Almost the Weekend! – Hailing Frequencies for 10/12/17

Hey folks, welcome to Thursday! Sorry I didn’t write one of these yesterday, the day got away from me, and I needed to record more videos last night, so I wanted to save my mental energy for that. Why did I need to record more videos? Because somehow, the one I recorded last week didn’t get uploaded, and I deleted it thinking it HAD been uploaded. That was SO demoralizing. I NEVER do that. So yesterday I had to record some video, one of which was put up today, so let’s talk about those first.

Yesterday’s video — since I’d not uploaded the one I intended to go up Wednesday, was for Space Wrangler. This game of asteroid lassoing is really weird. You check in at a station, then you’re told to get an asteroid, but no clear direction as to which one it is. You have coordinates and a distance marker. The only way I could find the asteroids was narrow down the one I was approaching with the distance monitor. There’s no targeting or HUD element to let you know you have the right one. Once you get what you think is the right one, you drag it back to the originating station, wherein they tell you to get another one. Why? I dunno. There’s no money or score or anything, so really nothing to keep you playing. I hope more gets added to it, because right now it seems like a bare shell of a game.

Today’s video covers the game I’d previously recorded, then deleted, Destination Ares. This is a ship and crew management game wherein you play the AI of a hastily assembled ship, carrying several refugees to a new colony on Ares. You have limited time and supplies, so you have to juggle the consumption of supplies along with the need for energy, fuel, food, waste disposal and sleep. In this first entry, my crew makes it 33% of the way — my longest run yet — before suffocating. Apparently, according to the stats at the end of the game, I wasted a ton of energy, so I’ll have to be a bit more diligent next time. It’s a fascinating juggling act in which I hope I improve.

I also recorded another video for Space Rangers HD last night, but that’ll go up tomorrow! I’ve been playing a ton of other stuff besides as well. After the podcast on Tuesday, I loaded up Gun Metal after Jim’s suggestion, and hit a difficulty wall haaaard in the second mission. It’s REALLY fun though, so I plan to play more of it, but wow is it tough.

Then last night, I had some time to myself, so I played a boatload of stuff. I dabbled a bit in Star Explorers, Ogre, Stellar Overload and Rusted Warfare, all of which I enjoyed. The real thrill of the night was spending time with Lightspeed Frontier. The developer asked me to revisit the game since he’d made a lot of improvements to it, and boy has he. It flies better, has a more engaging tutorial, and a more streamlined build mode. Both that and Helium Rain were a great time, at least until I got this meteorite intercept mission I utterly failed at. Both games have really improved since I last played them, so kudos to the developers on those.

The final game I played yesterday was Anno 1404/Dawn of Discovery. I’ve been meaning to play it for ages and finally decided to take the plunge. WOW what the hell is wrong with me? This game is INSANE. I’m only in the first campaign mission but so far it’s just so good. It’s got a great UI, responsive tools, GORGEOUS graphics and a ton of stuff going on. I really can’t wait to dive into all the scenarios and sandboxes this and its Venice expansion have to offer. So yeah, just a ton of great gaming lately.

This weekend I’m gonna try to finish up Stable Orbit and maybe get some more Heat Signature in. Also likely gonna get some previews in, but I’m not sure of what yet. This free-flowing catch-up thing is a nice change of pace from the structured game of the week, but not nice enough to become permanent, as I do like structure most of the time. :)

Alright, enough rambling! Onto news!

• Battlecruiser is an upcoming game about assembling a spacey battlecruiser from scrap, and it looks neat.
• Stars in Shadow’s upcoming DLC, Legacies, drops on 10/19! OMG THAT’S NEXT WEEK!
• Void Destroyer 2 now has upkeep costs as part of its upcoming dynamic economy, as explained in their recent dev diary.
• Infinity: Battlescape has a new dev diary that has some gorgeous combat and planetary shots.
• Interstellar Rift is getting system-wide events, according to their latest dev diary.
• Strategy Gamer has an op-ed entitled The Fifth X that covers the deluge of space gaming 4X of late.
• Stellaris’ latest dev diary continues their look at post-release support along with a pretty decently-sized hotfix update.
• Galactic Civilizations III got a massive update which changes tons of things, like colonization events and more.
• Heat Signature got a patch that hosts an array of compatibility updates.
• Elite Dangerous got a fairly big update with a few dozen fixes.
• Solaroids: Prologue has new updates on its beta branch.

The only deal of the day I could find is that Halcyon 6: Lightspeed Edition is on sale.

Finally, I’ve been thinking long and hard on it, and I’ve decided to cancel tonight’s stream. Friend and Podcast co-host Spaz has evacuated his home pre-emptively due to the really close and barely-contained Atlas fire in Northern California, one of many fires burning throughout the state right now. As Spaz is one of our most consistent attendees, it just doesn’t feel right goofing around and playing games while one: he can’t attend and two: he, his family and all of his possessions are basically in danger. Therefore we’ll hopefully return to schedule next week. Please do whatever ya do — prayers, vibes, thoughts, etc — and send the good stuff his way.

Thanks y’all, have a great day!