The weekend is here so shake it off, shake it off

[Boggit]

Anyway.  This weekend I will mainly be playing X3: Albion Prelude.  Finally getting into this.  Got some good trade routes going and making cash; next I need to buy another freighter and get some automated trade going.

I've got this but am totally hopeless at it - running out of money, getting whupped generally. Apart from "Don't play it then" do you have some useful general advice? :)

[Boggit]

Finishing writing up some Birth of the Federation AAR chapters, though I already played through to get the content.

I'm really looking forward to that! O0

[Huw the Poo]

Boggit I'm still away from home and on my phone but I'll give you a detailed reply later today. :)

[mirth]

L2 Design. Corps / Army level. Eastern Front. Big map. Now out of print. Much lusted over but hard to find game, an unpunched copy of which I have managed to get my paws on.

Great, great game. Essentially an uber-updated and enhanced version of Avalon Hill's classic, The Russian Campaign.

[Boggit]

Boggit I'm still away from home and on my phone but I'll give you a detailed reply later today. :)

Thanks Huw - appreciated! :)

[Boggit]

I just had one of the most brutal experiences I've ever had in a game.  First mission in XCOM with the Long War mod. Second turn I trigger a group of aliens, they kill one of my team and 2 others panic then run out and get themselves shot as well.

seeing more and more of this mod mentioned with high praise (and brutality!) - is it good?

Overall I think Xenonauts is better. That being said, I'm having a fun with Long War. I did end up checking one of the second wave options that increases the accuracy of the XCOM weaponry. I think is also reduces their chance to panic too. Its still been difficult but not to the point I'm banging my head against a wall. I could have dealt with the lower accuracy but my soldiers panicking every time they got shot at was quickly making me want to bang my ahead against aforementioned wall. I'm 5-6 hours in and I've already lost more soldiers then I ever did when I played vanilla XCOM. I've only had 1-2 missions where no one came home injured, but those are the exceptions. Your also forced to train rookies, since even when a soldier comes home uninjured they are still fatigued and unavailable for use for a few days.

Definitely worth a look next time you want to play XCOM.

Which version of XCOM uses the long road mod? I have the original 4 Microprose XCOM games, the UFO:Terrestrials one, and another whose name I can't remember - Xcom -Alert or something - a white and red box IIRC (I never got around to playing it :-[).

[Kushan]

Which version of XCOM uses the long road mod? I have the original 4 Microprose XCOM games, the UFO:Terrestrials one, and another whose name I can't remember - Xcom -Alert or something - a white and red both IIRC (I never got around to playing it :-[).

It uses the remake that Firaxis did a few years ago with the Enemy Within expansion. There is a version that doesn't require the expansion but it was a few versions out of date and didn't have all the features of the normal version. I think both games and the combined pack with both are still on sale on Steam until tomorrow.

[bob48]

L2 Design. Corps / Army level. Eastern Front. Big map. Now out of print. Much lusted over but hard to find game, an unpunched copy of which I have managed to get my paws on.

Great, great game. Essentially an uber-updated and enhanced version of Avalon Hill's classic, The Russian Campaign.

It does indeed look good, and I've now got all the counters clipped and have been having a good read of the rules. Soon, if I can find the space, I'll be setting it up for a first solo game to see how it all works out. :P

[MengJiao]

Nova East star party this weekend so I will be indulging my other hobby. When I get back Sunday I will continue honing my piloting skills in Rise of Flight in hope of eventually becoming competent enough to venture into multiplayer.

  This is closest to what I'll be doing since I'll be flying around in BoS.  At the moment I'm doing quick missions where I shoot up a convoy in a Yak-1.  All-in-all, I think the Yak is the best all-around plane for shooting up convoys in a quick mission.  It's enough of a fighter to hold off the 109s and it has a 1200 bullet magazine for the 50 cal which I use to finish off any stragglers after the rockets and cannons run out.

   On other fronts:  the eternal WITPAE PBEM -- lots of Japs showing up now, so I have to get on with the raids and offensives.

   And some boardgames -- probably mostly Hoplite.

  Well...hmmm...and that is exactly what happened.  More interest in boardgames lately.  I'll go post something down there.

[Huw the Poo]

Boggit

OK here's what I've been doing.  I'm not a hardcore player or anything and there are probably easier/quicker ways to make money, but this has at least got me started.

Select the Humble Merchant starting position; this gives you 1,000CR but more importantly two ships, an Argon Discoverer (M5 I believe) and an Argon Mercury (TS).  I think you start at Herron's Nebula; three sectors south of there is Ore Belt, which is a sector with one solar power plant and three ore mines.  This is where I brought my Mercury and started hauling energy between the SPP and the mines.  Buying energy at its lowest price (12CR) and selling at its highest (19CR) produces a profit of nearly 21,000CR per run.  You might occasionally want to venture north, east or west to flog the energy if the mines are well stocked.  For some reason I never see traders in Ore Belt so you have this corner of the market to yourself

It didn't take long before I had a few hundred thousand CR which meant I could start trading ore.  I got myself a trading system extension - from an Argon Equiment Dock, I believe - which allows me to see all prices in any sector in which I have presence, i.e. a ship or satellite.  At this point I parked my Discoverer in Home of Light to enable me to keep an eye on prices there, while still in my Mercury I started hauling ore from the mines.  I sold it either somewhere in Ore Belt or, if the prices weren't good enough, in Home of Light.

The price of ore varies wildly.  It's possible to make ~150CR profit per unit if you can buy it cheap enough and can find a factory that wants it badly enough.  The problem is ore gets used up very slowly, as far as I can tell, so you'll start running out of places to sell at a profit if you don't go a bit further afield.  The trading system extension is invaluable here.  Frustratingly, the AI merchants don't seem to like trading energy so you may have to do the occasional energy run to make sure the factories keep working and the ore mines keep producing.

One other thing I've been doing is deploying a satellite network.  There's a satellite factory in Argon Prime.  I've been buying satellites in my Discoverer and deploying them in various Argon sectors to make it easier for me to keep an eye on prices.  One satellite placed centrally per sector should be enough.  Now, what I should have done is bought another trading system extension for my Discoverer so that I could remotely trade with my Mercury while deploying satellites, but I didn't.  Or I could have bought Explorer software for my Discoverer so that I could have remotely deployed satellites while trading in my Mercury, but I didn't do that either, so I've lost out on a lot of efficiency there.

But anyway, that's where I've left things because I've been away for most of the weekend.  I have three or four sectors' worth of satellite network deployed and I'm happily trading away in my Mercury.  It's easy to make a few hundred thousand an hour now, so it won't be long before I have to make my next decision: buy another hauler and get some automated trading going, or get straight into the manufacturing business with my first factory. :)

My long term goal is to acquire a really good fighter and begin the storyline missions, as I understand the rewards for doing them are great.

[Boggit]

@Huw :)

That's excellent advice. Thanks for that. O0

I couldn't help thinking it also makes quite an interesting tale. Ever thought of starting an AAR thread about the game?

[Huw the Poo]

You're welcome Boggit!  Let me know how you get on.

An AAR is possible actually, however this is my first serious game post-Dota so it remains to be seen whether I'll stick to it...also I'm not doing anything even remotely interesting at the moment so it would have to wait a while. ;)

[Martok]

I finally got to play a little of the second Sovereignty beta yesterday, but nothing else.  I was gone the entire weekend, so no gaming for me. 

[TheCommandTent]

I finally got to play a little of the second Sovereignty beta yesterday, but nothing else.  I was gone the entire weekend, so no gaming for me.

Are you allowed to saying anything about the game to us?

[Boggit]

I finally got to play a little of the second Sovereignty beta yesterday, but nothing else.  I was gone the entire weekend, so no gaming for me.

Are you allowed to saying anything about the game to us?

@Martok :)
Yeah, you Tease! ;)