What are you playing?

Incidentally, if you're cooking with low-skill chefs, you'll almost always get food poisoning. I'm going through a bout of that myself.

The solution: Set only one person to cook, hopefully someone who has a learning boost for it. That way you get a high-skill cook in a shorter amount of time.
 
I made it through to the end of I Am Setsuna without finding any cooking recipes. So now that I'm at the spot where I need to grind exp to kill the final boss, I went online to figure out how cooking works. I am not surprised I didn't figure it out intuitively, because it is stupid and annoying. But now I might as well go back and start collecting them, because I can't beat the final boss at my current level without getting 1 shot by AE spells. :p
 
The bizarre spikes in damage done to your group by enemies was a big turn-off for me with that game. Going from some enemies hitting like wet noodles to others tearing through you like tissue all in the same dungeon is just bad tuning.
 
The bizarre spikes in damage done to your group by enemies was a big turn-off for me with that game. Going from some enemies hitting like wet noodles to others tearing through you like tissue all in the same dungeon is just bad tuning.
Well, that's why I always carry fogstones, because you can tell in advance if an enemy is going to tear you a new one by their coloring compared to the other mobs with that model. They are meant to give you bonus exp, and honestly, I rarely ran into them unless it was on purpose.
 

GasBandit

Staff member
Incidentally, if you're cooking with low-skill chefs, you'll almost always get food poisoning. I'm going through a bout of that myself.

The solution: Set only one person to cook, hopefully someone who has a learning boost for it. That way you get a high-skill cook in a shorter amount of time.
I did only have one guy who could cook, but he only had a skill of six. I did notice when he hit 7, food poisoning among the colonists seemed to dwindle away.

Of course, the chickens are still gorging themselves on rice, corn and potatoes and throwing up constantly.

I've got other frustrations now.

It's my third (or is it fourth?) winter and I've finished researching EVERYTHING, though I don't have what I need to build a ship yet. The map I'm on this time seems to be particularly "compacted machinery" poor, so I'm having to construct my own "components" out of raw steel, which takes FUH-REH-VURRRR. Especially given that I only have one colonist (out of ten. TEN!) who is skilled enough to do the work, and he's also the only one skilled enough to do things like make clothes. His crafting skill is like 16 now, it's unbelievable.

Anyway, this hasn't stopped "Phoebe Chillax" from deciding it's time for us to die. We've gotten yet another round of toxic fallout PLUS a cold snap this winter, and I'd already had to revert to a previous autosave when fate conspired to screw me. (Since playing Undertale, I've felt more of an... obligation to savescum away disaster... anyone who's played it will understand why).

Anyway, last night's final frustration was a Poison Ship crashed in front of my compound, just out of range of my turrets, and all plant life around it started dying off almost immediately, in an ever growing ring. I at least had the foresight to first build a line of sandbags for my guys to hide behind to shoot at it, but even that isn't enough.

I saved right before ordering them to open fire. Seven colonists, mostly with rifles and SMGs but I do have one charge blaster, so I was not expecting disaster, buuuut... it happened. Open fire on the ship, THREE CATERPILLARS and FOUR SCYTHERS pop out, all using charge weapons/rocket launchers/miniguns. They cut down my colonists like grass. I reload the save, try again, and the configuration changes every reload, but it's usually 7 automatons (automata?) of mixed flavor, all carrying enough ordinance to mow down the army of a small nation.

I must have tried twenty times for a different outcome, but every attempt ended in complete defeat. I am probably going to have to load an earlier save, from before the poison ship event, and hope Phoebe decides to do something different. I feel dirty.
 
I did only have one guy who could cook, but he only had a skill of six. I did notice when he hit 7, food poisoning among the colonists seemed to dwindle away.

Of course, the chickens are still gorging themselves on rice, corn and potatoes and throwing up constantly.
You can set up animal allowed zones, and disallow your food storage. I've never tried to keep chickens before, but you might to try making kibble, and putting a kibble stockpile in the animal-allowed area. That would probably clear up the chicken food poisoning. Providing that chickens eat kibble. It's also possible that the "vomit mess" you're seeing is chicken poop. A lot of the "biological mess" graphics look the same. You should be able to hover over it and see what the actual mess is.

I've got other frustrations now.

It's my third (or is it fourth?) winter and I've finished researching EVERYTHING, though I don't have what I need to build a ship yet. The map I'm on this time seems to be particularly "compacted machinery" poor, so I'm having to construct my own "components" out of raw steel, which takes FUH-REH-VURRRR. Especially given that I only have one colonist (out of ten. TEN!) who is skilled enough to do the work, and he's also the only one skilled enough to do things like make clothes. His crafting skill is like 16 now, it's unbelievable.
More research options open up when you build the high-tech research bench and the multi analyzer.

I saved right before ordering them to open fire. Seven colonists, mostly with rifles and SMGs but I do have one charge blaster, so I was not expecting disaster, buuuut... it happened. Open fire on the ship, THREE CATERPILLARS and FOUR SCYTHERS pop out, all using charge weapons/rocket launchers/miniguns. They cut down my colonists like grass. I reload the save, try again, and the configuration changes every reload, but it's usually 7 automatons (automata?) of mixed flavor, all carrying enough ordinance to mow down the army of a small nation.

I must have tried twenty times for a different outcome, but every attempt ended in complete defeat. I am probably going to have to load an earlier save, from before the poison ship event, and hope Phoebe decides to do something different. I feel dirty.
Yeah...that's what happens on higher difficulty levels. ;)

there are a lot of creative ways of dealing with it on reddit. People used to wall them in and cook them with heaters or fire. But more recent updates have given the mechanoids the ability to bust down walls to escape that kind of situation.
 

GasBandit

Staff member
You can set up animal allowed zones, and disallow your food storage. I've never tried to keep chickens before, but you might to try making kibble, and putting a kibble stockpile in the animal-allowed area. That would probably clear up the chicken food poisoning. Providing that chickens eat kibble. It's also possible that the "vomit mess" you're seeing is chicken poop. A lot of the "biological mess" graphics look the same. You should be able to hover over it and see what the actual mess is.
I threw a heater in the external vegetable storage house during a cold snap and limited the chickens to being in there to keep them from freezing to death... and then never really bothered changing it.


More research options open up when you build the high-tech research bench and the multi analyzer.
Oh, I know. I've got em. I've got everything researched. EVERYTHING. I had this one lady wanderer join who is pretty much worthless at everything except researching so that's all she did, all day, every day. I just gotta freakin mill up a bajillion components and deep drill up enough steel to make the ship. Of course, when I needed steel real bad to build base stuff, my deep drill hit Plasteel instead /headdesk


Yeah...that's what happens on higher difficulty levels. ;)

there are a lot of creative ways of dealing with it on reddit. People used to wall them in and cook them with heaters or fire. But more recent updates have given the mechanoids the ability to bust down walls to escape that kind of situation.
Yeah, I noticed when a previous ship crashed within my walled farming area that caterpillars just casually stroll right through stone wall. I considered trying to surround the ship with IEDs before shooting it, but I didn't have any artillery shells >_<
 
Oh, I know. I've got em. I've got everything researched. EVERYTHING. I had this one lady wanderer join who is pretty much worthless at everything except researching so that's all she did, all day, every day. I just gotta freakin mill up a bajillion components and deep drill up enough steel to make the ship. Of course, when I needed steel real bad to build base stuff, my deep drill hit Plasteel instead /headdesk
Are you smelting weapons down? Are you scouring the map for steel walls and floors you can disassemble? Have you strip-mined every mountain like you're playing gnomoria? Can you tell I've been in this situation too? :D

Sometimes, you get a map that just sucks for steel. You gotta be really creative in how you get it: Sometimes you can buy it from traders..sometimes, you gotta buy a bunch of cheap poor steel weapons from traders or get them from raiders and smelt them down. Steel scarcity can really slow the end game down.
 

GasBandit

Staff member
Are you smelting weapons down? Are you scouring the map for steel walls and floors you can disassemble? Have you strip-mined every mountain like you're playing gnomoria? Can you tell I've been in this situation too? :D

Sometimes, you get a map that just sucks for steel. You gotta be really creative in how you get it: Sometimes you can buy it from traders..sometimes, you gotta buy a bunch of cheap poor steel weapons from traders or get them from raiders and smelt them down. Steel scarcity can really slow the end game down.
Yeah, the bottleneck isn't really the steel, though that is irksome... the real bottleneck is the "components." Like I said, abarring the ever-increasingly-rare trader to come along, I've gotta get my one crafter guy to make them at the component assembly bench, and it takes STUPIDLY long, and you can't even attach toolboxes to that particular bench to make it go faster.

Also 30 steel per component is a stupid ratio.
 
Yeah, the bottleneck isn't really the steel, though that is irksome... the real bottleneck is the "components." Like I said, abarring the ever-increasingly-rare trader to come along, I've gotta get my one crafter guy to make them at the component assembly bench, and it takes STUPIDLY long, and you can't even attach toolboxes to that particular bench to make it go faster.

Also 30 steel per component is a stupid ratio.
There's a mod that reduces it to 10.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=725488168

Considering it only takes 5 steel to make a freaking steel wall, 10 still seems high to build a few wires and stuff. But it's better than 25 or 30.
 

fade

Staff member
Man, I'm still hooked on SWTOR. I did loose about 40K+ XP to the ether because I didn't realize I was at the F2P level cap. Oops. So I switched to my original smuggler. Wow. The difference between a Jedi Sage built for healing and a DPS build is astronomical.
 
Man, I'm still hooked on SWTOR. I did loose about 40K+ XP to the ether because I didn't realize I was at the F2P level cap. Oops. So I switched to my original smuggler. Wow. The difference between a Jedi Sage built for healing and a DPS build is astronomical.
Yes and no. Any XP you earn after your level cap goes straight into Legacy at a higher rate, so it's not completely wasted.
 
Just picked up Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate for Wii U because it was on sale. I think Zero's the man to ask, did I waste my time?

Sent from my LG-D852 using Tapatalk
 
Just picked up Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate for Wii U because it was on sale. I think Zero's the man to ask, did I waste my time?

Sent from my LG-D852 using Tapatalk
Do you like grindy games where you have to spend forever collecting materials before you can fight monsters? If yes, then you didn't.
 
Do you like grindy games where you have to spend forever collecting materials before you can fight monsters? If yes, then you didn't.
It only feels that way if you don't know what you're doing :p. Unfortunately, not knowing what you're doing is the first step to finding out what you're doing.

Just picked up Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate for Wii U because it was on sale. I think Zero's the man to ask, did I waste my time?

Sent from my LG-D852 using Tapatalk
That depends how much time you spent, unless you meant money, because time is money?

To be honest, I don't really care for MH3U as much as later entries. It has a lot of cool monsters, but getting into the game is much slower than in the next game, and the water combat is an acquired taste. Benefits go to people who have played Souls games, because concepts like "well-timed dodging is super important" and "know exactly when you're safe to drink healing juice" will carry over. It's not a bad game at all, but Monster Hunter 4 improves on it to such a significant degree that even the recent Monster Hunter Generations feels weaker if only because it pulls up locations from games pre-4 that don't make the most of elevated combat.

If you press onward, my advice is to make good use of the growing farm for honey and don't waste much time making regular potions; they're cheap as hell in the store when they're on sale, so it makes more sense to buy them and mix with honey. Don't be afraid to experiment with different types of weapons early game. There's a queued hits type of thing to the game, a la Dark Souls again. Don't expect to get in much multiplayer though; last I checked the Wii U players were largely absent, having moved onto more recent entries on 3DS.
 
Finished Tomb Raider, it was OK, the first one was better. Puzzles bored me this time around.

Started Dragon Age Inquisition a few nights age and giving it an honest go this time around, it's better than DA2 but not by much.

Got to Skyhold last night, met Hawke... didn't approve.
 
Started playing Okami HD earlier this week despite owning it for a couple years.

I never played the PS2 version, only the Wii version. I'd dreaded not using motion controls, but now that I've actually worked the joystick, I like it better. The motion controls often had me doing things I didn't want, or the wiimote just being unresponsive. No such problems with the joystick. On top of that, the non-paintbrush gameplay is much more comfortable with a controller than a wiimote + nunchuk.

In any case, it'd been over five years since I last played it and I forgot how fun it is.
 

GasBandit

Staff member
Rimworld:

I finally successfully got all TWELVE (had a late-game spattering of wanderers joining, who I only took in because they were blood relations of the colonists I already had... one of them was a downright worthless psych patient who had no skills other than research, and I'd long since researched everything) people in my colony into a sleeper ship and shot it into space. It took a lot of savescumming (I twice had to restore a save again since last post about this game, both times for a pirate raid that brought sappers who blew their way through the walls instead of coming to my chokepoint), but less than previously.

All in all the game has some real potential but it's got a lot of work that still needs doing on it.

Colonists (and animals) show 100% preference for whatever food is NEAREST them when they get hungry, not what is highest quality - so if your freezer or veggie storage is between them and the kitchen, they'll just go eat themselves a big ol' raw potato or bloody meat and then be in a bad mood because they ate raw food and ate standing up instead of at a table.

It makes sense that a colonist needs a certain level of high animal skill to train an animal to do things, but it is stupid that once the animal is trained, it only can be assigned to have a master whose animal skill is high enough to have done that training. This bit me in the ass once when I had an animal that was bonded to a colonist, then I had another colonist train the animal up so that it could fetch and carry things, and the game wouldn't allow that animal to be assigned to have the bonded colonist as his master any more, which made the colonist unhappy because basically his pet got taken away from him.

I am at a complete loss for what makes a room "nice." I put a guy in a fully carpeted room with a potted plant, floor lamp, excellent bed and even his own TV AND a "good" quality plasteel sculpture... and he was still unhappy with his room. The "wealth/impressiveness" system is stupidly redundant and needs an overhaul.

For all the game's emphasis on story and narrative, it doesn't actually keep any history of events. I expected to find some kind of text record of events in the colony (even Gnomoria has a rudimentary event log), but none was there that I could find.

The deep scanner doesn't tell you what resource is what. You have to build a deep drill before you discover if you're going to hit steel or plasteel, which is rather stupid.

Shit breaks WAY too often. I got a BZZT explosion/fire every 3 or 4 days one year, it got really tiresome. Made solar panels with batteries a completely useless power solution. Ended up having to just build stupid amounts of geothermal generators - way more than I should have needed - just because the electrical short/fire depletes every battery you have.

Contrary to what the game's hints tell you ("build a room with a cooler or two"), there is no advantage to having multiple coolers for your freezer. One cooler does the job under normal circumstances, but I tried building more during a heat wave that got outside temps to 130 degrees F, and made even the FREEZER stay at 50 degrees. Did nothing. Waste of resources and electricity.

Traders are far too feast or famine. I once got two caravans and a spacer trader on the same DAY... and I also got nothing once for an entire year. Needs to be evened out. Or better yet, like Gnomoria, have the ability to SEND a colonist as a trader to a neighboring settlement. The cost to request a trader, just added this patch, is way too stupidly high.

And finally, the reward for "winning" (sending all your colonists into space on the ship) is the same as losing. "Everyone is dead or has left. Maybe someday someone will find the ruins of this place..." Also, I hope you didn't have a close bond with any animals or anything, because there's no cryopod for your beloved dog/cat/cow/whatever. They'll just be left to wait for you like Fry's dog outside the pizzeria until they die of old age when you never come back. And that's assuming they can get food and survive the wilderness that long, because assuredly within a week of your departure there will be another fucking electrical short which will burn down the entire complex now that nobody is there to fight the fire. And that's unlikely, given how I got toxic fallout EVERY OTHER YEAR.
 
Sounds hard. Maybe they should add a way to adjust the difficulty so that, if you find the system to be needlessly punishing, you could tone it down somewhat.
 

GasBandit

Staff member
Sounds hard. Maybe they should add a way to adjust the difficulty so that, if you find the system to be needlessly punishing, you could tone it down somewhat.
There are difficulty settings, but none of the gripes I outlined above are affected by that (outside of electrical short frequency). They're design flaws.
 
There are difficulty settings, but none of the gripes I outlined above are affected by that (outside of electrical short frequency). They're design flaws.
Room "niceness" is a combination of wealth (how expensive is the stuff in the room), space, and beauty (statues and stuff).

A 10X10 room with a gold bed of high quality, and couple statues of high quality is considered "incredibly impressive". A small room will suffer, no matter how much nice shit you put in there.

I agree about the shorting out stuff. So I got a circuit breaker mod. You have to research it, and there two kinds (cheap and good). It makes things manageable. Though a short still drains the battery, at least it doesn't start a fire or destroy your wiring.

I haven't had the food issue. But all of my colonists rooms are always near the kitchen and dining room.

Gnomoria didn't even let you send trade caravans until late in the game's update cycle. I'm sure a lot of these issues will be ironed out.

The Hospitality mod will do wonders for your trade problems.
 
Have to admit some of the design decisions I read since I last played are somewhat underwhelming. I hope they haven't taken away took much from the core concept of the game.

For one, I couldn't give 2 shits of decking out rooms with gold beds.
 
Bioshock & Bioshock Infinite

I finished up the first and then ploughed through the second in a matter of days. I don't know why, but even though I like Bioshock, I don't really see the great story people keep raving about. It's a solid game, to be sure, but I think it's kind of overrated. On the other hand, I really enjoyed the story for Infinite. But then, I'm also a sucker for alternate timeline and alternate realities stuff. Though of course, when playing with multiple realities like this, the story kind of falls apart when you give it some thought.

I also never bothered to buy the DLC for Infinite after Zero Esc's raving about it. From what I've gleaned, it ain't worth it. In the meantime...

Witcher 3

Had a hankering to replay this again, which would make my third time playing through the whole game (the second time was New Game +). For some reason, I decided to finally try the card game, Gwent. After some early struggles, I got hooked and now I'm obsessed with beating every player I encounter.

I guess there's a separate Gwent game coming, too. I'll probably get that eventually. Heck, I'd be interested in a physical tabletop edition, too. Though I doubt that's in the works.

The game isn't without flaws, but it's just so vastly enjoyable compared to many other open world sandbox games out there. I find it much more engaging than, say, Skyrim or Fallout. I'm honestly not sure why and I don't mean to say those aren't good games, either. But there's just something about this game and its world that pull me in.

Really, the fact that I'm replaying the game again so soon just proves how enthralling the whole game is. I find I'll lose hours re-exploring the world and replaying missions. Plus, the developer has done a bang-up job treating their customers. A ton of free DLC, for starters, with full missions and new armour. FREE. Any other greedy company would bleed their customers dry for this kind of content. And the two expansion packs are fantastic, especially Blood & Wine.

Honestly, given CD Projekt RED's treatment for this game and its fanbase, they may have won me over as a new customer for future products. I'm so happy with this game and how they've treated the fans that I'm debating pre-ordering Cyberpunk 2070 once it's available to do so. It's like the reverse of WB, EA, or Ubisoft, who have done things to make me not trust them anymore. Certainly not for PC releases.
 
Bioshock & Bioshock Infinite

I finished up the first and then ploughed through the second in a matter of days. I don't know why, but even though I like Bioshock, I don't really see the great story people keep raving about. It's a solid game, to be sure, but I think it's kind of overrated. On the other hand, I really enjoyed the story for Infinite. But then, I'm also a sucker for alternate timeline and alternate realities stuff. Though of course, when playing with multiple realities like this, the story kind of falls apart when you give it some thought.

I also never bothered to buy the DLC for Infinite after Zero Esc's raving about it. From what I've gleaned, it ain't worth it. In the meantime...

Witcher 3

Had a hankering to replay this again, which would make my third time playing through the whole game (the second time was New Game +). For some reason, I decided to finally try the card game, Gwent. After some early struggles, I got hooked and now I'm obsessed with beating every player I encounter.

I guess there's a separate Gwent game coming, too. I'll probably get that eventually. Heck, I'd be interested in a physical tabletop edition, too. Though I doubt that's in the works.

The game isn't without flaws, but it's just so vastly enjoyable compared to many other open world sandbox games out there. I find it much more engaging than, say, Skyrim or Fallout. I'm honestly not sure why and I don't mean to say those aren't good games, either. But there's just something about this game and its world that pull me in.

Really, the fact that I'm replaying the game again so soon just proves how enthralling the whole game is. I find I'll lose hours re-exploring the world and replaying missions. Plus, the developer has done a bang-up job treating their customers. A ton of free DLC, for starters, with full missions and new armour. FREE. Any other greedy company would bleed their customers dry for this kind of content. And the two expansion packs are fantastic, especially Blood & Wine.

Honestly, given CD Projekt RED's treatment for this game and its fanbase, they may have won me over as a new customer for future products. I'm so happy with this game and how they've treated the fans that I'm debating pre-ordering Cyberpunk 2070 once it's available to do so. It's like the reverse of WB, EA, or Ubisoft, who have done things to make me not trust them anymore. Certainly not for PC releases.
The main difference between Witcher and Elder Scrolls games is that Witcher is about playing a specific character, in a specific story, while elder Scrolls is about making your own story. Both are great games, but they do appeal to different tastes. I love them both.
 
Bioshock & Bioshock Infinite

I finished up the first and then ploughed through the second in a matter of days. I don't know why, but even though I like Bioshock, I don't really see the great story people keep raving about. It's a solid game, to be sure, but I think it's kind of overrated. On the other hand, I really enjoyed the story for Infinite. But then, I'm also a sucker for alternate timeline and alternate realities stuff. Though of course, when playing with multiple realities like this, the story kind of falls apart when you give it some thought.

I also never bothered to buy the DLC for Infinite after Zero Esc's raving about it. From what I've gleaned, it ain't worth it. In the meantime...
If you liked either game in the least, Infinite's DLC is a bridge between them, shaped like Ken Levine flipping you off.

The love for the original Bioshock is more tied in with the themes, characters, and atmosphere than the plot, so there's this oddity where you have to play it a certain way. For example, after Infinite I tried playing Bioshock the same way and it kind of ruined the atmosphere. Bioshock is more a steady crawl. That said, Bioshock's story hits its high at the two-thirds point; though some elements are fleshed out after the Big Scene, you could stop playing after the twist and really not lose anything. They learned from that with Infinite and made sure to save the biggest reveals for one hell of an ending.

In Infinite, the story takes over a little more. Partly because it is more about the story, while the original Bioshock shares something important with Undertale, i.e. a commentary on playing video games.
 
SWTOR's Knights of the Fallen Empire is quite a departure from the rest of the game. It's basically a single player Bioware RPG like Dragon Age 2 or Inquisition, but in an episodic format. I like it quite a bit - except for the part where you have to turn your textures down to low to keep the cutscenes from crashing.
 
So it's like the bad Bioware rpgs? I'd prefer if it was like the good ones, like KOTOR
You mean the one that was badly based on a d20 system, where it gave you options to build your character however you liked, but unless you gave your character a hefty chunk of combat feats, you would find it nearly impossible to defeat the ending portion of the game, so most of the options were ultimately kind of pointless? Pick the wrong party for the last mission? You're fucked by endless waves of respawning elites. Manaan. Taris - goddamn Taris. Even moreso that literally everything you do there is essentially erased 5 minutes after you leave. Everyone that speaks Huttese - which is like 50% of NPCs in the early parts of the game - uses the same voice files over and over again.

 
You mean the one that was badly based on a d20 system, where it gave you options to build your character however you liked, but unless you gave your character a hefty chunk of combat feats, you would find it nearly impossible to defeat the ending portion of the game, so most of the options were ultimately kind of pointless? Pick the wrong party for the last mission? You're fucked by endless waves of respawning elites. Manaan. Taris - goddamn Taris. Even moreso that literally everything you do there is essentially erased 5 minutes after you leave. Everyone that speaks Huttese - which is like 50% of NPCs in the early parts of the game - uses the same voice files over and over again.

I'll take Taris over Kirkwall any day.
 
Witcher 3

For some reason, my horse Roach keeps appearing (without me calling to him) inside a high-end brothel.

Roach sure does love the ladies, I guess? :Leyla:

EDIT: Whoops. I realized it's just a random horse, not Roach. Still hilarious, though.

Roach Brothel.jpg
 
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