out a single word: "RAMPAGE!". He fires a volley at the mec, then the trooper, bringing both down. He then rushes across the roof into sight of the codices, sending a volley towards both and killing each of them. He even ends it with a reload, leaving him fresh and ready for the next wave of troops. (Amusingly, this does earn me an achievement as well, along with the achievement for skulljacking the officer. Two in two minutes)<br />
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The two sectoids come up behind their building to hit us from our flank, but Culise is ready for them with a grenade, injuring them both and eliminating their poor cover. Health takes her pistol to one and her rifle to the other, finishing what Culise had started.<br />
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Gaius grabs the loot and scouts forward, spotting the last three aliens without being seen. A viper and two troopers. We get into position, with Spyhawk getting the first shot this time, but he misses and they dive into cover! Health and Lovenought target the same trooper and make their shots, bringing him down. Susanne works to suppress the viper, knowing she's highly unlikely to get a kill all by herself.<br />
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While the viper is hampered and misses her shot on Lovenought, the trooper does something rare and uses his gun instead of the preferred blade. He lands a solid shot on Lovenought, forcing him to seek cover inside the building where the relay is located. Culise launches his last grenade on the viper's cover, leaving her wide open for a shot from Spyhawk to finish her off. Gaius moves in with her new blade and easily defeats the other swordsman.<br />
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Unexpectedly, ADVENT reinforcements move in on top of Spyhawks position, and the team readies themselves. Lovenought in particular getting very secure in the building, and spending his time pouring bullets into the relay. Need to take that out before it finishes its transmission.<br />
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Out comes something interesting. ADVENT seems to have realized that their previous soldiers were a tad...useless. The captain has some slight upgrades in armor, but the soldier is clearly heavily armored and unlikely to go down easily. Susanne and Health both land hits on the armored officer, but don't bring him down. He is clearly much tougher than before. Out of ammo and surrounded, Spyhawk flees inside the building and tosses a grenade towards the officer. His armor is good, but not that good, and he finally ceases moving. Lovenought finishes off the relay; all that's left is the mec and the new soldier.<br />
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Susanne works to suppress the mec, but even through the gunfire it manages an accurate strike with its missiles. Injuring both heavies and leaving them open for further attack. The "shieldbearer" does something odd, sending out a wave of energy that forms into shields around the both of them. Seeking to hopefully shred some of their armor, Susanne launches a grenade onto both foes, only to meet with a surprising outcome: both are unarmed, but the shield is gone.<br />
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Gaius attempts another skulljack on the new soldier, but misses and only lightly injures him. Thankfully, her new sword is more than capable of piercing the armor and she ends him. Why did I never think of combining tasers with swords as backup 20 years ago? Health and Culise both fire rounds into the mec, but its heavy armor plating still holds. Lovenought moves out of hiding and fires in for the kill.<br />
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Before the techies get to work on examining the information we gathered and seeing what exactly this codex is, they unveil what they've been working on this month:<br />
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Armor! Using scavenged pieces from the numerous corpses we've collected, the techs have fashioned suits of armor for the team. Things are looking up.Xeormhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14892002456605134331noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3290414663604815588.post-56088432197735433462016-10-10T10:10:00.001-07:002016-10-10T10:10:43.388-07:00XCOM 2 AAR - mistakesBack to the ole grind for us. One of the resistance has been working on hacking the alien network, and found plans for a new alien cypher that would hamper our efforts. Unfortunately for him, the aliens learned of his location and had alien squads already moving on him in his suburban neighborhood. Time for us to step in, protect his beacon, and kill some aliens.<br />
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We prepare our ambush on an unsuspecting viper and soldier scouting the area. Hyme pistols the soldier, leaving the viper for JCan, Hyme, and Susanne to finish it off. JCan and Health were both quicker on the draw, but Susanne's hail of bullets is what ended the beast.<br />
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A nearby patrol hears the commotion and enters the fray. (From left to right: Mec, officer, (stun) trooper). The officer marks Susanne for death, and follows it up with a wave of hurt. The officer and the mec both land their shots on her, shredding what little armor she had and leaving her vulnerable to the trooper's blade. She's stunned and alive, but barely. Hyme makes an expert close-range sniper shot on the trooper to kill it. Health fires three quick pistol shots into the mec, but only scratches the armor. Gaius's new shard thrower works much better against the thick metal plates and brings it down. JCan opts to not fire and instead keep Susanne in the fight with the help of his GREMLIN.<br />
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The officer retreats to above the nearby church, but can't run far enough away from Health's sniper rifle. JCan attempts another hack on a nearby tower, but predictably fails. If it's not a mec, he can't hack it it seems. Gaius, looting the dead officer's corpse, makes a surprising discovery: ADVENT troops walking on the church roof. Two soldiers and a sectoid. Not good when she was already far in front of the other forces. She runs back down, chased along the way. Health helps by eliminating one of the soldiers.<br />
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She reverses for a moment to slice the sectoid, but a missed shot from JCan leaves her vulnerable to return fire from the soldier. Hyme finishes the last soldier off. A flare pops up behind the squad. Reinforcements incoming! The forces are met with a barrage of fire, but none go down. Health executes a soldier with a point-blank pistol shot and with another shot kills the trooper. Susanne takes the last soldier.<br />
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Back at base the engineer's complete Shen's new playground. That should give her plenty of opportunity to build and test the new "Skulljack" she's envisioned for hacking into the ADVENT psionic network. Work is started on a new "Shadow Chamber" Tygan wanted for decrypting ADVENT communications. Times are dull as things go silent, until blaring alarms wake me from sleep. ADVENT was launching another retaliation strike against the resistance. While I would normally say I'm good for commanding, no matter the time of day, this mission shows I should clearly be more cautious during weird times of day.<br />
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Greeting us this time is a new type of alien. The "Muton". A hulking beast with strong armor, a strong blaster, and an upgrade to its agility. Hyme gets a shot in but it does little damage, and the aliens continue their rampage against the civilians. Hyme fires another shot, through a garage wall, but the alien still remains alive. Lovenought fires a barrage into the garage, getting a lucky shot and ending it. Health ends the trooper working with the muton and the team advances cautiously. More and more civilian deaths echo across the night. My first mistake: Being too cautious in deployment.<br />
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JCan moves forward towards a civilian, but is greeted with a mimic transformation. The alien's large claws do a fair amount of damage. Hyme and Health work together to bring it down, Health's pistol the killing weapon. Culise spots another patrol, and fires a grenade into the mec. JCan has a better idea and hacks in, gaining control, but leaving me with my second mistake: not having him get to cover after the workbench he hid behind was destroyed in the mimic's attack. He's a sitting duck!<br />
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Lovenought and the officer enjoy a useless firing match. Neither make a hit. Health shows him how it's done. Lovenought kills the nearby soldier, and what follows is my third mistake. Instead of having him reload, he fires into JCan's mec, leaving it nearly dead and him out of ammo.<br />
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We advance and the mec finds us our last group of aliens: a muton and two troopers. Culise launches a grenade onto the trooper, leaving it damaged and wide open for the mec to kill. Lovenought, unable to do something useful due to being out of ammo, has his GREMLIN support Culise. JCan orders the mec forward, and we find my fourth mistake: the mec's hardware doesn't allow for a shot around a cactus!<br />
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Instead, the mec bombards the other two ADVENT forces, wounding and eliminating their cover, but not killing any of them. JCan instead gets kill on Culise's trooper. A second mimic reveals himself behind the squad, and the muton destroys JCan's new toy. JCan finds himself in melee again with a mimic. They like him. Hyme brings it down with Health's assistance. Lovenought outflanks the muton and gets another kill on his belt. What follows is both stupid, worrying, and hilarious.<br />
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A mistake leads to JCan being sent out into the open, in plain view of the remaining trooper. Only Culise is available to provide overwatch fire. JCan, thinking it intentional, works to grab the trooper's attention; he's the bait, and Culise will spring the trap. The trooper, strangely, takes the bait. Charging towards JCan with his sword at the ready. Culise fires his trusty gun Alphonse, but it's too bulky and heavy to stay on target and JCan finds that he has brought a gun to a sword fight. He nimbly dodges the blade, but he can't keep that up forever. Hyme, with her characteristic no-nonsense attitude lands an expert shot on the trooper before it can do any real harm. I don't have the heart to tell JCan he was put in harm's way like that as a mistake. He seems to have enjoyed himself though.<br />
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Back at base the tech people finish their shadow chamber.<br />
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Maybe now we'll find out what that vial is for.Xeormhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14892002456605134331noreply@blogger.com0