Great write-ups.  DCC and Ffftl..

Curse you all and my non-existent will and especially Steam.  All this talk of  gaming pushed me to a game buying binge.  It didn't help that I took a few vacation days off and had too much time to get into trouble.  Plus buying games in the middle of the night in your underwear is the pinnacle of our civilization.

So I got Dreadball.  That scare tactic of limited supplies set me on buy, buy, buy mode.  Brilliant marketing!

I also got Borderlands 2, Torchlight 2 aaand FTL...

I'm enjoying Borderlands 2 so far.  Playing a jerk sniper.

Torchlight 2 is also fun.  A lot more generous with the magic items than Diablo.  Play fuels the crack addict brain center much better.  Plus pets!  They have a bunch, eight I think.

So, FTL has been brutal to me.  My first crew burned to death by the second jump.  Are these ships made of cardboard?  That fire spread right quick!  The last game I got three sectors? out before being blasted to bits by a customs ship.  A customs ship!  That never happens in Star Trek.

Speaking of Star Trek.  I've been playing the game like that.  So I'm the good guy and always spare a ship when they surrender.  Do you get better loot if you just blast them like Han Solo?

Great writeups! I won't lie, I got misty-eyed at the sad fate of the Yeehaw! TEXAS. As for the Xactioners, it just goes to show: leave the team, pay the price.

I am looking forward to Friday! Not just for the usual reasons, but also because the iWife will return from her business trip. Been a long week. Been fun spending more time than usual with the kid, not as fun having to leave work early to get to daycare everyday and be tired all the time.

Off to shoot some stuff and grab guns!

| I no haz stealth ship

But did unlock the Rock Cruiser (can you smell what I'm cookin'?).. and the shield guys. Can remember their names. Shield one is awesome until you get boarded and then it's very very bad. The Rock Cruiser is crazy fun, comes standard with two powerful missile launchers that obliterate opponents... until you run out of ammo or run into a ship with defense drones, lol. I think the best equipment I've seen so far is the Pegasus 2-shot missile system, the 5-shot pulse laser and the fire cannon. Total destruction. The best add on item has to be the one that pre-charges all your weapons before a battle. Holy shit that first barrage before they can do anything about it is just murder.

| Stealth ship

Just wait until all you FTLers get the stealth ship unlocked.  It is a whole new level of helplessness and ineptitude.... no shield to start, two weak lasers, and super quick duration cloaking with like a 25 second recharge = instadeath against anything with a shield, a drone, and actually any other armament at all.  I have lost three games in a row to the first ship I came up against in normal mode.

It's horrible...

| Dreadball - $348k - 10 days to do

PS, they have limited the 'Striker!" level (which is the one of everything, plus full teams, plus bonus minis up the wazoo, etc.) to 249 more backers at the time of this message.

Just a friendly reminder to those who were on the fence...

| RIP, USS Texas YEEHAW

"Remember the YEEHAW!" will be the rallying cry for future crews.

Things were going along really well, had full weapons bay, had gone through several star systems and was pretty well destroying whatever I ran into in short order. Then, ran into an energy/ion fighter that had my number. Stupid ion gun kept turning off my shields, weapons, drone control. Then the fires and the ruptured hull. Couldn't get back on top of that battle and the YEEHAW was destroyed.

It's funny how fun this little game is. It's like Oregon Trail in space with some added combat mechanics. The difficulty scale is crazy though, and I love it for the uncompromising randomness. I don't even really get angry when I die because for the most part, it felt fair and expected. Like I was happy just to not get iced in the first few rounds of combat, let alone make it through several star systems, lol.

Best gaming value in a while, for me. Maybe since Minecraft.

| Love it!

Nice write up! It captures the feel and internal role-playing of the game completely!

Unfortunately, I have become engrossed in the stupid game to the point where it has invaded my dreams - I had FTL dreams last night where my sleep troubles could only be managed by shifting my FTL crew around the ship to assist with getting me to restful sleep.

Same thing happened with Advanced Heroquest in high school, and the same thing happened with Doom II...

| These are the voyages of the USS Texas YEEHAW

...and her crew, Batma, Ntheride, and Chuck Norris.

Stardate 10.51. We are on a diplomatic mission to Alderan the Federation Fleet HQ to deliver secret plans.

We decide to pass up the chance to ditch our hasty pursuers by going through the closest nebula and instead set course for the path around. Hopefully we may run into some out-of-the-way salvage or settlements that will allow us to take on new crew and improve our modest spacecraft, the USS Texas YEEHAW.

10.54: Our first stop is a planet with six-legged animal-like lifeforms that we have never encountered before. All attempts at communicating with them as sentient beings fail, so we return to the ship and move on.

10.56: Unfortunately, we miscalculated our navigation and are unable to avoid the southern tip of the nebula. Looks like we're going in.

A pirate ship has followed us into the nebula and has closed the distance to engagement range. We cannot escape, time to turn and fight. We begin to power up forward missile bays and bring the Burst Lasers online. This pirate has a shield system active, so the missile will be targeted to take that down and the Lasers timed to hit their weapon systems after we take down their shields.

Confounded weapons system on this bucket are too slow, the pirate ship has launched an attack drone which is pelting our shield with a constant stream of laser fire, and they have managed to get a missile off the rails and it has impacted into our rear quarter, detonating directly in our Oxygen Generator compartment.

Sgt. Chuck Norris and Pvt. N'theride are dispatched to check out the damage and get our Oxygen back online. We won't have to worry about returning fire if we can't breathe.

As Chuck and N'theride leap out of their chairs and begin sprinting aft with repair kits and fire extinguishers, the combat computer's female voice, aka "Bitching Betty" calmly reports that our Artemis Missile is away and streaking towards its assigned target. A second later, a similar affirmative report confirmed by the whine-thump-whine-thump of the burst laser springing to life. Just seconds before impact, their pilot spots our inbound missile, streaking through space, and manages to slide his ship out of the performance envelope of our Artemis Missile, which explodes harmlessly just 200m off her aft. His maneuvering, however, has provided a large silhouette and the burst laser has hit home! One bounced harmlessly off their still-active shields, one fired just wide of the ship but the third shot went scorching through their shield and ripped into their weapons bay with satisfying eruption of fire and sparks. What luck! This should hopefully buy us the time we need to repair our Oxygen system and power up our next volley.

11.05: Lt. Chuck and Pvt. N'theride arrive at the aft deck and are pleasantly surprised that there are no breaches in the hull and no fires to extinguish, which could be especially deadly with explosive Oxygen gas spilling into the compartment. They begin work on repairing our life support systems. If they are unable to do so in the next few minutes, all is lost.

11.11: For the pilot, Lt. Batma, seconds are minutes and minutes are lifetimes as he monitors the ship's systems, nervously tapping on the readout on the ship's oxygen levels that is down to 84% and falling faster and faster. The ship is still being peppered by laser fire from the pirate ship's attack drone orbiting the USS Texas YEEHAW. Lt. Batma checks the sensors, which still show the enemy's ship's weapon systems as offline. Betty interrupts his near panicked train of thought with her sullen "Weapon Ready" report. He mashes the authorization to launch button and another missile is off the rails with their shield system targeted. As before, the burst laser is synced with this launch so the laser fire impacts just after the shield generator is brought offline. This time, he selects their attack drone control tower in hopes of getting that gnat silenced for a bit.

11.18: Chuck and N'theride report in to Lt. Batma over the radio that they have successfully repaired life support and oxygen levels are climbing back up into the high 80%'s. At the same time, the enemy pilot has again swerved hard to avoid the powerful Artemis Missile and left himself open to take his chances with the burst laser. Not his lucky day. The burst laser scorches through their shield system again and impacts directly into their control tower, sending sheets of sparks and flame into the surrounding space.

11.24: N'theride has been ordered to man the weapons bay and see if he can calibrate the next missile launch for better accuracy. Chuck has been sent to the sensor bay to try and improve on the quality of our view of the enemy ship, which is being disrupted by the nebula we are flying through. All weapon systems are now trained on their shield system to try and cripple the pirate craft. Sensors are reporting that the enemy craft's weapon system and drone control towers are both completely offline. While we can't see their crew on sensors because of the nebula interference, we can still track their movements somewhat by the frequency and number of internal airlocks opening and closing. Scurrying around the ship trying to keep her in one piece, it is readily apparent that the pirate scum are in serious trouble.

11.25: Nearly simultaneously, as Betty reports all weapons ready, Batma mashes the launch-auth button and the third volley is on its way. There is no evasive maneuver this time and the Artemis Missile strikes dead center into the craft's shield generator, detonating and nearly ripping the entire craft apart. Just as the missile impacts, Betty reports that the enemy ship is attempting to make an emergency jump to light speed and escape, followed in a blink of an eye by her follow up report that the threat from the enemy ship has been terminated by the follow-up volley of laser fire. She has broken into several pieces and gone dark, except for the scorch marks left by our weapons.

11.32: We send out a shuttle to see what salvage we can quickly recover from the wreckage. In addition to finding quite a haul of usable general-materials, we are pleasantly surprised that a powerful weapon, a Halberd Beam, has been recovered mostly intact! It appears this ship was transporting a large shipment of weaponry in its bays. Our crew sets out to install the new weapon on the USS Texas YEEHAW for ad-hoc use in our flight across this star system. We will need to improve our reactor's output if we are to properly utilize this new weapon as it alone requires as much energy as our entire current weapons bay. We use most of the remaining materials we salvaged to double our shield's strength in anticipation of the battles to come, but like the newly acquired weapon, will need to make substantial improvements to our reactor in order to fully utilize it.

11.36: Set course to exit the nebula and be underway towards the Fleet HQ once more.

| Made it to the end (FTL)

Granted, playing through on Easy first, just to see how hairy things get as you progress. I made some noober mistakes on layout and weapon choices along the way and basically wound up looking like a missile frigate... with no missiles. LOL

The result was predictable, we done got vaporized.

I think what's so fun about the game is the total randomness of it. The system layouts, the encounters, the loot and gear you can buy along the way.. you never really know how it's going to go, so you have to be ready to adapt and adjust when something goes unexpectedly good or horrifically bad. Although, to be fair, when things go horrifically bad, that's usually a GAME OVER point.

I've had more than enough battles where I thought I had shit under control and then all of a sudden a missile / asteroid gets through the defenses and WRECKS MY SHIT.

I love it that it is so unforgiving, and randomly rewarding at the same time. I think I've only survived one solar-flare battle, ever. Probably means I don't put enough of my loot into improving my engines. Can't make that jump to light speed before half my fucking ship is on fire, lol.

I, for one, would love a playthrough! Roguelikes are always great for this kind of thing.

I finally tried out my airbrush tonight! It was super fun to finally try out after spending a few months getting the pieces together. The air compressor makes a really pleasant sound (it's not like a LOUD tire air compressor sound, it's kinda like a very large, purring cat.)

Anyway this is a great way to paint things extremely quickly and badly! It barely took me 5 minutes to basecoat a light warjack. The poor thing looks terrible, and needs to be stripped/repainted pronto for further airbrush torment, but it's obvious that after some practice this will be a really quick way to get things table-ready.

Pro tips, airbrush usage:
- Nighttime is not the right time! Especially if you've just got a single, dim patio light for illumination
- If possible, avoid spraying downward into a shadowy box. Eye level, Beau Jevel!
- Vaporized cleaning alcohol fumes = free headache!

| FT-Swell

Picked up FTL this afternoon and just did my first (short) play-through. Funny Business, iRudy and two of his favorite comedian's ship, made it through a few fights and into the next system before succumbing to a fatal disease on a planet we were trying to quell rioting. Fun!

| FTL continues to impress

And Dreadball continues to go batshit in the funding and kickstarter gimmes!  I pledged last week and its up at 326k now....

Batshit!

| Tales of the FTL

This morning, the HMS XAction Team hit the stars, with a star team of ex-Action Teamers at the helm (JP, Rich, and Paul) what could possibly go wrong?  What are the chances it could all go to hell on the first system?

They saw a distant beacon, near the entry point of the pursuit fleet, but figured the fleet was still so far back, they had plenty of time to explore and still make it out of the system in time.  Well, that distant star had a Federation (or is it Rebel?) scout which spun up it's FTL to jump and tell the pursuing fleet.  The HMS XAction Team could not disable the engines in time and the ship jumped (which greatly accelerated the pursuit).  When it was the XATs turn to jump, the only path from the distant star was through the pursuing fleet zone...

Jumping into the zone was met with an immediate attack by an elite fighter and a warning that the ship needed to jump before the cruisers could fire, so the race for survival was on!  Multiple fires due to attacking fire and SOLAR FLARES, hull damaged to 50%, the O2 chamber being taken offline multiple times, was all the XAT needed to suffer through before jumping.... the only other system to jump to was already overrun by the pursuing fleet as well....

Throw in an attack drone and a boarding party, the XATs goose was cooked.

The XAT never made it back to the base....

| Answer: YES, JERK!

LOL, bought it and have been playing with the kiddos. Crazy fun! Can see this taking up a lot of fun time with the kids. Good grey-area moralistic decision making to teach from as well.

| I am SO close to pulling the trigger on FTL

MOAR STORIES! :D

Sounds like it's a lot of fun. Are you exploring the galaxy in search of items / resources to improve your ship and just keep wandering around, or do you get specific mission tasks to undertake and complete?