Malcador

Could use a better name. So I guess the next Baywatch reboot will be about drone pilots...makes sense, more chance for drama as they sit in control rooms.

Condolences anyway LC

I guess I have a different idea of what a booming economy is supposed to be. G&S raking in more doesn't really help everyone after all. The economy in the US improved last year, but it has been doing that for a while (granted I suppose it'd have to after 08-09, heh). Hm I guess you can attribute people's attitude to him in some way. Saw a report interviewing Trump supporters in some ****hole Midwest town, they said it was a great economy and when the reporter said the boom didn't seem local they responded with faith that it'd get better. But we all know what hope is

Stellaris. Got screwed on my start, as I had little colonizeable planets near me but my neighbour sure does. I did manage to research enough to adjust my population's preferences but then that sparked a declaration by the superpower alliance, so I guess that game is done.

Not sure the economy is booming in the US, or even if what it is now is due to Trump. Is quite a lag between any politician doing anything and the economy changing, usually.

Well, that depends on the porn star. Stormy Daniels Man, not even a good pick. Damn meshback.

It is annoying when some DDoS attack prevents you from playing SP, is more common for me than local connectivity issues, having some problem with the service itself.

Well, that depends on the porn star.

Well, whatever it takes to wind him up, I guess.

Nothing new, back some years and people would gawk, must be some weird psychological need for people to get footage of things. That one guy who filmed the recent mudslide was puzzling, I had thought he would get out of there rather than film something that could have killed him.

Which one?

O'Donnell does good stuff.

Stuff coming in Stellaris patch/expansion Borders Borders are now simply a reflection of system ownership rather than a cause for it to change. Who owns a system is almost always based on the owner of the Starbase in said system. Home systems will now start surveyed, with a only slightly randomized amount of resources, and mining/research stations for some of those resources already in place. Pic of Borders/Hyperlanes as of 2018/1/15. Note Hyperlanes you have access to are blue while ones you cannot access are red. Starbases/Spaceports Starbase - upgradeable/downgradeable/specializable space station orbiting star ranging from outpost (level 0) to citadel (level 5) Starbase replacing spaceports for military ship construction with multiple modules to choose from Starbases cannot be destroyed through conventional means. They can, however be disabled and even captured by enemies. FTL Games will start as a primarily hyperlane-based, with more advanced forms of FTL unlocked through technology. (ie no more warp or wormhole) By default, hyperlane generation is going to be changed to create more 'islands' and 'choke points', to make for more interesting galactic geography. They are going to add a slider that controls the general frequency and connectivity of hyperlanes. Ships will now need to actually travel to the entry point to a particular hyperlane (the arrow inside a system) to enter it. To compensate, sublight travel has been sped up. Sensors will now detect a certain distance in FTL connections. (ie everything within 2 jumps, etc) Wormholes are now a natural formation that can be encountered while exploring the galaxy that come in pairs, essentially functioning as very long hyperlanes that can potentially take a ship across the entire galaxy near-instantly. New advanced FLT gateways, similar to current wormhole FTL, that can be found and reactivated. Can travel to any other activated gateway and can be closed by controlling empire. (Think Ori Supergate) Jump/Psi Jump Drives now mix Hyperdrive with some functionality from the old Warp FTL. New feature Galactic Terrain, or systems with environmental effects and hazards that have profound tactical and strategic effects on ships on empires. (eg Nebulas, Pulsars, Neutron Stars, Black Holes, etc) War You now need a Casus Belli (justification for war ie Subjugation) in order to declare war with different war goals. War goals is addition to claims made for that war. Claims now require Influence, can claim a system multiple times to get a stronger claim on it (helpful when going to war with ally). War score gone, replaced by War Exhaustion scaling from 0-100%. System only considered occupied if the Starbase and all planets (excluding potentially neutral ones like primitives) are under enemy control. This gives owner control of the mining/research stations and ability to use the starbase. Ascension Perks Basic Ascension Perks now included in base game, no DLC required. (Mastery of Nature, Defender of the Galaxy and so on)Surveying In Cherryh, any system inside the borders of an empire you have communications with will automatically be considered surveyed. (Some exceptions such as Fallen Empires) Star Chart trading and purchasing from curators now removed. Replaced with option to trade Communications which will automatically put you in comms with any empires they have comms with that you do not. Terra Incognita no longer based on which physical pixels on the map your ships have 'seen', it is now based on which systems are considered visited (you have been to the system with a ship, or that the system is inside the borders of an empire that you have communications with). Exploration changes - only a science ship with a scientist can enter an unexplored system (Source - YouTube) Doomstacks/Weapons Introducing Force Disparity Combat Bonus applied when a smaller force is engaged with a larger one in battle with the goal of making casualties on both sides more proportionate. Introducing Ship Disengagement where ships can now flee battle with ships below 50% health will have a chance to disengage from battle, depending primarily on the amount of damage inflicted, and secondarily on the ship class. Introducing concept of Command Limit - limit on how large an individual fleet can be in order to encourage more usage of admirals. Ship reactors replaced with ships now simply have a reactor with a certain power output depending on ship class and technology. Each point of Armor is now effectively one extra hit point for the ship, forming a new health bar between Hull and Shields and will not repair itself under normal circumstances until returning to a Starbase. All missiles now similar to Torpedoes, with the Torpedo slot being the only one they are able to be put in. Missiles now bypass shields entirely. Damaged ships will have their speed and combat ability reduced, all the way down to a ~50% reduction when they are nearly dead. Ship computers now reworked to 4 different options: Swarm, Picket, Line, and Artillery. New Policy - War Doctrines which allows you to pick an overall strategic military doctrine for your fleets based on how you intend to fight. All empires start with all basic weapons in Cherryh. Tech Number of techs you start with has been expanded. (Mostly basic weapons and defense) The number of tech tiers has been increased (5 currently planned) A 6th tier will include Fallen Empire techs that can only be started via salvage. A large number of new techs have been added to the game. Each ship component upgrade should now be more significant. Tech and Unity penalties now based on the number of owned planets and systems, with each owned system and colonized planet adding to your tech and unity costs, and planets overall having less on an impact on tech costs than before. Fleet Manager New fleet manager interface! Each fleet has a fleet template that keeps track of ship sizes and individual designs. Reinforce command will fill in any ships missing from the template (ie after a battle) Each fleet will now have a home base which gets slight priority for actions such as reinforcing. Ground Combat/Armies Defense armies are now created from certain buildings. Armies on planets no longer reduce Unrest directly. Assault armies now based in space but can be directed to garrison a planet to help with defense (via twitter). New mechanic - Combat Width, determined by size of planet that dictates how many troops can be engaged at once. New concept - Collateral Damage, civilians and civilian infrastructure now damaged as fighting goes on (randomly dealt every time an army does damage). Different troop types cause different amounts of damage. Morale damage now affects both sides and more gradually causing a drop in combat efficiency once they are <50% morale, and then another, sharper drop when they are broken (0% morale). Damage-dealing algorithm tweaked so that damage is less evenly spread among combatants. Retreats now have significant chance of causing retreated regiment to be destroyed. Orbital Bombardment changes - fortifications entirely cut, planets cannot be invaded if there is a hostile Starbase in the system. Bombardment now deals Planetary Damage, damaging armies not protected by a Fortress, ruining buildings, and killing Pops. Armageddon Bombardment (only avail to certain empires such as Purifiers) can now turn a planet into a depopulated Tomb World given enough time. Attachments entirely cut from the game. Planet Destroyers (Apocalypse Feature) Colossus Project Ascension Perk available after researching how to build Titans Colossus ship has a single World Devastator-class weapon (5 potential options that can be researched as rare techs depending on your empire/ethics). The first type comes with the initial research Each Colossus is its own fleet and cannot be merged with other fleets, with only one available at at time Weapon takes awhile to charge up and Colossus can be attacked and destroyed during this time Titans (Apocalypse Feature) New ship type researchable through a regular tier 5 tech, requires Titan Assembly yards building. Front section has 1 Titanic-size slot that can fit weapons even stronger than XL weapons (eg Perdition Beam) Perdition Beam - weapon that can fire across a whole system and potentially destroy a battle ship in a single shot. Titans have a aura slot that can fit a single offensive or defensive aura Titans limited in number, can always field at least 1 plus an additional amount depending on your overall naval capacity. Ion Cannons (Apocalypse Feature) Ion Cannons are station modules that can be built as part of the defense platform fleet of a starbase. Provides a single Titanic slot weapon. Marauders (Apocalypse Feature) Pirates of the Constellation: Watch out for Marauders – space nomads who raid settled empires and carve out their lives on the fringe of civilization. Hire them as mercenaries in your own conflicts, but take care that they don’t unify and trigger a new mid-game crisis! - source Civics (Apocalypse Feature?) New Civic: Life-Seeded - Size 25 world Gaia start, habitability preference set to Gaia (0% Habitability otherwise) New Civic: Tomb World Start - Bonus to Tomb World habitability New Civic: Barbaric Despoilers - Has despoliation casi beli on all neighboring empires, unlocks raiding bombardment stance. From https://www.reddit.com/r/Stellaris/comments/7o34yh/summary_of_dev_diaries_and_changes_coming_in/

I doubt anyone thought that in 98 We still told people not to drink turpentine in 1998.

Some rumour that Cyberpunk 2077 will be at E3 with a closed doors playable https://www.gry-online.pl/S013.asp?ID=107410 (Google Translated for all that is worth - https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=pl&u=https://www.gry-online.pl/S013.asp%3FID%3D107410&prev=search)

Condolences LC, hope the year improves

http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-42696376 Zombie was a nice song

NAACP is hateful ?

Don't mods add in most of the marquee stuff in it ? Like planet killers, etc. Also the key question is when does it go on sale

Decided to play some Stellaris but then got a craving for SEIV, so I played that a bit as well. Glad that most of the stuff stuck with me. Man, SEIV is one great 4X game, if they just took the core systems and concepts and slapped a fancy graphics engine on top, that'd work.

Took the dogs to get their pedicures, assorting cleaning. I usually have to invent something when coworkers ask how my weekend was

Well, apparently he included the continent, but I'll check later. Countries get immigrants from worse off ones, a bit suspect to think that a ****hole country is entirely ****hole people - brain drain is a thing, after all. As for Haiti, well the US should take them in, based on their past with that country (France too I guess)