Gorth

I wonder how long power plants can run if we substitute coal and oil with books for a while?

*Sigh* I really need to do something about the audio side of things on my pc. Ever since my THX certified 7.1 system burnt out on me, I've had a pair of usb desk speakers. Awful... just awful. Still got the 7 satellite speakers. Might have to look into the traditional hi-fi market to find an amplifier/receiver and a new subwoofer. The brilliant guys at Creative Labs designed the system with a glue inside the subwoofer that becomes electrically conductive over time. A built in self destruct mechanism if ever there was any (the glue is there to keep the components of the amplifier in place on the boards, as they take quite a pounding inside the subwoofer box when in use).

Did a pair of bounties so far. Way less excessive than the last time around. Just to give some xp and credits to a pair of low level toons. Easy money and xp really with the fast travel to capital world and then the "limited edition" fleet pass back. Got a kingpin head to my trophy collection, which was what I sort of had promised myself to focus a bit more on this coming weekend. Now need to get him alive too (the Ord Mantell kingpin).

"Eh?"... So, you're implying that's a Canadian terrorist mastermind? Maybe I should have used quotation marks to indicate sarcasm. I didn't intend to attribute anything positive to the people involved. They happily play a game of 'Chicken' with other peoples lives and livelyhoods at stake, not unlike the same way corporate fat cats gambled away other peoples money in the constant hunt for excessive bonuses (at least up until the GFC exposed some of the dirt that had been going on for a while). All for a bit of territorial pissing and personal glorification?

Jean-Luc Picard 85% Geordi LaForge 70% An Expendable Character (Redshirt) 60% That one in third place has me a bit worried...

Yeah, as Kgambit pointed out, this is total bull, done by comparing the year of the financial crisis (2008) which included TARP and everything else to the more normal spending patterns of later years. The actual slow down in the rate of growth in the last couple of years is attributable solely to the sequester, the first real cuts in decades, that the Democrats love so much. For those curious about how the GFC impacted the "debt ceiling" It's impact wasn't exactly trivial. As for the latest budget skirmish: Meanwhile... "Meanwhile, ratings firm Standard & Poor's said on Wednesday that the partial US government shutdown, the first in 17 years, had already shaved $24bn from the American economy and would cut growth significantly in the fourth quarter." Remember to say thanks to the people masterminding this standoff.

My "main" toon is sort of my guinea pig and fall guy all in one package. He gets to do all the errors and the suffering you possibly can through the game so other toons following in his footsteps can benefit from it I've always had an obsessive-compulsive disorder when it comes to maps and fog of war. I can't resist clearing out every last black spot no more than a cat can resist a ball of string. Sad but true. I noticed in the patch notes that you can now spend your bounty contracts on more than just more kingpin contracts. Now accepted as currency for a few new items at the reputation vendor. Nice idea. Not sure how it works out long term, but interesting anyway.

Oh, they got conned alright... Orwell would have been so proud

You guys could always ask Putin if he wants to buy Alaska back... might improve liquidity (and possibly cash flow) for a bit to keep the rest running for a while Is what's her name Palin still a governor there? If so, you might want to change that to improve the selling price.

Got big plans for a new PC. Wont happen until mid next year though. Then I'll be going for a workstation build As for gadgets... I have been forced at gunpoint to carry an Android phone at work (which usually means all my waking hours). Would never buy one. I've always loved computers. Never was into gadgets. Only gadget I would consider is if my now 20 year old Moulinex toaster decides to commit Seppuku on me. Long may it toast my sandwiches still. @Humanoid: You are preaching to the choir when it comes to BD media. I've had a dual layer (50GB) burner for years. Never bought a single disc to burn in it. In the end, external USB HDD's are cheaper per MB. Ridiculous but true, buy a handful of external HDD's instead of the BD discs (and put virtual BD images on them if you really need to)

The name of the game is RE Revelations. Following a hunch and assuming the worst when it comes to console ports, I plugged in my PC xbox controller in the USB port. True enough, I could then select start and after that access the options menu (where I could choose Keyboard/Mouse controls instead of controller). I'm stubborn like that sometimes, not letting a few puzzles stop me

I bought two of the recent Resident Evil games, RE6 and another one which I can't remember the suffix for. Good thing I got them cheap too. One doesn't seem to have a quit game option other than Ctrl+F4 and the second game wont start, as it seems to "eat" my mouse pointer and just sits there with a start button I can't press. No keyboard shortcuts either. Consider me very unimpressed on the technical score.

I'll bookmark this post for when the Gungan companion comes out... Edit: Because I forgot the smiley making it sound snarkier than intended.

At lower levels, companion matters less IMHO. At higher levels, I started pairing them up and focus on which companion I wanted to keep upgraded with quality gear so they could pull their own weight in a fight (and not just "mop up" as they had been doing so far). My commando healer prefer Tanno Vik for his tanking capability and sometimes Yunn if survivability is less an issue and just need to clear areas faster. Similar thing for my powertech, using Mako if I need to survive prolonged fights, Gault if I need to clear areas and feel confident I'll survive the fights for a while. As for Treek, Gromnir pretty much summed up my sentiments. I think I mentioned once previously in this thread, as a young man I used to be a Star Wars "fanboy", that is, right up until the middle of the third movie (when I started wondering if this was a poorly written episode of 'The Muppet Show'). Then I realized that the Star Wars I knew was dead and when the Ewoks showed up, I seriously considered walking out of the cinema. That kind of deep seated, admittedly completely irrational hatred for a character concept just makes it a no go. It could have come free with your ship like the ship droid and it would never get a place in my party.

Got my first (and only at the moment) HK-51 companion. I wonder why he came with a "spare" equipment bag with duplicates of his equipment and also his stats are rather confusing, a mix of Aim and Cunning Anyway, mission accomplished and back to trying to finish the Bounty Hunter chapter 3. Currently on Corellia getting involved in some corporate warfare that would have made 'Syndicate Wars' proud

Yeah, generally Stockholm seems to be using Norway to do their dirty work. Something controversial or might come back and bite you PR wise?... get the Norwegians to do it. Everybody wants their oil, so those Norwegians can get away with anything anyway

I would recommend Ego Soft's games More seriously, I think it would involve a major rewrite of core aspects of the game if you wanted that kind of "freedom". Remember, this is at its heart a Bioware game. They want you to experience the story they have prepared for you, not being into the whole "emergent gameplay" thing (just guessing, but they probably assumed the multiplayer aspect would sort out that bit). That being said, it would be nice if they replaced the current space missions with more freeform equivalents, simply by not being on rails. Give you your objectives and let you actually control your craft as you fly around and try to accomplish them. A nice (and probably very expensive to implement) feature would be to actually have a bit a "space" around each planet. Arrive and depart at hyperspace points somewhere in orbit and allow you to travel between ports, orbital stations and jump points with those things you can do in between (like fighting, trading, bantering, showing off your latest paint job/flashy gun/killmarkings etc. just like when meeting in a planet location. It doesn't really "add" anything, but it could provide a feeling of space not being an afterthought. If you don't like it and is not engaged in combat, there is always the quick travel option. There are so many things they can do with space. I hope they get together and come up with an idea for a comprehensive PvE space expansion some day. At the moment, between my trooper and my bounty hunter, I'm grinding the heroics and the Ascension Barrier/Impossible Sector mission to work up enough reputation for the hot shot pilot suit. I really want to put my smuggler girl in that. My trooper is not as well equipped yet though, because some of those crafting materials are a pain to come by.

I like the space missions as a diversion (although some of the heroic ones are effin challenging). Gives a few extra credits and xp for levelling up toons. Not interested in the current PVP though, as the combat mechanics are just not suited for it, not because I'm adverse to PVP per se. I loved the old Unreal Tournament and the original Delta Force. Sometimes playing 48 hours straight at Lan parties (just napping a bit when my head hit the keyboard for a few hours, then more coke, coffee and adrenaline and get going again). The controls and mechanics are going to be the deciding factor whether or not I get to do more than just satisfy my curiosity with the new add-on.

Hmm, so the next expansion coming up is not only free, but also "free flight" 12 vs 12 PVP space combat. Consider me at least intrigued. I wonder if it will support joystick controls. My current Saitek 52 pro stick/throttle is only being used for MS Flight Sim X and Ego Softs "X" games at the moment. (completely unrelated, but why the &^%^#$ did Microsoft never map the reverse throttle to a key??? It means you can't brake the big planes without switching to the virtual ****pit during landing and start fiddling around with your mouse pointer, pulling the levers into reverse).

Yay, double post... No idea what the future brings for the smuggler story line, but somebody must have had a blast writing chapter 1. Some of the wittiest dialogue and funniest incidents in the game so far (finished chapter 1 over the weekend). Kotor reference: Just so happens to be the only "girly" character I play (in an otherwise all male roster). The voice acting was outstanding from the outset on Ord Mantell and made me stick with the character, even if gone into hiatus for a while, leveling up my two "soldier" types (BH and trooper). Put the trooper on the backburner, dusting off some of the "mid level" characters (my smuggler) that had been parked for a while.

Agree. That particular game mechanic is a bit silly. Like an emergency "win" button (Dragon Age Origins had it too). Been doing something similar though *), if nothing else, because I had a humongous stockpile of gifts. Two toons had an entire cargo bay page (or tab or whatever) each full of companion gifts. At one time, I wasn't really sure what crafting material I was going to need, so my crew would craft gifts if nothing else, just to raise their crafting skills. Still got the equivalent of a cargo bay section with gifts of all qualities (green, blue and purple). While companion affection comes slowly in the beginning, some of the last dialogues gives surprisingly many affection points. The last 2k points does indeed come relatively easy through ship dialogues. Not sure if my Bounty Hunter is going to max out HK's affection, but if not, hopefully some other toon will eventually. In many ways, my BH is my guinea pig, boldly going where no Gorth has gone before and testing the waters for those toons that follow through the game. Probably made every mistake in the book along the way. Currently in the middle of the Voss story line, so still a bit of way to go (never been to Corellia yet). *) I noticed that the affection level has brackets where you get more bang for your buck for gift levels. 1-2000 for level 1, 2000-4000 for level 2 gifts etc. Edit to add: Good to know. Some of the digging wasn't so bad, but the dark temple area was pretty big and pretty tedious. Didn't really expect him to magically jump out of my pocket, fully reassembled, once getting my hands on the last part

I suppose I can answer my own question with certainty now. Hard mode 'The Foundry' will do for the HK part. I did start to worry though, after playing all the way through it an no drops with it until final boss fight. Lo and behold, it was sitting on a shelf next to the loot treasure chest, disguising itself like a Korriban lore object. Well, one more down, single part left on the list. There's probably more to do afterwards, but at least it should be possible to do a hard mode 'False Emperor' next weekend if I time it correctly (busy hours on the server).

Moved to tech section (didn't really seem game related). I'm one of those who've been using FoxIt for years. Not to sure about the performance questions, as the amount of pdf files I work with is few and far between. Most of the stuff I access is Word documents retrieved from Sharepoint.

You guys use VOIP (Mumble, Ventrilo etc.)?

Everything XCOM should have been but will never be.