Hailing Frequencies Open – 5/2/17 – A Busy, Busy Bee am I…

Hey friends, happy Podcast day! ;) I’m particularly excited about this week’s podcast because we’ll be talking Freespace 2! Specifically, our game of the week, the amazing mod for Freespace 2 called Between the Ashes. I’m really looking forward about diving more into the modding for this game, as well as learning the details of the mod itself, which so far has been fantastic. Speaking of, today’s video showcases two missions in the early portion of the campaign, and wow are they a doozie. Collectively I mean, as well as individually. I tell ya, if I’d not had this on easy, I’m unsure if I’d have made it. The downside is that it was so hectic during the game, I missed a ton of important chatter. I keep meaning to go back and listen to it but I’ve just not had time. Regardless, so far this mod is one helluva ride.

Last night I had an hour or so to game, so I spent it entirely with LOGistICAL (not sure why it’s capitalized like that). I know what you’re thinking, upon looking at the Steam page, “Brian, that game looks crazy.” It kind of is. Basically, you have a map of Australia (not all of it yet, just a teensy part) with towns. Towns have different industries and needs, and each town is, in a way, its own puzzle. You use trucks to get what that town needs from other towns in order to “complete” it. You can then upgrade the industries in those towns to store/produce more goods that you can use to “complete” other towns. The tutorial (both interactive and video) gives you the basics, more than enough to get you going, and boy did I get going. Once I got into the rhythm of it all, I wanted to solve every town I could, because each one is its own challenge. Not only that, but you need to deliver resources to specific towns in order to open to roads to get to new towns. Couple this with an achievement for every town you complete, along with clear objectives, and you have something of the dream resource management game. It’s really amazing.

Speaking of it, tomorrow night (and maybe tonight), I’m gonna be doing some test streaming, and I’m likely gonna use LOGistICAL as part of the test. I’m freaking super tired of dropping a billion frames whenever I stream, like I did on Sunday, so I’m gonna try a variety of OBS settings to try and find what works via Restream.io. What I really don’t wanna learn is that I’m better off using one service over several (and I’m not skilled enough to set up my own RTMP server), so hopefully I can get this all worked out. Tonight I’ll likely play some more LOGistICAL after the stream, as well as testing out some Battlefront II over Evolve if we’re up to it. Once I play more Between the Ashes, of course (you’ll see why tomorrow). ;)

Now, onto news!

• Evochron Legacy got a new patch that adds just a ton of stuff, little things really, but they look like quality of life stuff. I really need to dive back into that one.
• Astrobase Command’s Kickstarter got a new gameplay overview entry with a neat video and everything!
• Galactic Civilizations III: Crusade — which comes out  couple of days! — has a couple of AAR posts for you to read through.
• Galaxy in Turmoil has a new video blog for you to watch.
• Artemis — OMG what? — got a patch that updated some panel layouts, among other things.
• Finally, it’s not a space game, and I know it’s been on GOG for years, but the amazing Shattered Steel is coming to Steam!

Finally, GOG is having a massive Star Wars sale with basically all the goodness on sale. If you’ve not yet snagged the entire X-Wing series (if for no other reason than to play X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter with us), here is your chance.

That’s it for today folks! Thanks for reading!