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 A Town Called Malus wrote:

 ZergSmasher wrote:
Still progressing in my career game in Kerbal Space Program. Having a hard time designing efficient ships to take 3 Kerbals to the moon and back. Fuel is heavy, so adding more just makes launching harder. I must use my engineering mind and think about this.

Have you throttled your engine stages for atmospheric flight? The decreased efficiency and effects of air resistance which increases as you travel faster means that you need to set up your engines for the atmospheric part of the launch such that you aren't wasting fuel trying to travel too fast at too low an altitude. So you throttle the engines such that the beginning stage gets you to a certain height at which you have hit the maximum effective speed, then change to the next stage to get to a height with a new effective speed etc.

Also, I assume you're performing a gravity turn where your flight plan takes a gradually increasing diagonal trajectory through Kerbins atmosphere in order to use the gravitational pull to gain delta-v? If not then this wiki article explains the concept.

I'm absolutely using gravity turns, but maybe I'm not doing it right for the craft I'm using. I'm generally not sure when to start rolling the ship over and how far at each altitude. I'm sure it's different for each craft. I've played around with it and did manage to make it to the moon and back with 3 Kerbals, but I could probably do it better. My current design is 3 stages: a liftoff/ascent stage, a transfer stage, and a landing/return stage. I'm not using a dedicated lander because my skills at orbital rendezvous are not good, to say the least. I'm sure that just takes practice. The thing that doesn't seem to be working right is that the transfer stage ends up being needed not just for transfer but to even establish Kerbin orbit. Making it bigger like I've done seems like a brute force method.

Tales of Berseria

I'm watching a streamer play through the Tales of Vesperia remaster and since the game is so linear I figure there's no point in playing Vesperia, but it got me interested in the series. Vesperia seems a little typical anime - cheery protagonists and cuteness.

Berseria by contrast has some really dark tones, I definitely like it.

I just finished Kingdom Hearts 3.

What a wet fart of an ending.

The last bosses were an absolute slog with so many effects and constant teleporting, which were the "climax" to a bunch of underwhelming Disney worlds. Also, holy crap, did they ruin Xehanort. You're telling me you couldn't find ONE PERSON who could do something approximating Nimoy's voice? Instead we get a guy who makes the character's lines either laughable or actively groan inducing, and sounds like he's about to launch into BJORK BJORK or like Tigger in the last boss fight.

I think Time's review covers it best - too little, too late. This should have been done five years ago.

Myst and Daikatana.

Studying Myst for a VR project, and it really is a triumph of art & design over technology. Crap at the puzzles but its still enjoyable in a "take notes and make maps" old style of play.

Love masters of doom( best games development book ever! ) and after two decades took the plunge to play Daikatana to see if it really was as bad as they said. Apparently it gets better after the first episode, but I'm not that far in and finding it awkward. In hindsight, they should have stuck with the Quake 1 engine and had a ball with design and gameplay.

Have a hankering for some Vermintide 2.
May boot it up tonight.

SamusDrake wrote:
Studying Myst for a VR project, and it really is a triumph of art & design over technology. Crap at the puzzles but its still enjoyable in a "take notes and make maps" old style of play.

Myst is one of the first computer games I really played a lot when I was young (my dad had to help me a bit, I was like 7 or 8), and I enjoyed it a lot! Play the sequels too; they are really good and the visuals in them are absolutely amazing!

SamusDrake wrote:
Love masters of doom( best games development book ever! ) and after two decades took the plunge to play Daikatana to see if it really was as bad as they said. Apparently it gets better after the first episode, but I'm not that far in and finding it awkward. In hindsight, they should have stuck with the Quake 1 engine and had a ball with design and gameplay.

It's an awesome book and the insights it provides into the choices behind the design process of Daikatana is neat. Also, that hubris, that ego.

So, has John Romero made you his bitch yet?

Finishing up Celeste in between doing some work at home. Pretty good story so far, and a neat little setting.

I finished up the Doom campaign this weekend. Enjoyed it, but even on the easy setting some parts were pretty tough for me, especially when you blow most of your ammo on one boss, and then suddenly you have to fight him all over again

 ZergSmasher wrote:

Myst is one of the first computer games I really played a lot when I was young (my dad had to help me a bit, I was like 7 or 8), and I enjoyed it a lot! Play the sequels too; they are really good and the visuals in them are absolutely amazing!

I sadly never had the pleasure of Riven( oh, Steam sale! Lets fix that! ) but I impulse purchased the collectors edition of Exile, and using the strategy guide that came with it, finished it. You are definitely correct that the visuals in the Myst series are amazing. Exile is definitely a game that should be modified for VR, and if only it were for the Oculus Go...I'd be a happy man!


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 BrookM wrote:
It's an awesome book and the insights it provides into the choices behind the design process of Daikatana is neat. Also, that hubris, that ego.

So, has John Romero made you his bitch yet?

Yes! He has done so many times already and will probably continue to do so before I get to Episode 2!

Speaking of which, he used to have a forum called Rome.Ro, and was surprised how he would take the time to reply to us in a very welcome manner. I nearly fainted when he first replied to one my posts, and I think it was on the subject of masters of doom where I felt uneasy about quoting the book and that it was written as if for the big screen. His reply to me was "we all had to sign off on the book and its the real deal". It wasn't to scauld me but more to give me confidence that I was right to reference the book as to what happened.

Some professionals on forums act like they are the last word, and have that "bodie & doyle" vibe, but John was very pleasant and treated me - at least - as a fellow enthusiast. Even encouraged me to learn a bit of assembly language( C64 stuff! ) which helped hone my programming skills.

But yes, nice chap.

Yeah, pretty cool dude whenever he pops up in an interview or they let him play the original DOOM in coop with someone. Always get the feeling he's still a hardcore gamer through and through, especially when he trashtalks his opponents into shock.

Anyway, put in some more time with Deep Rock Galactic, seeing as Far Cry New Dawn drops tomorrow, time to see what happened to the Deputy.

Also, these guys are here soon, yay!

The Daikatana ad never really phased me in the context of its time. It's just very pre-9/11 90's style for an industry that didn't really have much in the way of advertisements outside of enthusiast magazines and websites. Rockstar creators being sold on their Xtreme attitudes were pretty normal in the Liefield era and it was fairly in line with the kind of ads and even games of the era (URNOTE, Nintendon't, MORTAL KOMBAAAAAAAAAAT, C-C-C-COMBO BREAKER!) It most stands out as being a very late example of this kind of marketing that was pretty common since the 80's in one form or another. I never took it as an a indication of who Romero really was as a person.

New Dawn was unlocked this morning, thanks Ubs for not sticking to a single clock somewhere on the other side of the world!

Played for an hour or so to get through the tutorial and into the game proper. So far, so Far Cry and as expected, an even more trimmed down and leaner experience than the previous game. Will be interesting to see how many of the original cast have survived.

Only real downside so far is that the guns are slow on the reload, probably to emphasise that it's 17 years past WW III, but it is annoying that reloading a shotgun takes forever. Even a pistol reload feels laborious, okay the clip is rusty but damn it!

Picked up subnautica. It's quite relaxing and lots of fun. Mostly crafting and exploration with a little bit of survival. Must admit that I'm counting the hours until the next time I get some time to dive deep in the game.

 LunarSol wrote:
The Daikatana ad never really phased me in the context of its time. It's just very pre-9/11 90's style for an industry that didn't really have much in the way of advertisements outside of enthusiast magazines and websites. Rockstar creators being sold on their Xtreme attitudes were pretty normal in the Liefield era and it was fairly in line with the kind of ads and even games of the era (URNOTE, Nintendon't, MORTAL KOMBAAAAAAAAAAT, C-C-C-COMBO BREAKER!) It most stands out as being a very late example of this kind of marketing that was pretty common since the 80's in one form or another. I never took it as an a indication of who Romero really was as a person.

Ah, the good'ol days!

Made a lot more progress in the first episode but its heavy going until the prisoner blocks, where you rescue some chap named "Superfly Johnson". At that point it becomes a better game - no worse than say, Shogo or Jedi Knight. The music isn't too bad either as it has shades of Yuzo Koshiro, with a dash of metal. Artistically, its not bad and has an console-rpg feel to it.

 Nerak wrote:
Picked up subnautica. It's quite relaxing and lots of fun. Mostly crafting and exploration with a little bit of survival. Must admit that I'm counting the hours until the next time I get some time to dive deep in the game.

Neat! been looking at that for a while. I hope it has more content than most games of its ilk, which can be kinda sparse?

SamusDrake wrote:
Made a lot more progress in the first episode but its heavy going until the prisoner blocks, where you rescue some chap named "Superfly Johnson". At that point it becomes a better game - no worse than say, Shogo or Jedi Knight. The music isn't too bad either as it has shades of Yuzo Koshiro, with a dash of metal. Artistically, its not bad and has an console-rpg feel to it.

And here's where you encounter another of the problems with the game.

Unlike most FPS games, the sliding doors in Daikatana close automatically regardless of how far away from the door you are when it closes. And it you happen to be standing in a doorway when that door closes, then you get smashed and killed.

This also applies to your companions, who are apparently not bright enough to move OUT of an open doorway, and will happily stand there until the door closes... and kills them, which causes an instant game over.

FYI.

Eumerin wrote:

SamusDrake wrote:
Made a lot more progress in the first episode but its heavy going until the prisoner blocks, where you rescue some chap named "Superfly Johnson". At that point it becomes a better game - no worse than say, Shogo or Jedi Knight. The music isn't too bad either as it has shades of Yuzo Koshiro, with a dash of metal. Artistically, its not bad and has an console-rpg feel to it.

And here's where you encounter another of the problems with the game.

Unlike most FPS games, the sliding doors in Daikatana close automatically regardless of how far away from the door you are when it closes. And it you happen to be standing in a doorway when that door closes, then you get smashed and killed.

This also applies to your companions, who are apparently not bright enough to move OUT of an open doorway, and will happily stand there until the door closes... and kills them, which causes an instant game over.

FYI.

Absolutely! Just finished another session - rescued Mikiko and omg I hate those *%!$ing doors!

The companions, surprisingly, are not toooo bad. Superfly(hahaha!) only once got caught under a walkway and had to reload to a previous state, but otherwise they are okay for the most part. I don't remember it in anyother game at the time, but the commands you give them are foreshadowing Republic Commando! Considering the time Daikatana had begun development, this is quite an interesting game.

I think Rise of the Robots is far worse than Daikatana, and had not even attempted to deliver on most of what was promised. Daikatana, on the other hand, at least made the effort - even when it was for the worst - to implement the features. The only down side to using the Quake 1 engine would have been jerky animation, but that sacrifce would have been worth it if the game itself was good.

With a Daikatana 2 in mind, John could have finished D1 with the Q1 Engine and shortened the content( just slim each episode down ) and made it public that D2 would be created with the Q2 engine. The mind boggles with what they could have done back in the day...shame.

 Nerak wrote:
Picked up subnautica. It's quite relaxing and lots of fun. Mostly crafting and exploration with a little bit of survival. Must admit that I'm counting the hours until the next time I get some time to dive deep in the game.

"Relaxing"? Wait until the first time you encounter a Reaper when you aren't expecting it. I love Subnautica, but oh boy did it scare me at times.

 Melissia wrote:

 Nerak wrote:
Picked up subnautica. It's quite relaxing and lots of fun. Mostly crafting and exploration with a little bit of survival. Must admit that I'm counting the hours until the next time I get some time to dive deep in the game.

Neat! been looking at that for a while. I hope it has more content than most games of its ilk, which can be kinda sparse?

I'm only about 5h into the game. I've gone in completely blind and my biggest surprise was a surprisingly engaging story. Up until now the game has kept surprising me with various elements I didn't expect to see in it (No spoilers though!). As for content I can't say yet. Until now it's showed me new stuff over and over.

@Tannhauser42 I've been playing on hardcore mode and restarted 3 times so far. Two of the deaths have seemed fair, one from not checking what was above me during a deep dive and dying. Another from radiation and misjudging distance. The third was and instant death from 100% health due to fire and almost made me ragequit. I'd still consider it relaxing though because, to my knowledge, there's no actual time limit so you can just slowly solve problems as they come. I'm sure there'll be more scary stuff later. Think I'll swap to regular survival, it's a bit of a drag to restart and mostly you just go through the same content (with a bit of variation) for the first hour of the game. After that it starts to varies up.

To be honest, five hours of content is more than many sandbox games actually have.

Ive also been playing Subnautica plus a bit of the experimental build of its Below Zero stand alone expansion.
Trying a no cheat run on Subnautica but Im getting nearer the deep endgame parts which I find tedious. Will probably toggle creative mode and get it over with to be honest.
Below Zero is quite empty this early on but its looking promising. Always good to have new fauna and biomes to explore.

Also played through Yakuza 0. That was a lot of fun. The story was abit corny at times but the combat was satisfying. The battle music was good and I still have a tonne of the substories and minigames to do.

 BrookM wrote:


Also, these guys are here soon, yay!

I'm really looking forward to finding out more about them. It sounds like they'll have some pretty unique gadgets.

I've finally started playing God of War. As much as I enjoyed the original trilogy, this one is so much better. The story and writing feels a lot more mature and less aimed at angsty teenagers, plus the one shot camera style is incredible

Working my way through New Dawn and I'm getting a bit worried here as the amount of drug fuelled trips is quite low..

But at least both Hurk and Skarky are still around and raising a kid together, with Sharky acting as the mother.

 Melissia wrote:
To be honest, five hours of content is more than many sandbox games actually have.

Subnautica is great. I didn't expect as much content as I have run in to. The story is pretty great, amazing atmosphere. Way more crafting than I expected there to be. Exploration and crafting are very reliant on finding blueprints in wreckage. Lots of underwater caves and you will probably drown in a few of them without the tracking out of it.

Really great game. I am at 20+ hours sitting at 900m depth with about 600m more to go before the end areas. The Lost River is amazing.

If you like Survival Games, this is a game you will probably enjoy. I don't have many gripes with the game other than end game energy production balance. But that isn't such a big deal because I need lots of it to stay alive.....

I'm playing Hollow Knight, the sequel got announced and that's given me the push to finish playing the game.

The music and aesthetics are gorgeous and I really want to delve into the lore but I don't want to spoil the story for myself.

Started playing Path of Exile. It's my first real foray into action RPGs, so I'm not terribly good at it yet, but it is fun.

Burned through The Messenger recently. I wished they introduced the gimmick a little quicker as you end up playing through a little too much of a so so Ninja Gaiden game before it all comes together into something special. Still worth it, if only to have regular chats with the Shopkeeper.

Fallout: New Vegas was $3.62 in the recent Steam sale, so Fallout: New Vegas. A lot of it.

Picked up gathering storm for civ 6. Its... alright. Mostly quality of life improvements and the addition of some classic civ things thaf had been missing. The climate and diplomacy systems are kind of irrelevant make-work however. Still doesn't make the late game interesting.

So, during the holiday and weather day, I found myself mostly messing about with Fallout 4 instead. Building a ridiculous settlement at Gray Garden, all the way up to the multilevel overpass above it.

I also have a vague urge to play Skyrim again, while I wait for someone to produce a decent RPG...