In What Electronic Entertainment Have You Been Partaking #18: Reticulating Splines

[Takhisis]

I'm attempting to finish my palythrough of GTA: San Andreas. How the hell does one level up swimming? All I've managed to do was get CJ in a lake and improve lung capacity by several green bars with accompanying beeps, but that dange Wu Zi still won't let me do a storyline mission that requires swimming. Am I supposed to do some other thing instead?

 

[Synobun]

I'm attempting to finish my palythrough of GTA: San Andreas. How the hell does one level up swimming? All I've managed to do was get CJ in a lake and improve lung capacity by several green bars with accompanying beeps, but that dange Wu Zi still won't let me do a storyline mission that requires swimming. Am I supposed to do some other thing instead?

It's just lung capacity. Swimming isn't a skill. If your skill is higher than 5%, you should be able to do it (though I'd recommend getting to at least 25%).

ETA: Swimming is handled by the stamina stat.

 

[elmurcis]

Felt urgent need to start playing Farming Simulator.. or vehicles pile-up simulator...

Spoiler :

 

[shadowplay]

I finished Final Fantasy VII. Thinking now of replaying Chrono Trigger or Super Mario RPG.

 

[Takhisis]

It's just lung capacity. Swimming isn't a skill. If your skill is higher than 5%, you should be able to do it (though I'd recommend getting to at least 25%).

ETA: Swimming is handled by the stamina stat.

Oh FFS I just have to raise my character like a Tamagotchi… at least I found a workaround for the other main set of storyline missions, to kill the hyper-stereotypical Jizzy the pimp I just blew his car up before he fled and he took a pizza delivery bike instead. I just crashed into him with a car and the only casualty was a T-1000-like biker cop.

Now it's time to take down that snake Ryder.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

I finished Final Fantasy VII. Thinking now of replaying Chrono Trigger or Super Mario RPG.

So fast!

@warpus and @cardgame
There is a new space program simulator game coming out called Mars Horizon. A demo is available on Steam. Should hold us over until KSP 2 drops.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Mars Horizon is pretty good. The full version is not available yet or else I'd buy it. It does seem a bit limited, and you can't fly the rockets which is both a blessing and a curse. Overall I quite like it, it's a different, somewhat simplified take on space program simulation.

 

[EgonSpengler]

Path of Exile: My poisonous Cyclone Shadow wasn't working as well as I wanted him to, so I decided to try a fireballin' Witch and wow, she's so much better. At level 60-something, she's firing 4 fireballs at a time with a wand that adds 1 level of penetration, and she pretty much obliterates everything. She just killed Gruthkul and Yugul and I think she didn't even take any damage. Maligaro got her twice with some kind of AoE attack that seemed to take up the entire room, but a powerful AoE that she can't get away from seems to be her only achilles heel.

I think Witches might just be overpowered, full stop. Every Witch I play seems to run circles around every melee warrior I play. Zombies are just about the ultimate defense, superior to any combination of armor, evasion, blocking and dodging that I've tried (and also superior to other minions). I found an amulet that regenerates my minions' health, and I gave the Zombies Meatshield Support and Minions Speed Support, and now the zombies essentially immortal. I haven't spent a single Passive Point on improving the zombies, and now I have four Elementals too. So with 9 minions and a big ranged attack, the Witch basically only takes damage from big AoEs, or if mobs spawn right on top of her (and in the latter case, you just use her travel power to teleport out of the way - if you're quick enough, or if you're anticipating the attack, the mobs don't even get 1 shot in).

 

[PhroX]

Path of Exile: My poisonous Cyclone Shadow wasn't working as well as I wanted him to, so I decided to try a fireballin' Witch and wow, she's so much better. At level 60-something, she's firing 4 fireballs at a time with a wand that adds 1 level of penetration, and she pretty much obliterates everything. She just killed Gruthkul and Yugul and I think she didn't even take any damage. Maligaro got her twice with some kind of AoE attack that seemed to take up the entire room, but a powerful AoE that she can't get away from seems to be her only achilles heel.

I think Witches might just be overpowered, full stop. Every Witch I play seems to run circles around every melee warrior I play. Zombies are just about the ultimate defense, superior to any combination of armor, evasion, blocking and dodging that I've tried (and also superior to other minions). I found an amulet that regenerates my minions' health, and I gave the Zombies Meatshield Support and Minions Speed Support, and now the zombies essentially immortal. I haven't spent a single Passive Point on improving the zombies, and now I have four Elementals too. So with 9 minions and a big ranged attack, the Witch basically only takes damage from big AoEs, or if mobs spawn right on top of her (and in the latter case, you just use her travel power to teleport out of the way - if you're quick enough, or if you're anticipating the attack, the mobs don't even get 1 shot in).

I wouldn't say Witches are overpowered. I mean, the base classes don't really mean anything in PoE beyond what Ascendancies you get so considering any of them OP is kinda wierd, but even if we're looking at Ascendancies, Necromancers probably are too good, but Elementalist is awful outside of 1 build (golems) and Occulist is decent but nothing special. The base class with the best set of Ascendancies is probably Shadow, with both Assasin and Trickster being incredible, and Sabouter being very niche, but really good in that niche.

That said, spellcasting is generally better than melee (at least targetted melee, slams are good), but that's independant of class. You can have a melee witch, a ranged duelist and a spellcasting marauder (and there are fine builds for all of those....).

 

[Synobun]

Got to the part in Witcher 3 where you find Whoreson Junior.

Spoiler :

So the cutscene plays, and Geralt beats Whoreson silly because he tortured and killed a bunch of prostitutes. Then the dialogue tree appears, and you eventually can kill him. But why does Geralt kill him? Because Whoreson tried to capture Ciri, apparently. And he reveals this motivation for ending Whoreson while there are six mutilated corpses surrounding them. Bro, what?

I think I'm almost finished Novigrad. Then it's on to Skellige.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Got back into Kerbal Space Program for a bit after wetting my appetite with Mars Horizon. They have updated a bunch of stuff in KSP and it now has new base parts that it didn't have before and a few quality of life improvements like delta-v stats built-into the game without requiring mods. One problem I'm having is that I can't figure out how the action groups work anymore with the new changes, which is a bit of a headache. Although it's possible that the things I want to do with action groups are locked behind tech upgrades and so I can't see the options I'm looking for at the moment - I remember old versions were like that.

The base game is still missing high-Isp, non-nuclear rocket engines which is frustrating and dumb. The non-nuclear engines in the game all top out at around 310s of Isp, while in real life there are many hydrogen/oxygen engines that run in the 430-465s regime. This really limits what you can do with the game because it means the entire rocket has to be enlarged to compensate for the low fuel efficiency, which in turns takes away from payload mass. KSP has always been weird with their engines - they make them much heavier and lower thrust than real-life counterparts.

Oh and the Mars Horizon demo ran like a slideshow on my computer, but to be fair I don't have a gaming computer. It's still annoying because it is not a physics-based game the way KSP is, and KSP runs pretty OK. Mars Horizon doesn't even have great graphics either.

 

[cardgame]

@hobbsyoyo surely you have heard of the Realism Overhaul mod suite? I'm positive it has such engines you mention.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

@hobbsyoyo surely you have heard of the Realism Overhaul mod suite? I'm positive it has such engines you mention.

I'm trying the new update with a clean install to see what it's like with the new expansions.

They made some changes to the aerodynamic model which makes it pretty difficult to control rockets and they also removed SAS from the basic probe cores which means every launch has to be manned or else it'll veer out of control. Even with a pilot, it's much more difficult to fly rockets than before.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Path of Exile: My poisonous Cyclone Shadow wasn't working as well as I wanted him to, so I decided to try a fireballin' Witch and wow, she's so much better. At level 60-something, she's firing 4 fireballs at a time with a wand that adds 1 level of penetration, and she pretty much obliterates everything. She just killed Gruthkul and Yugul and I think she didn't even take any damage. Maligaro got her twice with some kind of AoE attack that seemed to take up the entire room, but a powerful AoE that she can't get away from seems to be her only achilles heel.

I think Witches might just be overpowered, full stop. Every Witch I play seems to run circles around every melee warrior I play. Zombies are just about the ultimate defense, superior to any combination of armor, evasion, blocking and dodging that I've tried (and also superior to other minions). I found an amulet that regenerates my minions' health, and I gave the Zombies Meatshield Support and Minions Speed Support, and now the zombies essentially immortal. I haven't spent a single Passive Point on improving the zombies, and now I have four Elementals too. So with 9 minions and a big ranged attack, the Witch basically only takes damage from big AoEs, or if mobs spawn right on top of her (and in the latter case, you just use her travel power to teleport out of the way - if you're quick enough, or if you're anticipating the attack, the mobs don't even get 1 shot in).

I wouldn't say Witches are overpowered. I mean, the base classes don't really mean anything in PoE beyond what Ascendancies you get so considering any of them OP is kinda wierd, but even if we're looking at Ascendancies, Necromancers probably are too good, but Elementalist is awful outside of 1 build (golems) and Occulist is decent but nothing special. The base class with the best set of Ascendancies is probably Shadow, with both Assasin and Trickster being incredible, and Sabouter being very niche, but really good in that niche.

That said, spellcasting is generally better than melee (at least targetted melee, slams are good), but that's independent of class. You can have a melee witch, a ranged duelist and a spellcasting marauder (and there are fine builds for all of those....).

As a dedicated true melee player (hit them with a sword or ax) ranged play is certainly easier from what folks say. I'm trying a scion this league and taking both jugg and slayer ascendancies. With OG I can run reave which seems pretty potent at level 70. She is still squishy at 2600 life though and I have to use instant flasks to keep her alive. Standard still draws me back and I've rebuilt my atlas to Awakener level 7. What's nice there is that I get to run all my delirium maps and blight maps and farm T14s and 15s and kill metamorphs for loot! I rebuild one or two Standard guys each league with a new tree and better gear from the last temp league. I can even afford to buy fabulous gear there with everything I've accumulated.

 

[PhroX]

Still with PoE, I'm pushing well into red maps with my Cremation Archmage Necro. Beaten all the conquerors at 3 watchstones. T14 maps are OK as long as I pay attention to mods - in addition to the obvious reflect problems, too many damage boosts, especially when combined with vulnerability curse is a bit too much - but the real problem I'm having is sustaining them. Still having to do quite a few T11-12s just to get 13s and 14s to run, so I haven't been able to unlock any of the 4 stone Conquerors.

I'm also at a bit of an impass with my gear. I'm beginning to feel the damage hit of only being on a 5-link when fighting tougher bosses, but the only 6 links I've found are a couple of armour based corrupted ones (when I need 4B/2G sockets....) and about half-a-dozen Tabulas, but I'm getting a lot of res/life/mana from my chestpiece so switching over to one of those would hurt a lot. I could probably deal with the res issue by recrafting other gear, but that would come at the cost of chaos res, which is not something I'm doing amazingly on as is (I've got it to about 0% with hybrid crafts). And I've only about 200 fusings so I'm not willing to risk my good 5 link on rolling for 6. I guess I could try farming residences for the Dapper Prodigy card, but I don't really enjoy doing that, I like playing a mix of maps.

Heist remains a fun diversion from mapping when I need some variety but I'm stacking up contracts much faster than I'm running them.

 

[AdamCrock]

I've been partaking in Magic The Gathering Arena a lot recently.

Perhaps someone from here would like to play with me on the Arena ? it's 100% free I assure You
Guide on how to start and some more info !

Spoiler :

 

[PhroX]

I prefer Magic Online to Arena if I'm playing, well, Magic online. The interface is bit clunkier (although even then, you don't have stupid flashy animations getting in the way of playing the game), but you get access to much better formats. But then I've been playing the game in paper for a decade or so, so if you're completely new to Magic, Arena is likely the better choice.

 

[cardgame]

Finally conquered Group B RWD in Dirt Rally. The scariest, hardest to control - placed first in a Wales Clubman championship

 

[AdamCrock]

I prefer Magic Online to Arena if I'm playing, well, Magic online. The interface is bit clunkier (although even then, you don't have stupid flashy animations getting in the way of playing the game), but you get access to much better formats. But then I've been playing the game in paper for a decade or so, so if you're completely new to Magic, Arena is likely the better choice.

Can You build any deck You want or is there a system of buying / trading / getting cards ? I'm a long time player - I got back to MTG recently - this January when Theros was released. I haven't played online before.
I guess Arena is a bit "flashy" but it's not that obtrusive imho.
btw. wanna play sometime ?

 

[Birdjaguar]

Still with PoE, I'm pushing well into red maps with my Cremation Archmage Necro. Beaten all the conquerors at 3 watchstones. T14 maps are OK as long as I pay attention to mods - in addition to the obvious reflect problems, too many damage boosts, especially when combined with vulnerability curse is a bit too much - but the real problem I'm having is sustaining them. Still having to do quite a few T11-12s just to get 13s and 14s to run, so I haven't been able to unlock any of the 4 stone Conquerors.

I'm also at a bit of an impass with my gear. I'm beginning to feel the damage hit of only being on a 5-link when fighting tougher bosses, but the only 6 links I've found are a couple of armour based corrupted ones (when I need 4B/2G sockets....) and about half-a-dozen Tabulas, but I'm getting a lot of res/life/mana from my chestpiece so switching over to one of those would hurt a lot. I could probably deal with the res issue by recrafting other gear, but that would come at the cost of chaos res, which is not something I'm doing amazingly on as is (I've got it to about 0% with hybrid crafts). And I've only about 200 fusings so I'm not willing to risk my good 5 link on rolling for 6. I guess I could try farming residences for the Dapper Prodigy card, but I don't really enjoy doing that, I like playing a mix of maps.

Heist remains a fun diversion from mapping when I need some variety but I'm stacking up contracts much faster than I'm running them.

Are you playing SSF? If so, getting to T14s is a great achievement. If you are playing SC then you should be able to find the gear you need. I was lucky this league. Not only did I farm three OG 6 links, but I dropped a corrupted 6 link chest in the Acts that is suited to melee and was colored two of each. I filled it with AW and AP totems and support. My tree is not great, but I'm playing scion for the first time so that is to be expected. I've been tempted to start anew with a duelist, but the thought of leveling once more keeps me from doing that. We'll see.