Weekly Digest #7

PC Gaming

News: Saw an interesting stream about a new sci-fi AAA RPG game tonight. Game is due for release soon. It's called Exodus. Looks interesting to me although I confess I'm not up-to-date with the genre of sci-fi games at all. Storyline has me hooked though. Being a Traveller in search of technology to help your own kind survive in a hostile galaxy will always appeal because it involves exploration.

Farming Simulator 22: Also checked out Farming Simulator 22 as well after watching a YT streamer play it from scratch - no $ and nothing - several days ago. Knew of it already but passed it by. But now I am very interested because I am looking for something more engaging which is a big step up from Stardew Valley. Watched several modded streams and am convinced I will be getting this game soon.

Space Marines 2. Saw this tonight on Steam community (28th) Patch 4.1 released and intends to fix some of the concerns expressed by the players. 

"...Space Marine 2 is all about the power fantasy, and Patch 4.0 negatively impacted it for many of you.

This is why we’re rolling back these changes. Extremis enemies’ spawn rates in Minimal, Average, and Substantial difficulties will revert back to their pre-Patch 4.0 levels and will be significantly reduced in Ruthless difficulty to hopefully strike a balance between how hard the game was at launch and how “easy” it became with Patch 3.0..."

Hopefully they're able to strike the right balance. Maybe I will return and finally knock off that Hive Tyrant.

World of Warships. Devblog posted details regarding Update 13.11. Or the much-looked forward Christmas events. Read through it and noticed some changes.

(1) No longer three type of Santa containers. Eliminated the "middle" one so now it's just the Gift and Mega crates. Included the Golden Gift crate which is available only through the Mega ones.

(2). Event Pass is now in two parts (called Chapters), each three weeks long. Once ended, it's gone forever so incentive is to complete them as they unfold. There are twenty-five stages. It's a continuation of the Explore the North Pole event. The rewards are the two Polar commanders - Li Wei and Olaf Lundgren - and two new ships Tsurugi and Lugdanum. Instead of receiving at the end of the grind, they appear midway through the "Chapter".

(3) Only 145 ships on offer this time around with some new ones included like the Georg Hoffman, Prins van Oranje, Chikuma II - obtainable through the Golden Gift crate. Others include Wiesbaden, Tsurugi, Navarin, and so on. Still some rare ones like Kamikaze, Enterprise, Friesland, and so on. 

(4) Explore the North Pole event concludes in this Update. If you join in this Update, you get a free Tier VIII ship - either North Carolina, Implacable, U-190, Akatsuki - straight off the bat. If you made it to the stage where you've been able to earn 10,000 tokens your free Tier X ship is a choice between Schlieffen, Audacious, Balao, Shimakaze. Note: the two destroyers are speculative and rumoured while the others are confirmed. No cruisers.

(5) Christmas port (Nordlyshavn) has a Christmas tree in need of decorating. Earning decorations rewards you with meh gifts such as Premium days, coal, permanent camo, flags. Yeah....nah!

(6) During the Update period (Dec 1 to 25) daily log in is different. What that entailed is not fully disclosed apart from certainty that you will receive a reward of sorts. Can't be any worse than what's been daily log in for the past five years, can it?

(7) Festive Rewards is back again and echoes the same event during the Ninth Anniversary. The more ships in one's port, the more chances at rewards. Whichever Tier ship is taken out, you have to earn the requisite amount of BASE XP to receive the Festive reward.

What's missing is the information regarding Santa certificates (snowflakes). Maybe it's a given and still confined to just Tier X ships. Not a good feeling so far regarding this approaching Christmas. 

Closer to the current timeline, November is Black Friday time. Or Black Hole Friday as I like to call it now. Black Hole because it's where those with more money than sense splurge wildly. Avoiding this year's current list of Black Friday ships as none appeal apart from a couple: I can wait for those. Plus they're costing a fair bit for their actual worth to be honest. WG knows its market well enough. 

The Smolensk auction is a big definite no-no for me. Wildly over the top haggling for a nerfed ship. Always avoided these auctions as the bidding is super inflated with many fearing they will miss out so they bid exorbitantly.  

Apart from that, sticking to playing the current Event Pass for the resources as I grind to upskill the French Unique commander Auboyneau on the light cruiser Dupliex. I should have used the De Grasse which is a little more robust and reliable but its ship XP is already past the 300+K limit. Dunkerque B as the Event Pass final ship reward does not interest in the least but it's better than nothing. 

And completing the next stage of the Polar Exploration mission chain. One more mission task to complete and that should complete the minimum requirement for the rewards released from December 1.

Noticed the Karl XIV Johan and Anhalt are now Armory ships (former as a doubloon and the latter a coal ship). Contemplating getting both but will see how the rest of the month pans out first. 

Tabletop Gaming

English Civil War. Continuing slow work assembling my New Model army list. 

One of the problems I've been struggling ever since starting this English Civil Wars project has been how to generate cavalry standard bearers (or cornets). The Hinchcliffe retailer I've used does not have specific cornets for cavalry. Without wanting to go to another brand, I found myself stuck figuring out how to adapt existing cavalry figures. 

But in end, as of today (30th), I'm just going to ignore it altogther, create the banner, and stick it to the base. No conversion needed. Problem solved. Move along.

Just one more group of horsemen to assemble; this group is short mounts and riders which I will have to order eventually, but no rush right now. For now, I can live with two units of heavy cav, two units of carabiniers, and one unit of dragoons. Should be sufficient for my campaign needs. The bulk of the New Model Army is very much done now; just final detailing, attaching pikes and flags, then a final wash, and then gluing and flocking the bases. 

Painting

Started bird cards with these initial rough paint sketches. Rusty as heck. Will take me months to fully get back into it because of my stutter approach to painting at the moment. These are the wagtail series gift cards for family and friends. 

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