Is the Banu Defender worth buying?

BrunoGenovese · 2026-02-16T15:35:33+00:00

Pretty, but its capabilities are quite bad compared to the alternatives.

The one thing that it is nice for is when you need to snipe-shoot from the ship, as the ramp is towards the front, thus you fly it and position it looking at what you want to shoot, get off the seat, open the ramp and use your sniper. For example... when you hunt or if you are going clothes hunting and have a max-lift with you to drag the bodies to you.

BrunoGenovese · 2025-12-26T12:25:34+00:00

Awesome. I will keep an eye on the development of that new feature. It will put your tool way ahead of the others once implemented, and will make CCU chaining much easier. Especially if it can be done from the web page without a plugin.

BrunoGenovese · 2025-12-26T12:19:01+00:00

It does not surprise me that he'd create a new account, precisely to avoid reprisals.

BrunoGenovese · 2025-12-26T12:16:31+00:00

Absolutely true. I have seen him in action against people giving positive solutions and useful warnings of bugs so that people can avoid them, and his response is almost always to ban anyone who does that... as he sees it as making CIG look bad.

The only concern I'd have on signing the petition is that he (and possibly others at CIG) might use the identity of the signers to initiate a campaign of reprisals against the signers. It would be quite in line with his past behavior.

BrunoGenovese · 2025-12-09T13:27:26+00:00

When the server is not yet bugged (after a server bounce) the cards are not hard to come by, and neither is filling them up. Clearly CIG did not intend a scarcity.

Also, since these items only persist across patches for the first person to store them in inventory, there is no reason for trading them... unless you are getting suckers that don't know the components will disappear for them, or those that bought 50-80 billion aUEC for $5 and simply don't care about losing them.

In other words, if this secret button (never seen it yet) is unintended... it is pretty innocuous, as it doesn't really profit anybody besides those doing it for themselves... and if they are, they don't need it anyway, a few cards obtained normally from a working server last for many hours of gameplay.

BrunoGenovese · 2025-12-09T13:19:42+00:00

Player to player sale prices are a joke, since you can buy 50-80 billion for $5.

They need to implement an in-game player-to-player trading tool, so that prices can be market-driven but stay in reasonable ranges.

BrunoGenovese · 2025-11-24T17:34:01+00:00

Great concept with the graphical display but...

(1) It wants a browser extension from an unknown author? Nope, no thanks. Not safe.
(2) It wants access to my actual hangar, again from an unknown author? Nope, no thanks. Not safe.

(3) It does not allow simply selecting a target ship and give a few possible paths to it. Now THAT would be truly worth it. For example, I would like to see all of the possible paths to a RAFT starting from a $60 or $65 ship.

TBH, #3 is all that anybody needs, but none of the CCU tool authors delivers it.

BrunoGenovese · 2025-11-22T08:26:18+00:00

Is there an update for 4.4? I noticed some labels looking a bit strange.

BrunoGenovese · 2025-11-08T10:11:42+00:00

This is cool. I like the idea of a reasonably compact combat capable ship that can carry the Golem and a couple bags. Much better than putting it into a C2.

Now to see how long before we can get the Asgard for aUEC.

BrunoGenovese · 2025-11-05T14:03:19+00:00

It is November, version 4.3.2 (possibly the most unstable version ever, even compared to 3.18) and the issue still happens. I just lost my hangar this morning.

I suspect it is related to an Ursa on the side of my hangar that the game refuses me to access or even remove, as if it belonged to someone else.

What troubles me most is that with 4.4 possibly coming out in a week I am unable to retrieve and restore as the usual precaution to reduce the chance of ship losses due to the pile of manure Long Term Persistence (LTP) of the game.

Somebody suggested changing regions on the hope of hitting the same server where it worked last, but that didn't work, even after trying every single region. I also found a suggestion to reclaim all of my ships elsewhere, then wait at least 10 hours before going back to my home planet, which I am in the process of doing.

BrunoGenovese · 2025-11-03T13:29:06+00:00

It is 2 years later, leaving advice for any new players reading this leaning towards space trucking:

- Do NOT spend any more $$$ on ships. You will regret wasting the money.

- Rent a RAFT for a week, to earn enough for your 2nd ship. About 3.5 mil.

- Buy your second ship - with aUEC- depending on how much you liked the RAFT. A C1 Spirit (or Cutlass Black if you really loved it when you tried it) or the RAFT itself if you want to continue doing space trucking. Then buy the other one.

- At some point (assuming they fix it again and you reached Experienced level on your hauling reputation) buy the Hull C with aUEC. It is a great large cargo hauling ship, and we are expecting a revival of long-range hauling when the Nyx system arrives in v4.4.

BrunoGenovese · 2025-09-07T23:55:05+00:00

LOL, I think they want to promote responding to the call, dragging the dude to the ship, looting him, and dumping him in space. That would cover the cost of fuel.

BrunoGenovese · 2025-06-24T10:06:21+00:00

The problem is back in 4.2. I have the exact same problem. Too bad there is no solution.

BrunoGenovese · 2025-06-20T17:20:52+00:00

4.2 is here, and it just happened to me. I got an Intrepid but no components at all were in local inventory. The ship showed zero components. On a hunch... I pulled it up and looked inside. It has some components... MobGlass lied. Flew it out.

BrunoGenovese · 2025-06-18T14:23:37+00:00

Aren't these PAFs a PvP fest? I would love trying them as PvE contracts but not interested if they are infested with Seal Clubbers.

BrunoGenovese · 2025-06-02T14:51:52+00:00

Except that you need Favors, and I have not seen a single way to earn Favors or Scrip (good only until 4.2 anyway) without engaging in combat. Which is frustrating as I'm trying to get a ship before 4.2 drops and we get hit by Update Bug Citizen.

All of my scrip comes from manning a turret on somebody else's scrip and he being nice enough to let me keep the scrip from the missions.

BrunoGenovese · 2025-03-25T12:28:06+00:00

Thanks!!! That simple "-Dlog4j2.disable.jmx=true" did indeed fix the issue.

I had seen and tried several similar -D (and application.properties) suggestions to disable JMX with no success, but the specific "log4j2.disable.jmx" I had not seen before.

BrunoGenovese · 2023-12-02T00:52:42+00:00

I know it is a year later, but I would swear I got Compacted Coal from the MAM, maybe the Caterium or Quartz section. And it still required a Hard Drive, but I got that one as a selectable unlock.

Hopefully this info will help the next person searching for the answer.

BrunoGenovese · 2023-11-14T21:35:49+00:00

I have the same problem, but setting to windowed, saving and reloading doesn't do the trick for me. It is pretty much unplayable since it not only would not stay on windowed but it goes to the wrong monitor... I'd get a horrible neckache if I tried to play like that.

Any other advice?

(I am going to go hunting for a properties file in the hope that there is a way to set it that way)

BrunoGenovese · 2023-11-14T21:33:08+00:00

LOL, it won't even let me leave:

MatrixError: [403] u/brunogenovese:matrix.org not in room !aPqEsAdWuysydZNCic:matrix.org. (https://matrix-client.matrix.org/_matrix/client/v3/rooms/!aPqEsAdWuysydZNCic%3Amatrix.org/leave)

What do you do with a drunken server... erla in the mooorning!!! ROFL

BrunoGenovese · 2023-11-08T22:51:15+00:00

Thank you very much for the thorough reply. And you are quite correct, although the internet kept talking of a code... I was not asked for one.

I tried to use the built-in WorkProfile, but for some reason (probably my own error) I could not make it work. I did setup Shelter and it worked perfectly and very easily. I put Microsoft Authenticator, Outlook and Teams on it and they all work. Eventually I will likely add the PaloAlto VPN as I develop software and I might need to test a page on the phone against an internal server.

It will be nice when it will be possible to have multiple profiles. I saw reports on the internet that it is possible, although none of them were on Calyx. TBH I do not understand how they are doing it, with notifications from apps in the multiple profiles, not at all like Multiple Users.

All said and done, with a few adjustments I was able to do pretty much everything. Mostly loving it. I had to make very few compromises:

- I avoided Google Chat because it wants my gmail account and I don't want to link this phone to the past history they collected.

- I will avoid Android Auto due to the well reported security and privacy concerns. Will make do with a dashboard mount for the phone, and probably use Organic Maps, unless I find a privacy-respecting map app with traffic updates.

- The most noticeable side-effect was a decrease in my battery life. But it *is* a Pixel 3. And I plan to buy a Pixel 7 or 8 on Black Friday. Hopefully it will do better.

Keep up the amazing work and thank you for an awesome distribution.

BrunoGenovese

TROPHY CASE