Humanoid

The threat of Thinmen subsides is reasonable time, yeah. But early on, with only conventional weapons and grenades, they present a new challenge. Rockets aside, nothing in your arsenal is capable of reliably taking them out in one hit due to the extra HP they have (4hp in classic and 6hp in impossible). Arguably the +1 they get for classic probably means more as it means doubling the firepower required to kill them: whether 4 or 6 hp, it's two grenade or on average two shots with ballistic weapons. And as per any difficulty, it's harder to flank them and easier for them to flank you due to their extra mobility. The risk of a panic chain is also much larger and is arguably the bigger threat from the poison, as opposed to the actual damage. Unfortunately it also means they promote somewhat boring play early on: the scripted ones in council missions in particular are best dealt with by mass overwatch fire the moment they spawn, so it enforces the strict conga-line strategy even moreso than usual.

I don't know what about Wals has done this to me, but now I'm also tempted by another gadget, the Asus Transformer Book T100. Yeah, it looks like one of those woefully underpowered netbooks from years gone by, but with Bay Trail, it looks as if Intel finally has Atom performance at a point where it's useful for more than being a punchline in a joke. I'd prefer it a little larger than 10" (oooh, matron), but at under $400, when I'd been sort of thinking about alternatives like the Dell XPS 12 and Lenovo Helix/Yoga/whatever convertibles at well over $1000, it's probably a safe investment. The gimmick isn't new, the form factor isn't new, but for my purposes I just needed the design translated into a Wintel machine instead of the ubiquitous ARM-Android devices. It also means I no longer have to umm and ahh over whether the Haswell notebook I intend to purchase next year should be a ~12" device like the aforementioned, it probably seals my choice of a Lenovo T440s.

Technically you can get up to three rockets - shredder rocket adds one (albeit with different properties), and another normal one with Rocketeer. The double grenade one isn't taken so much either, but is also a viable choice. Regardless though, one rocket makes a huge difference, and there typically are only 6-8 aliens (typically in three packs) in early missions anyway. That one rocket is therefore potentially up to 1/3rd of the mission objective completed in one shot. The poor aim part is true, but is more than compensated for by the Bullet Swarm ability which can be taken very early. I mean Assaults get two shots a turn too, but it requires a higher level, is restricted to one target, and gives an aim penalty to each shot (which probably takes each shot to under the hit chance of each of the heavy's). And while less ammo is annoying, Bullet Swarm also means you get more opportunities to reload - i.e. no one else can fire then reload in the same turn. Aside, it's common practice to take the heavy's actions last in each turn. Arguably their greatest asset is insurance - let the rest of your squad try to kill all the aliens earlier in the turn (keeping resource waste to a minimum), and if that fails, either finish them with your rocket or suppress them (and you can shoot then suppress in the one turn, bonus). More of a fun fact than a tip, but rockets and suppression count for the purpose of Holo-targetting. While skipping Bullet Swarm for Holo-targetting makes for an extremely speclaiised heavy, it can be oodles of fun. Fire a rocket (danger zone!) to take our a bunch of cover, then have an In The Zone sniper take *all* of the aliens out without spending a single action.

By pure coincidence I ended up buying two new SSDs today. Wasn't planning to bite so soon, but eh, $10 off each as long as I buy two in deal ending today, so why not. Samsung 840 EVO 250GB for $175AUD and a regular 840 120GB for $89AUD, that's cheaper than the cheapest prices listed on that part picker site, even if you take the exchange rate as 1:1. It isn't, so it works out even cheaper comparatively to me. And that's with 10% tax. So yeah, no brainer in the end. The smaller drive will go in my planned NAS (if and when it goes ahead), and the EVO will probably be my Steam drive, as at the moment my Steam games are kind of split between my spindle drive and another SSD. Both the spindle drive (it's only 800GB) and that SSD are full, so I really should grab another of each, but the WD Red 4TB was only just released so I'll wait a bit to make sure there are no technical issues discovered with it. If I was lazy I'd use it as a system drive instead to replace my decrepit, near-four-year-old Indilinx SSD. Kind of sad, but it's now by far the weakest of the three that will be in my system. I also really shouldn't think about it, but that 120GB G.Skill Falcon 2 Indilinx drive I bought in January 2010 for $400+. And now I've bought a 120GB drive for $89. It stings a bit, given I'd get change out of $400 buying a 500GB drive now, but no regrets, I wouldn't change things if I could go back. EDIT: Don't let anyone tell you they aren't addictive. By my count I've now installed nine of them in various systems. My desktop - 120GB G.Skill Falcon 2, 256GB Crucial m4, 250GB Samsung 840 EVO Old laptop - 250GB Samsung 830 HTPC - 128GB Crucial m4 NAS - 120GB Samsung 120 Old desktop I revived - 60GB Corsair Force 3 (was an RMA) Parents' PC (gift) - 120GB Intel 320 Sister's PC (gift) - 120GB Samsung 840

They did for all the Bullfrog games a few weeks ago, so Dungeon Keeper, Magic Carpet and Populous also got their expansions. They've also added other EA-owned expansions over the past couple years, which I was not also aware of, such as Privateer and Wing Commander, not sure if Strike Commander's was there from the start.

The game I would compare Fallout 3 to is Super Mario Bros 2. Not a terrible game as such, but only superficially related to the rest of the series. I argue this because I feel what Bethesda did was to create a pretty dang reasonable post-apocalyptic gameworld, while incorporating elements of Fallout lore without really understanding how it all fits together. I've posted some of this before somewhere here, so I'm repeating myself somewhat, but for example, the world they built feels like one fairly recently devastated by the bombs, and would have been a good setting for such a game story. But as a sequel to Fallout 2 they had to shove the timeline further into the future, to the point where the devastation no longer felt fitting to the backstory given. This hurt the game. They took MacGuffin-like concepts like water purification and the GECK, and shoehorned them into their story. While nods to previous games are not unwelcome, tributes are better presented as side-plots or even easter-eggs, rather than something that takes over the entire plot. This hurt the game. And the old timey-time stuff - well in the end it's pretty irrelevant. It's put in there almost as an afterthought, and while I don't think it's necessarily bad, it's hardly something that makes the game either. In the end I think in that, in terms of the product at least, it was a bit of a lose-lose. Old-time Fallout fans can with some justification rail against a good portion of what Bethesda has done to the property. But the opposite is also true - in trying to keep at least some elements of Fallout into their post-apocalyptic game, they made a game that wasn't as good as it could, and indeed probably should have been. There's some damn good world-building in Fallout 3, with lovely little subtle environmental touches. But they're elements that needed no context, and that would have worked just as well, if not better, under its own, new title. If I was to present this viewpoint as a troll, I would say "hurr durr, that stupid Fallout stuff ruined Bethesda's game." I've heard the plotting of Fallout 3 be described as what one would expect of a Fallout fanfiction, and I don't think that's unreasonable.

Their 100% chance to hit AoE poison spit is the biggest offender, feels like almost guaranteed panic at the level some of your squad will inevitably be when first encountering them (which will probably be your first council mission). They also wield light plasma rifles (even though the character model uses a pistol), which means they get an extra 10% chance to hit *on top* of the 10% higher chances to hit all aliens get all round compared to easy/normal. That extra 20% is why they tend to get singled out by people complaining about sniping thinmen one-shotting their squad over high cover at long range. I've seen solid advice that if your first council mission is bomb disposal on higher difficulties, it may be better to skip it. There's little penalty for skipping council missions, unlike most anything else, and the scripted Thinman ambush once you disarm the bomb has a very high chance of overwhelming your tired squad.

Marantz make slimline receivers if what you're asking for is something less bulky than the usual. They're pretty much fully featured, though obviously you pay a little premium for the privilege. This is their basic unit, which is more than good enough for your needs. Bear in mind that all hi-fi electronics tend to get almost-annual refreshes in the product line, so if you find a dealer selling last year's model for cheap, jump on it. Onkyo receivers run particularly hot and so require more ventilation than normal, so given the same circumstances I'd give them a miss. I like Onkyo and run a unit myself, but I admit it's pretty ugly having a big gap above it in my entertainment unit.

No idea, never used that site before. But yeah, just sorted the list by price and picked the cheapest 8GB option. I suppose SSDs are one of those things one is conditioned into. The broader appreciation factor is more down to responsiveness rather than load times as such - it makes the difference in feel between a shiny new toy and an old clunker. But yeah, dropping it is a straightforward enough change, and either pocket the savings or go back to the FX.

For reference, the stated differences in difficulty are listed here. But that's not the full story. For a while there's been no good comprehensive listing on the hidden mechanics in your favour in easy/normal, but there is now. Copied for convenience: All of the below only apply if you have four soldiers or less in play: Easy & Normal modes Chance to hit is 120% of the displayed value. Hence if you see 84% or above, the shot should always hit. Alien aim get a cumulative -10% for every consecutive hit on your units, resetting when they miss. Easy mode only Missing a shot which had at least a 50% chance to connect adds +15% to the next such shot you make, cumulative. The counter resets when a shot hits, and is capped at 30%. Your aim is increased by four minus the amount of soldiers you have, times 15%. Hence having one soldier in play grants him a +45% aim bonus. Alien aim is reduced by four minus the amount of soldiers you have, times 25%. Hence having one soldier in play grants him a +75% defence. Normal mode only Missing a shot which had at least a 50% chance to connect adds +15% to the next such shot you make, cumulative. The counter resets when a shot hits, but otherwise has no cap. If on easy with exactly four soldiers active, or normal with four or less, shots with a stated accuracy higher then 95% are capped down to 95% - unless they would reach 100% or more, in which case they are unaffected and should always hit. Adjustments are made on a side-wide basis - for example, if a given soldier misses, he's not the only one who could benefit from the resulting bonus for your team's next shot.

I think most hi-fi speakers at 6ohm actually, and most mainstream AVRs are not rated to go lower - as in they'll probably work but are not warranted for it. Many HTIB type packages like you see in the box movers like HN go even lower, a Sony system I know of is 3ohm for example.

Hmm, I stand corrected, they're 8ohm satellites, assuming you're talking about the Gigaworks S750. Unusual for all-in-one systems, but does mean you can probably drive them safely with an off-the-shelf amp. I think the speaker cable terminates in a 1/8" stereo jack? You'd just snip them off I guess, and hopefully there's an easy indication of which wire is which....

And refudiate.

The satellites will probably have such low impedence they'd blow up any amp you attached them to. Throw them in the bin.

Heavies are better the higher the difficulty setting. Would go so far as to say they're the most important early-game class. When I played normal I thought they were a liability too, because you're thinking in that RPG-hoarding mode of "oh I could use the heavy, but then I can use anyone else and keep the weapon fragment drops." But in classic and impossible, the equation is changed, it's about nailing that alien, in *this* turn, at all costs. And so your options are a ~25% shot over high cover to take away half that Thinman's health, or a 90% chance rocket hit to kill it outright. There are more aliens per level in higher levels, so it more than compensates for the loss in weapon fragments. I'd advise against going normal mode after doing easy. They're so similar it's no real gain (your monthly income is reduced, a couple more aliens to kill per mission, and I think the hidden dodge buff your guys get when their colleagues die in a mission is gone) and you'll just get bored. Try non-Ironman classic mode and see how you go. You may well die a few times over in the very first mission, but the goal here is to change how you think the situation through tactically. Hint: grenade everything you can't flank, treat low cover as desperation, and start using hunker down.

Not sure if the AMD stock cooler for the FX series is the same as the one that shipped with my A10, but if so, it's not a sound I'd like to hear again. That said, the Coolermaster's stock fan is pretty rubbish too. Fortunately you can replace it with a standard 120mm fan of any brand, the usual value option being the Nexus fan. The unfortunate aspect here is AMD's tardiness in getting away from the aging AM3 platform - it chews more power than it should, its feature set is falling behind (no USB3 for example), and no future upgrade path. The FM2 platform is more up to date, but for now lacks anything more powerful than APUs (or the Athlon CPUs harvested from them - the Athlon X4 760 is a nice budget option, but we're looking for something a tier above 'budget'). That said, it's interesting: PCPartPicker part list: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/1Q2Xw Price breakdown by merchant: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/1Q2Xw/by_merchant/ Benchmarks: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/1Q2Xw/benchmarks/ CPU: AMD Athlon II X4 760K 3.8GHz Quad-Core Processor ($77.00 @ Amazon) CPU Cooler: Silverstone AR01 81.4 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler ($33.99 @ Amazon) Motherboard: Asus A88XM-A Micro ATX FM2+ Motherboard ($79.99 @ SuperBiiz) Memory: Kingston Blu Red Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1333 Memory ($48.96 @ NCIX US) Storage: Samsung 840 EVO 120GB 2.5" Solid State Disk ($99.99 @ Amazon) Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($59.98 @ Outlet PC) Video Card: XFX Radeon HD 7950 3GB Video Card ($179.99 @ Newegg) Case: Silverstone PS08B (Black) MicroATX Mid Tower Case ($34.90 @ Amazon) Power Supply: SeaSonic G 550W 80 PLUS Gold Certified ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply ($59.00 @ Newegg) Optical Drive: Asus DRW-24B1ST/BLK/B/AS DVD/CD Writer ($16.98 @ Outlet PC) Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 (OEM) (64-bit) ($87.99 @ NCIX US) Total: $778.77 My personal biases are obviously showing, there are some great deals out there, which makes me so envious of American prices. I mean I had a Define R4 case in that list at one point, $80 for that was a steal. And the G550 PSU I couldn't give up, so I didn't. Best option under $100 by a country mile. Probably biggest concern for me personally there is video card noise. Plonked in the cheapest 7950 there, the price was too good such that if noise was an issue, it'd be better value buying an Arctic Cooling for it anyway. Not everyone shares my view that SSDs are essential, but if the task is selling this project to the guy's wife - well it's the one thing that could totally turn around the Wife Appreciation Factor.

Been a couple years since I went through a similar thing, and the Blu-ray playback was by far the most complicated thing to get right. Audio is pretty simple, two options - that is, two options worth their salt. PC -> AVR -> Passive speakers Traditionally yes, you would get an AV Receiver, then bitstream the audio signal via HDMI from the PC (and any other devices you have) to it, leaving it to do all the audio processing, so no need for a sound card in this scenario. The budget here should mostly be spent on the speakers - spend the bare minimum on the AVR and the most you can afford on speakers. A basic Yamaha, Pioneer, Denon, Onkyo, whatever, the difference is tiny compared to what difference the speakers make. For the entry level, say a budget of $500, my personal pick is the Monitor Audio BX2 - or at least, that's what I ended up with. I thought that the Paradigm Atoms sounded lovely but would probably need a sub since sizewise they're a class below the BX2. I've also bought a pair of Usher S520 bookshelves for my parents which I'm pretty impressed with (though I admit that the motivation chiefly was that the local was clearing them out cheap). But really, there are dozens of options out there which I doubt will disappoint, the limiting factor being local availability and how much time you're willing to spend listening to them (and I mean properly listening to them, bring in your own music to the specialist stores and spend a good amount of time with them). PC -> Sound Card -> Active speakers Simpler but obviously far less expandable is the traditional "computer speaker" setup. Sound card is technically optional, but recommended under this scenario. Choice of speakers is not nearly so large as the selection of passive speakers, but there are a few good options. Aktimate Mini, Audioengine A5, Paradigm Shift A2. Bear in mind that one of the appeals of passive speakers is that it's easy to repurpose them later on - i.e. buy bookshelves as front speakers initially, then later upgrade to floorstanders and use the old speakers for the rear channels. The idea of floorstanders, if you have room for them, is pretty appealing in that it makes it easier to get away without a sub. Of course, if you can stretch a bit, go for floorstanders right off the bat, there are a number of good options at a bit under the $1k mark.

How does one answer the question "are you adopted" on a scale of 1 to 5? At any rate, I'm 10% more of a redshirt than Gorth, so take that! (And by that, I mean, take that, me! *ow*) Random, but amused me more than it should have. A translation of a Chinese review of the new R9 290X video card features the game "Subway: Peripheral Vision". Fortunately the context made it clear what that was a mis-retranslation of, which spared me confusion, but not mirth. The game, of course, is Metro: Last Light.

Poor Gamebryo takes a lot of flak due to the perception that it's Bethesda's engine used for those games. But Gamebryo itself is actually a pretty solid, if comparatively barebones product. It's used in products as diverse as Civilization 4, Epic Mickey, Rocksmith, and Catherine. It's said that what we label as Gamebryo is a misnomer for something Bethesda has taken, and, over several iterations, heavily added their own features to. (Or perhaps more accurately, taken and heavily added their own bugs to). And maybe this information could be better sourced, but Skyrim's Creation engine is just a name given to that beast once these was enough of it to justify a new moniker. Disclaimer in that this is all second hand information, yada yada.

Maybe I spoke too soon. I've been thinking about it, and might go ahead and build myself a NAS before the year is out. My HTPC's storage is pretty much saturated, and has always been pretty cumbersome - 2x4TB internal drives, 4x2TB drives in an external enclosure, and 2x3TB external HDDs - so it's been a long time coming. Thing is, I knew, and indeed know, very little about NASes. But no matter, I'll dive in and learn as I go. I assume I'll be using FreeNAS or whatever OS is the fashion these days. Obviously my needs are somewhat different than the typical home NAS. I don't really care the slightest bit about functionality beyond being a pure data store for the time being. So consumer NASes are out: anything beyond four bays, which is about the limit as far as reasonable prices go, is right out. So are the ubiquitous HP microserver-based builds, which only house four drives. So realistically the only thing I can go for is a custom build. Provisionally: AMD A4 APU on the A88X platform I wanted to go with a "real" drop-in CPU for a variety of reasons: flexibility, performance, and upgradability - especially considering that if I decide this NAS business is not a keeper, it'd be easier to repurpose such a box. I went with AMD over Intel primarily because the A85X/A88X (the difference is compatibility with future "Kaveri" APUs for the latter) offers eight SATA ports as opposed to six for the Intel platforms (and I do mean *all* Intel platforms). I already have six HDDs to transfer into it, plus the SSD I'll need as the system drive, I'd prefer not to have to deal with SATA expansion cards immediately. The fact that AMD is cheaper is just icing. Fractal Design Define R4 case and Seasonic G360 PSU I initially considered the smaller Define Mini, but I need all the 3.5" bays I can get. So for a box that'll just sit in a corner somewhere out of sight and out of mind, I don't mind the extra bulk. The Mini is the case I'd use if I were to build a new desktop system for myself today, for what it's worth. The Seasonic G360 is peerless in its class. Granted, not many competitors even make such a low output model, but it's still an excellent, near silent product that I'd recommend for even proper gaming systems (provided they use no more than one mid-range video card). Silverstone AR01 CPU cooler A full height tower cooler might seem ridiculous overkill for a NAS, but I'm not taking any chances with noise. I was very much unsatisfied with the acoustics and performance of the stock AMD cooler for the A10 system I built (for someone else) a few months ago. I'll use one of the Nexus 120mm fans I have lying around as it's superior to the stock Silverstone one. At the loads the CPU will encounter in this application, I could try running fanless, but it's probably not worth the effort since I'll have case fans to cool the hard drives anyway. I have no particular attachment to this particular cooler, it's just the cheapest 120mm tower cooler I can conveniently get my hands on. (For anyone looking for an excellent but affordable cooler in general, I recommend whichever is the cheapest for you between this and the Coolermaster Hyper 212, though I recommend buying your own 120mm fan for either of them rather than using the stock one. That said, the Silverstone stock fan is better than the Coolermaster one.) Netcomm NP504 Ethernet over Powerline adapters This is probably the reason I'm been umming and ahhing so much about the idea of a NAS: my HTPC is connected via wi-fi, and I live in a rental so installing in-wall ethernet ports is not an option. So it's high time I tried this. Fortunately I'll only need a pair of them, I'll arrange it so the NAS, my desktop, and my router/switch are in the same room.

46 days remaining, started with 60 days? Good god, some projects just seem to run pointlessly long drives. Not that I won't back it anyway, because that's a thing I do, but yeah, don't they want their money sooner? Aside, finally received my box of Shadowrun Returns swag. The game box and Doc Wagon card were a bit cheap and flimsy compared to what I expected, but on the other hand, the USB dogtags and Anthology book were better than I expected to make up for it (the shirt, well, it's a shirt). Not unhappy at all, and that is a lot of swag for $150. P.S The font used on that character creator thing stabbed my eyeballs.

It's not even in the regular options as far as I know. http://www.youtube.com/html5

Pretty much, yeah. I *want* to spend, but the stuff out there really doesn't justify it yet. I mean it's like a laundry list of stuff I *should* be getting, but am not for one reason or another. One overriding one is the relative weakness of the Aussie dollar - down about 15% from the highs of last year. Not a huge amount, but still a disincentive to spend, whether it be importing from overseas or buying locally. I want more RAM, after one of my four sticks died this year I'm down to 4GB from 8GB. But the prices have been stupid since January, so I'm not going to bite. I want more storage, both spindle and solid state (or two). But WD's 4TB Red drive took over a year longer to come out than its competitors, and I'm still waiting for reviews on that. And there's nothing too exciting in the SSD arena: Crucial and Samsung have new(ish) mainstream ones with good capacity, but the Crucial M500 is outperformed by its predecessor, and the Samsung EVO uses less durable TLC NAND. The pick for performance is probably the Sandisk Extreme II, but the lack of competition is disappointing. But I should probably get a new platform first anyway before buying a shiny new boot drive. Speaking of which: Haswell. What a damp squib that turned out to be. Great for mobile applications, but almost a pointless release on the desktop - at least in terms of a "tock" (Ivy was a worse upgrade, but at least it's understandably so). And of course, AMD have done nothing outside the APU arena except for the silly stunt with the 200W+ overclocked chips. I'm ready to upgrade from my first gen Lynnfield - if not for performance, for new features like UEFI boot, USB3 and SATA3. but not when all on offer is this. And Intel's chipsets are still rationing out those ports as if we were in a world war anyway. And in other miscellaneous tech, Blu-ray burners continue to be pointless with stupid media prices, there are still no "legitimate" 120Hz non-TN LCD panels, the post-LCD display techs are still AWOL, and there aren't any GPUs that can reasonably push demanding games at 4k (quad-SLI Titan doesn't count as "reasonable"). Anyhow, rant over. And I actually did buy a piece of tech: another Logitech M570 trackball. I have one for my HTPC, and have bought the new one to replace the wired equivalent I was using for my laptop. I don't know why people gush about Valve discovering a new way to control your console/PC in the living room, the tech's been in production for decades.

Not sure what the difficulty is with climbing - are you trying to interact with the ladder itself? Don't, climbing is a free move, just change the elevation view and click the destination tile. A little ridiculous that it costs no more movement points to move one tile on level ground as it does one tile up onto a building, I know, but that's just how it is.

Blatantly stolen info: Kill XP is 30xp, double if it's a rookie, squaddie, corporal or sergeant killing a later-game alien (Chryssalids and later). Buyable perk increases values by 25%. (Note it's no XP at all for stunning an alien) Mission success is 60xp for regular missions, and 120 for 'special' ones like plot missions and terror missions. +50% one time bonus for soldiers encountering later-game aliens for the first time. Flat 20xp bonus for no casualties. And yes, correct on the engineers. Indeed it's conventional wisdom to *never* take scientists or build laboratories: early game you can't afford them, and late game you're mostly done researching anyway. Capturing more than one of each alien gives you their weapon only (at the cost of kill XP). I very much enjoyed my (so far only) classic ironman run (which I did after a normal normal run first up, which got boring towards the end). It was with patch 1.2, and bugs were pretty minimal - and while 1.3 was a buggy mess, it should be more stable now than when I played. Would recommend it every time.