LadyCrimson

Pizza! That is all.

Finally, last quest step and I could save-scum to get a Living Ship! So I did. Lots and lots of solar system spawns tried. They're largely egg-shaped with a fish/crustacean influence or something. Example of rejected ones: I asked around, and apparently there cannot be a "tiny" version. They're all sorta that size, not many possible "parts", but with some variation in front shape and appendages, maybe a few more unique colors, stuff like that. So I just picked the first one that didn't make me go "ugh." They have no large advantage, not my style, so not sure I'll keep it. Altho they do look kinda cool from side/behind if 3rd-person flying, but I never do that. Also I was wrong and there is a way to farm more but not worth the steps/cost/bother (unless one really really likes them, ofc).

Sadly no. But you can recolor some wall panels, and ofc your outfit. Although even there the choices are very very limited. Like 4-8 color/accent combos limited. It's purely RNG what a planet/system/space station generates, based on some seed. Re: interceptors, once you know what a system/planet spawns, every single one on that planet will be of the exact same look/design, just the class tier may vary. So if you like it, you can keep doing the routine/looking for their sites to get an "S" class version. if you don't like it, you leave and try RNG of another system. There's probably exceptions but generally. Anyway, I've seen vids of Mini-Cylon in blue and green. There's also a few other mini or at least smaller, interceptor designs, I think the one I found might be the most common. I might try to find a different one, but the more I look the harder it is to stick to 5 total ships. And I still haven't found a Squid Exotic. Edit: should say the ship/freighter maybe other seed RNG is pre-determined across the entire bazillion planets. Or "sticks" somehow. Thus if you find something kewl there's a way to share a solar system address with other players so they can try to find it there too. I haven't used that method yet tho.

Most alien interceptor ships have a variation of this kind of look/size: (their game appeal is they can true-hover, so good surface explorers) Meet Mini-Cylon: (needs a better name) Current three main ships. If I can get a small Living Ship I'll replace the larger interceptor. I try to stick to 5 total owned. Also: freighter npc's (they're largely deco) have thoughts. Which is kinda funny sometimes.

What? Who? *looks* Oh ... that seems to be a 90's remake/new version of the series, not the '59-'63 series. Never saw that. Actually, I didn't know it existed. Not that it's surprising, given the now popular story/history period. Outside of Robert Stack's series all I knew of was that Costner/Connery movie.

I found a YT channel that has all the seasons of Unsolved Mysteries. Nostalgic to see a few episodes. Robert Stack was perfect as a host of such a program. I used to love In Search Of (Nimoy host) too. Maybe I can find those. Seeing Mr. Stack makes me want to watch Untouchables (old TV series). I haven't seen that in forever, and don't think I ever saw all of it. Might be fun to revisit.

Opened Steam. "Tales of Arise"-Update Required. Hm. So, a new large DLC/expansion, two years later? Ok, I had a mostly great time with it back then. $30 and stand alone gameplay, not a continue from your finished save? So like a quarter or half sized new game with the same characters? Mmm...I'll wait for a sale. This is a case where too much time = not a large drive to have it right away. Interesting that they made such after so long tho. No Man's Sky: ---obsessed for a while re: finding a small Interceptor ship (RNG stuff). Most of them are large-ish. Finally found one. Yay. It's not very pretty, but I like tiny ships. I must have all the tiny ship versions. I even have a "Hauler" that has no tail and no wings, it's like a chunky misshapen blue potato. ---now working on getting a "living ship." A questline that has several steps. Each step has a few tasks that take maybe 10-15 minutes, but then also has a waiting stage of ... 15-20 hours or so. Each step. Like, wait for something to hatch/grow. It's a bit of a silly time padder. Better be a really kewl ship. I hear one may be able to use a reload trick to make sure you like the one you get, because you only get one shot per character/save I think. I want a tiny one. >.> ---other than that, still just flying around/messing around in the giant sandbox. It never ends, and I don't want it to.

YT threw a video on this topic up for me, and I went "oh no, no more Zero/Extra Punctuation?" Then the video mentioned the new channel. I immediately bookmarked it. I do agree with Wormerine that Zero P. series hasn't been as good lately (but Extra was still interesting) but still, I like his snark in those. And yeah, his stuff is the only reason I knew Escapist existed. >.> It's nice to hear of the solidarity of their team tho. I wish them luck.

I like it when zombies somehow never managed to lose their hats off their head when they died, or in all the days/months they've been lurching around as a zombie. Or maybe zombies covet hats as reminders of better days and go around picking them up, moaning "braiiiinnnnsss, braiiiinsss ... haaaaaaaat!" It's even better if the game lets you loot/take their hat to wear yourself. Not that they typically allow that, but just saying.

Hubby's back is worse again so kinda tough there. My niece is nearing hospice territory. It also crossed my mind that my sister will be 70 before too long. Buncha other "mortality" reminders this week. I saw this, and thought "what a maudlin, kinda boring song," but by the time it ended I was bawling (both the sentiment and that the Beatles music was a big part of my kid life because of siblings - I remember where I was when the news of Lennon's death aired).

Interesting. I might give it a shot. I've considered getting one of those "really old fart" not-smart/no-screen/giant numbers mobile phones and the cheapest mobile plan to go with it possible and use that as a registering number, tossing the phone in a box in the garage. But eh. Sidenote: I remember how much I loved it when I bought one of those super long curly landline phone handset cords. 12 feet or more, I think it was. I could walk around my whole room while on the phone for hours with my friends, instead of being stuck by the wall/on a chair. it was amazing!

Does that actually work. I used to have a 2nd landline for stuff like this, which no phone was connected to. My Steam account is still attached to it, even tho it doesn't exist anymore. I'm not one of those old skool privacy nerds. Privacy was always an illusion, even when before the internet. You were just as careful as one could reasonably be. But darnit, my old fart principles say mobile phone requirements for everything under the sun have gone haywire and I won't play that game. I know I'm a mega minority tho, lol. Pretty soon you'll need it just to register to a forum like this one.

No, it's not the phone. No one asks for just a phone number anymore, that's probably worth nothing now. It's the mobile phone. If you recall, I didn't even have one until 2-3 years ago. The one I have is barely touched, it gets nothing but spam (mostly from Kaiser, man they are spammy), and because of that, unless I know hubby may want to call, the volume is always off so I wouldn't hear it anyway. I've gone this long without relying on/giving out a "mobile phone" to anyone re: "shopping"/goods and I'm sticking with that until I die. Also, they aren't a bank or a hospital. There is zero need for them to require a phone number to deliver some canned goods and soup stock, and that pathetic excuse they gave as the reason is, well, pathetic. I checked regular Amazon Prime, and at least for the moment, there is still no such requirement for "mobile phone" if I try to order something from there. Probably won't be long tho.

Tried to order Amazon Fresh. They now keep tossing up a page before checkout re: "give us mobile number so driver can text you if a substitution needs to be made." I tried checking "don't substitute" on all items. Still wants it, can't get past that requirement page. FU. So long, Amazon Fresh. Back to hoofing it to the store.

MAX, previously known as HBO/Max, had a bunch of the more recent seasons of Chopped, a cooking competition show. I used to like that, even if I skipped half the bits to watch only the bits I enjoyed. So it's now become my "while I cook/eat" tablet-background show. I typically dislike or find game shows dull but there's something weirdly interesting re: the "here's some random weird mix of ingredients, make something in 30 minutes" format. I'd like a show where they did that but with less of the manufactured competition factor.

Ghostwire Tokyo - --Installed. Oh it has Ansel! Wait and its own photomode on top. which does not play well with Ansel/Ansel doesn't seem to work quite properly. Ok, their more limited photomode it is. --Performance - get rid of all the blur: turn off chromatic aberration, DoF, sharpened my TV a little. On my rig I seem to manage what I might call default/High 4k with reflection-ray tracing on medium (kept the RT shadows off) and DLSS at Quality while maintaining 60fps. Still looks good, and with the tight mega-city/often rainy environment, all the reflections do add some atmosphere. If no RT/no DLSS, hovers close to 60. --Tutorial phase: on rails, invisible walls and "don't go into the fog!" until you do initial tasks. --magic finger casting combat, using a controller, while simple aim and shoot spell, feels weird. Like latency or something about button mashing timing I'm unclear on. ---visuals: so far looks nice, not cutting edge but atmospheric and nice, but most of the attention is in the city details. Rendered cutscenes, human chr. faces can often look comically bad. ---I like the Japanese VA for the whatever it is giving your chr. powers (like a ghost possession?) Tutorial phase is far as I got. Mostly I'm in it for the city (and eventually, rooftop?) wandering and photomode. I heard the "true open wandering" is semi-limited until you finish story or something.

Still NMS, just less frequently now. Started doing the freighter fleet expeditions just to get all frigates to "S" class. They seem to level up fast, won't take too many rounds of missions. I'm at 500,000 LY away from center of galaxy. Slowed down on that, would rather wander planets. OH OH OH just now looked and Ghostwire Tokyo is finally on sale again, for $20. Time to buy!

I guess I have to decide semi-soon if I'm going to try to keep my YT account or let them one day delete it. Technically they can do so if you don't log in for two years, although it's always possible they wouldn't get around to it 'cause you're too small fry for them to notice. I have a secondary account that I haven't touched in like 13 years and I just checked - it seems to still technically exist. Edit: did I say already that the doc's think the steroid injections would do nothing for hubby? That local anesthetic shot didn't help him thus....may have to get a smoother ride car if he still has to do long drives twice a month. Either that or move back to the Bay Area next year and rent this one out instead etc. Or something. Just don't know what'll happen. I most certainly don't want to move again but oh well.

Alan Wake 2 - the latest game to make everyone cry about official "next ten" system requirements. eg, more of that notion that some dev's decided to take any extra powah to stuff games with more unnecessary (and more diminished returns) effects or whatever and relying on DLSS/FSR to get 30-60fps on even 2 generation old rigs. Unrelated: I put the first three Tombraiders remastered in my wishlist but I have no idea what to think/expect. It might be nice to have slightly updated version of those - their screenshots on Steam's page don't look overdone - but depends on how much they alter, if anything.

...let's see. My "starting" solar system was around 650k LY. I've made it this far. ...at approx. 1900LY a jump, I still have around 290 jumps left. I do 10-15 jumps per day before I get bored staring at those long warp load screens and explore a single planet for a while instead. So I might reach the center in 24 more real-life days. Altho, I've been assuming that number is for "center of". I suppose it might be a total diameter instead, which would halve the time. No clue. I don't even want to stay at the Center, I hear it's "already discovered by," MP-ppl crowded. I just want to get there once, then I'll teleport back to my totally empty/undiscovered middle-areas. ...there are apparently 250ish different Galaxies. I think I shall confine myself/remain in this "starter" Euclid one. I can't imagine I would ever land on all planets in just this single galaxy. What in the world would I do with 250 (pretty much all the same)? >.> Maybe I can discover all the rest of Euclid and annoy new players with 75% of planets (not in Center) being discovered by "me." ...Yesterday I hit two planets in one system that had robotic animals I'd never seen before. Kinda like exotic, funny-hyper, robotic dogs. I of course adopted one of each type.

No Man's Sky has filled my chill-game-vibe needs for a while. But I'm still waiting for news on Avowed. Hopefully I won't need a 4090 to just try it.

Things I do in NMS: (not all in one day...) ----spend a couple hours mining out all the stalagmites in dark caves for a few stacks of copper because I find it peaceful. There are automated base-ways to get resources dribbled to you to reduce such "grind," but to me, that's no fun. ---spend a few hours cleaning up/deleting etc. all my small planet bases, descriptive naming ones I want to keep, etc. With bajillions of planets/systems, gotta be mindful of the base and object limitations. ---spend two hours standing in/reloading a space station hoping that cute Shuttle ship it spawned, would finally fly in, as an S class version. It didn't. I finally had to upgrade an A to S manually. ---spend an hour agonizing over what ships to keep/delete in collection. Chicken Nugget is still my #1/main ship tho. Only one I've maxed out. ---spend three hours wandering planet surfaces farming base deco-glitch formations and just admiring views ---spend a few hours max warp-distance jumping from solar system to solar system trying to get closer to the center of the Galaxy. Only 610k light years to go. It would go faster if I wasn't so easily distracted by exploring a planet now and then.

I found this tiny creature pet. It was so cute/hilarious, not so much in looks but in the miniature keystone-cop running to keep up with me. I loved it. Then I forgot about it for a little while. Finally summoned/pulled it out again and...apparently it grew up. Which is cool, but it's not cute/funny anymore. The game itself tells you straight up. Still, hey, don't tell me what I can/can't do. Only about 18,446,744,073,709,551,423 to go! I got this! Bubble planets are cool to wander around in. It's such a "zen" game, if you want it to be.

I got a new Star Destroyer Freighter on my main save. Seemingly you must have space combat active (maybe also on Standard, not Minimal) so every 5 system warps or so you get a rescue-freighter when you drop out of warp, which is when these bigger ones may show up. I lucked out and got the biggest version of this Capital style after four reloads/retries, but once again it's only an A-class, not S, but since I suck at the ship combat, I'll take it. Mostly more starting cargo space so less work to max that out (33 vs. 19 starting, in my case) + looks, altho stats/combat abilities do go up a little too. I wish you weren't limited to only having one/your previous goes poof (can't collect them). I suppose you could try to get a different style in multiple saves. Anyhoo, I can now go back to ignoring space combat on this save.

Since Paramount put up the first episode on YT for free viewing, I watched the new Fraiser premiere. It was cool to see Kelsey Grammer in the role again, and he slid into it like a comfy old glove. But I laughed not once, although I probably smiled several times. The new chrs - well, let's say they didn't engage me. I'd have serious doubts whether it'll stick around for more than one season but who knows. The best thing about the first episode was the dedication to John Mahoney.