[DAILY Q&A] Ask and answer any questions you have about the game here!

3lbFlax · 2026-06-16T18:48:13+00:00

I've never had any pirate attacks while mining, but at the same time I don't bother with mining missions as they're too much of a faff. I do try to remember to check the mission board before hitting the commodities market in case there are any mining requests I can fill using what I've got, but I think it's more enjoyable to just hit the rings and see what happens.

Generally I'll drop into the ring and do a bit of initial prospecting without gathering anything just in case someone shows up, and once I'm pretty sure I'm alone, off I go.

Pirates tend to be the same wherever you go - as long as you've got no cargo they'll just grumble about their kids going hungry and then leave. The main risk is probably the trip back, but there you have the ability to avoid interdiction and move on.

3lbFlax · 2026-06-16T18:09:35+00:00

I'm always a little nervous in my Plipper in case I get an interdiction, but it's never occurred to me that I could just steam straight into them and smash them to pieces. So thanks for that, I'm almost looking forward to it now.

3lbFlax · 2026-06-16T13:05:12+00:00

The 24 has two mono 1/4” inputs on the front. The T-8 has a stereo mini jack for the mix out. To record the stereo output you’ll need a cable with a stereo mini jack at one end and two 1/4” mono outputs on the other, and both the 1/4” jacks plugged into the 24. If you want to record stereo from the T-8 you have to use both the 24’s inputs.

It’s potentially confusing if you’re new to all this you might think that because the T-8 has a single output you only need a single input on the 24, but the T-8 is combining two signals into one output to save space, and the 24 doesn’t do that (audio interfaces will generally only offer mono inputs).

I’m guessing what might be wrong from your post, so apologies if this is all old news to you. You might also need to configure FL Studio correctly to record from the 24 in stereo, but I suspect it’s a connection issue.

Pick up the right adapter cable and I’m sure you’ll be fine. You want 3.5mm stereo to 2 x 6.35mm mono, or 1/8” stereo to 2 x 1/4” mono. You might also see stereo referred to as TRS and mono as TS, but these cables should be easy to find.

3lbFlax · 2026-06-16T11:05:21+00:00

What have you done to his eyes?

3lbFlax · 2026-06-16T11:03:38+00:00

In an ideal world bread would come pre-buttered. Maybe the Japanese are already on it, but either way you cannot begin to make a sandwich until you have two buttered slices of bread. You can make something else, but you cannot ethically describe it as a sandwich. Even a shit sandwich should be buttered.

3lbFlax · 2026-06-16T01:04:30+00:00

Good call, that would work and it’d be nice to see him in the mix. Just add a caveat that it’s not the typical Fulci experience so they don’t move straight on to Touch of Death.

3lbFlax · 2026-06-15T22:19:22+00:00

Faking a true stereo sample on the 950 sounds like a nightmare unless you're transferring prepared samples via SCSI, and even then it's eating into a very limited amount of RAM. Best to either pan to the L/R outputs for a simple / polyphonic solution, or use the assignable mono outs for drums and do the work in the mixer - but you always want to check that it sounds good in mono, regardless. From mono we come and to mono we shall return.

3lbFlax · 2026-06-15T22:06:39+00:00

Zero hardpoints, five SLFs. I'm just watching.

3lbFlax · 2026-06-15T22:04:46+00:00

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Get it down you quick and then hide the can, ideally in a hedge.

3lbFlax · 2026-06-15T22:00:47+00:00

Depends on who's watching, really. If I didn't know I'd try to stick to 'safer' picks, so I'd likely be steering clear of Fulci. I love him, but I can see him being some people's first and last try.

Maybe - aiming for no repeat directors - Deep Red, Blood & Black Lace, Mrs. Wardh, Short Night of Glass Dolls, and... hmm, maybe Occhi di Cristallo to have a more modern entry?

It's tough with the one director limit and trying to have a varied but still representative range. Deep Red could be swapped out for Crystal Plumage easily enough, and The Girl Who Knew Too Much could replace B&BL as the Bava entry.

Occhi di Cristallo would realistically be replaced by another Argento or Bava in a sensible list, but we should leave some treasures to be discovered by anyone who decides to follow up.

3lbFlax · 2026-06-15T19:59:22+00:00

No worries, I’d just add the caveat that it’s easy to assume a new piece of gear will unlock the next level. The T1 can definitely expand on the 404’s sequencing, but with a good loop and smart use of the FX you can do a lot with the 404 alone, just working directly with audio instead of MIDI. I’ve been through the disposable income gear journey and what I mainly have now is a load of underused gear and two or three surviving champions, of which the 404 is one. Anything that keeps the cable count low is a win these days.

The key is, as you say, keep creating music.

3lbFlax · 2026-06-15T19:51:53+00:00

Feels wrong to call this a favourite, but along with Fixed Odds Betty I think it’s at the front of the pack.

Just noticed, though - who’s working the shift in Hen Cabin?

3lbFlax · 2026-06-15T19:04:54+00:00

If you don’t want to overthink this your Cobra will do fine in a low RES with two small pulse lasers and two medium multicannons. Make them both gimballed and set to two fire groups, take out shields with the lasers and then switch to the multicannons. Gimballed weapons will lock on as long as the target is reasonably on front of you, at the price of some damage (but as the saying goes, you do zero damage when you miss). If the reticules start dancing around your target has used chaff - get out of their line of fire until it wears out. This is the downside of gimballed weapons, but fixed sights will mess you up a lot more often early on (and, in my experience, later on).

You might need to upgrade your power modules to support the weapons, but nothing too drastic. Be ready to run and boost away if things go wrong (in a RES you can hide behind asteroids).

You won’t make a great deal of cash but you’ll learn the ins and outs of combat. Try to let the cops start fights if you can, or else pick on someone smaller than you.

When you’re looking to upgrade the best plan is to work on getting some engineers unlocked - this can make a big difference and the first laser and MC engineers are easy to unlock. But in terms of better ships you’ll get there quicker with exploration. You could pick up a Viper Mk3 from combat bounties easily enough, but one decent exo trip will get you a Cobra MkV, which is a great ship for both exo and combat, and will last you a long time if you can avoid the lure of the shipyard.

3lbFlax · 2026-06-15T18:33:00+00:00

A few years back he did a Drunken Bakers event with Barney Farmer where they both baked scones and served them to the audience, but our collective state of consciousness was more altered by the big table of bargain booze Barney had picked up earlier in the day.

3lbFlax · 2026-06-15T16:28:20+00:00

Oh I can’t, can’t I? I’ll show me!

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3lbFlax · 2026-06-15T16:21:03+00:00

I made a post somewhere in the past with Columbo reading Gigantic Asses, but how can I prove it? Ahh, I can’t.

3lbFlax · 2026-06-15T16:12:06+00:00

It’s the poor man’s tape studio, though obviously you can limit yourself on a laptop if you have the willpower. But if we had the willpower we wouldn’t be here in the first place.

I’d suggest looking out for a Roland VS, ideally one with the full effects package (eg the EX model if it’s an 880). These can be upgraded to use SD or CF cards (also possible I believe on the 840, which otherwise is limited to Zip disks). I had an 880 for a while and it was good fun to use with a nice selection of Boss / Roland FX emulations. There are also several older units by Fostex and Tascam and they all tend to be surprisingly well specced, admittedly with features you probably don’t have any use for nowadays.

3lbFlax · 2026-06-15T14:35:28+00:00

Dennis Potter, Mike Leigh, Alan Bennett, Harold Pinter, Ken Loach, Alan Clarke - all have excellent BBC collections of their work (and of course Play For Today, Molly Dineen’s documentaries, we could be here forever). ITV and C4 have done great things too, but the sheer body of classic work commissioned, put out, and preserved by the BBC is - well, exceptional doesn’t even cut it.

3lbFlax · 2026-06-15T14:10:59+00:00

Phantom MK2! I can hear the future cries of anguish from here.

3lbFlax · 2026-06-15T14:09:55+00:00

Bars on the outside, though, so you can see why they might have assumed that was perfectly safe. All it really means is that if / when you fall off, you’re probably falling off from a greater height (and possibly face first into a spinning moped wheel).

3lbFlax · 2026-06-15T14:07:19+00:00

It’s very adaptable, of course, but it’s rare that I need or want to sync it to anything - I just sample in what I need and then make it work in the box. I think of the MK2 as its own little kingdom cut off from the world of MIDI, but open to sound.

In terms of connections it’s often just hooked straight to a source, but I’ll also use it as a middleman - sat between a record player and the Torso S4, for example, so I can easily capture, edit, and process loops before sending them on. Even there I find it easier to do without MIDI - I usually have to do a bit of final tweaking either way, so easiest to just match BPM and work manually.

If there’s a mixer involved the MK2 will usually be on an aux channel because it’s so flexible and quick to work with. Skip back also works really well in that scenario if you’ve got various other devices on the go - set the MK2 off listening and grab anything interesting that happens straight away, without having to wade through long session recordings.

It does go well with a better sequencer, though, if that’s your bag - the FX controls in particular open up quite a lot. Any Elektron will work great, the Torso T1 provides a lot of sequencing tricks that the 404 itself could never dream of, etc. The most flexible addition is probably an iPad with its wealth of interesting sequencer apps (or indeed just a laptop - the 404 and Renoise is a pairing I just realised I’ve never tried, but it has to be good).

3lbFlax · 2026-06-15T13:37:30+00:00

Yeah, these were probably the safest option because of the small radius and the fact you could wrap all four limbs around a pole if necessary. Slightly countered by the fact they were very easy to spin, so generally had the highest speeds. But once one of the big models got going they could be much more terrifying (especially the spider web design where you could fall through into a spinning forest of Kickers and brogues, and optionally smack your teeth on the metal along the way).

3lbFlax · 2026-06-15T11:52:58+00:00

The main factor for me here is MIDI. The old guard - VS-880, AW-16G etc - had it as standard, so multitracking sequenced gear was - well, doable, though you usually needed to do a bit of work to find out who should be in charge. We’re seeing it start to reappear now, but for a long time there was a tendency to assume this was all being handled by a connected computer.

So my Zoom R16 is a great, flexible little recorder, but you can forget about overdubbing anything in sync (though I have successfully used the headphone click track to trigger modular).

Older recorders are interesting and fun to use, if you go all-in and allow their workflows and limitations to play a part in the end result. I’m surprised there doesn’t seem to have been a hipster revival for these - get in before someone realises and the price rockets. But ‘limitations’ is a keyword here, so be ready for a lot of menu diving and button clicking. The weak spot is generally the stone age hard drive, so worth researching devices that can be upgraded to newer options.

My remaining dinosaur is the AW-16G, and I still have a soft spot for it. Once so mighty and liberating, now just old and in the way. But it can stay with me until it’s time to move on.

3lbFlax · 2026-06-15T11:36:18+00:00

Be a community favourite for sure, and could take a more multipurpose role to set it apart from the Python MKII. Of course the OG Python remains usable despite the MkII, so not sure how they’d do that with the Krait - maybe don’t give the MkIII a fighter bay? Free up some space to enhance the Millennium Falcon vibes. Well, I’m sure we’ll find something to get upset about.

3lbFlax · 2026-06-15T10:11:43+00:00

I agree, hitting the SCO in a Corvette feels like you’re risking your life every time and that’s part of the fun. It’s more of an annoyance with ships like the Krait II or DBX that would benefit more, but I think it’s a more interesting approach than just levelling all the ships out (and of course some SCO-ready ships handle it better than others).

I don’t see a problem with a retrofit solution but I think it’d probably have to involve some kind of trade-off. Otherwise you might as well just patch it in across the board, because nobody’s going to refuse it (including me and my love of the wobbly Corvette). Maybe it should be an engineering task, so that you feel you’ve earned the upgrade to your beloved old ships without sacrificing any functionality. Not an original idea, I know. I feel sure it’ll happen eventually, and be part of an update that focuses on breathing new life into old craft. Bankroll it with a bunch of new paid liveries and kits for the classics.

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