February Digest #3

World of Warships

The Nian Paradox event commenced today. Focus will be on going for Tempesta Nera, which is a clone of the steel ship R. Lauria. No doubt, a great many others will do the same - a free steel ship is definitely desirable and worth the chase. On the way, you also get to pickup Kiberpankov, a clone of the Soviet cruiser Dimitri Pozharsky.

WG throwing lots of "confetti" our way in relation to this new event, dazzling you into spending real money on their sparkling goodies. 

New Event Pass is offering only one vessel - Eastern Dragon as halfway reward. Happy to go for that.

Picked up the Tier IX Pan-Asian premium battleship Yimeng for free. Part of the free gifts thrown our way. Got lucky: it was part of the free Fire Horse permanent camo bundle. Obtained from the single Defenders of Order crate which dropped the Nian Treasure crate...and voila! 

Played Yimeng several times. It has a couple of gimmicks including torpedo protection that reduces all torp damage by 70%. Unfortunately it only lasts for 10 sec so activate it just as torps are about to hit.

Guess I used up my lucky quota obtaining Yimeng because I reviewed the process in pursuing the Tempesta Nera. The event itself has seven weekly missions offering a quantity of Lunar tokens, the currency for the Nian Paradox event. Which means I will be playing at least six of those missions in order to reach my quest. 

The remaining seventh mission tokens can go to one of the other parties - Shamrockville - with one of the rewards being Danu because it'll be all I can afford with the leftover tokens. With the Lunar tokens, you can't really switch sides unless you have a swag of Lunar tokens. Your best chance was in the Lunar Trials (Update 15.0). 

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While the Surcouf is out of reach to me (not enough resources) the two ships I did acquire - the Thai cruiser Narai and the Italian battleship M. Colonna - are proving to be quite satisfactory. Playing in Co-Op, that is. Learning to play to their particular strengths while minimising their faults as much as possible. As a result, enjoying playing both ships in PvE mode. 

When I took M. Colonna into Aysmmetrics however to fast track earnings for the Event Pass I soon found her to be outmatched and out of depth. And her brawler prowess in Co-Op was sorely exposed when tackling greater numbers of opponents all at once. The US tortoise Colorado in particular proved her nemesis every encounter. Once the exhaust smoke wears out, being stranded in the midst of a group of accurate firing BOTS can provide some very excrutiating moments. 

Still my goal for entering Asymmetrics was quickly achieved and now I'm just one phase away from the E. Dragon reward. Could easily spend doubloons but I can just as easily play for her tomorrow and thus save myself one thousand doubloons.

The Unbreakable Front battle mode has returned with some changes. Never played it and don't intend to any time soon. Some complaints I've read by those seem to prefer the earlier iteration of this PvP battle mode.

Operations has been revamped too although I haven't tried it yet.

Some have discovered you can't complete some of the Nian Paradox missions in Asymmetrics which is a pity. But WG don't like to make it easy for its playerbase. 

Example: In the Nian Paradox Mission 2, there is one quest that requires you to be in the top five in any ten matches played. Well, you can guarantee achieving that in Asymmetrics as there are only five of you anyway. So play five matches and you've completed the task. Easy peasey. But WG doesn't like that idea. There are no shortcuts in the salt mines or desolate gulags of Siberia. 

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Eastern Dragon is an interesting ship. A Tier VII Myoko-class heavy cruiser, its frailty is exposed in its weak armour, slow turret traverse, poor torp angles, slow torps, and slow ammo switching. A mid-range shooter that is not good at all in close combat encounters. 

Played it first time today after finally claiming it in the Event Pass. Stayed at mid-range where its guns accuracy came to the fore sinking two destroyers in quick succession. Because I had chosen the gun feeder skill (recommended) on my commander, I was able to switch from HE to AP fairly quickly and in time to take out an enemy cruiser. Used her slow torps in area denial, scoring hits on an enemy cruiser and battleship. Three kills on its first outing made me smile. 

I did switch out the original commander and installed Takeo Suzuki instead. Suzuki I am grinding to 21 points. He's currently on 20 points but his inclusion helped to make the first engagement a pleasant experience.

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New Project

Started a Foreign Legion fort for whatever reason decades ago. Almost finished it but then I lost enthusiasm because I kept over-complicating the design within. 

Now I want to make things worse by creating a small desert village to complement the fort. Started working on the buildings last night based on an original outline sketch done months ago. I am opting to expand the design and layouts of the various buildings and structures within a basically open layout. The real test will come in actually constructing the various components.

Below shows the original sketch layout done months ago. It's layout and components within will change as I get "creative". 

Below shows a sketch map created the other day showing a crude landscape layout. Include contour intervals. Shows the relationship between each component to one another narratively.

Building up to become a campaign but indeterminate as to the period. The obvious choice would be World War II. At a stretch it could even be set in Europe during the Interwar period.

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Peterbilt 359 assembly drama continues

Changing the design after watching a YT streamer reacts to some Australian road trains. That video made me realise my original final design is crap. So I am opting to go with a more straightforward simple design. It even passed the wife test. Below is a graphical sketch. Final reveal will vary slightly. Cheers.

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