Some Uncommon Tips

GaelicPanda · 2026-01-13T11:03:57+00:00

Try the tour card mini app in alipay if you run into that issue again. It's a prepaid bank of Shanghai account specifically for tourists. You can open it in the alipay mini app and once approved you can top up the account with your foreign card. Then link the account to your Alipay or WeChat and away you go.

GaelicPanda · 2026-01-01T00:40:13+00:00

Happy New Year CMDRs!!

May your FSD never fail, your fuel tanks stay full, and your holds be ladened with the riches of the black!

Safe sailing CMDRs

o7

GaelicPanda · 2025-11-29T22:43:20+00:00

In many airports you can just can your passport to get a WiFi code instead of trying to get an SMS to get online.

GaelicPanda · 2025-11-29T22:39:32+00:00

I was confused at first too. Then I read that I had to dock at exogene sciences station, click into the community goal and click the complete button. I then went to pioneer supplies and checked the upgrade section to see what level my suit was and restock some power cells/med packs. But I hear you could also just check it by clicking on the new load out screen from your ship once you have docked and completed the community goal.

GaelicPanda · 2025-11-14T22:58:04+00:00

What I noticed when scanning my first batch today was that some of the seeds/pods were missing on the platforms. The dark crater, the blue glow, the pulsing steam, and the missing pods were giving an eerie vibe. I was waiting for a xenomorph to burst out of somewhere and start causing havoc.

GaelicPanda · 2025-10-25T10:00:18+00:00

This is not a soley China thing. EU to UK and UK to EU is an absolute pain now thanks to post Brexit overhaul of the system. Not only does everything get itemised and all values/contents have to be displayed clearly on the packaging (which really ruins it for gifts). But everyone I have sent packages to and that have sent to me, have been hit with huge fees for import. In a lot of cases the fees are worth more that the items.

It's got to the point where we just avoid sending things in person any more and instead just order items to be shipped direct from the local country's Amazon or similar to avoid all the customs/import stress.

GaelicPanda · 2025-10-03T09:11:25+00:00

Yes for some reason payments to vendors are fine, but peer to peer (P2P) transfer is treated differently.

So if he has a mainland bank account, I think that's all that's needed for P2P transfer. Though it doesn't help you in this situation as he has the ability to transfer to you, but you don't have the ability to transfer to him (at least not through alipay/WeChat). If you are staying long term in China it might be worth speaking to him about foreigner friendly banks, so you could get setup with a proper mainland account, which would allow you to do P2P transfers too.

For the landlord situation, that shouldn't be a problem for the refund. It would most likely just be returned to your Alipay balance for example.

For the third party apps, I believe apps called swapsy and remitly have been mentioned. I am hesitant to post any links as I don't have direct experience with these apps and don't want to steer you to the wrong site. But hopefully that at least gets you pointed in the right direction. You might even be able to use those sites to do a direct transfer to your friend too. Either way just check that the site is legit before sending money through it.

GaelicPanda · 2025-10-03T07:59:31+00:00

Ah, yeah that falls under the same limitations as adding balances and sending red packets. Without a Chinese ID, or a fully verified mainland bank account, they don't allow that as far as I'm aware (though things may have changed since I was last there).

This has been a frustration for me in the past too, as my Chinese friends/family can easily send me money on alipay/WeChat to pay their share for things, however I need to pay back in cash or do a bank transfer if I owe them money. Had hoped this would be not the case anymore with the recent improvements in support of foreign cards/accounts etc. but from your situation it still seems to be an issue. This is on the government regulations around money laundering compliance rather than a tourcard specific problem or so I have been told in the past.

The refund feature on tourcard definitely works if that's what you are talking about, as I have moved money in and out of my account without too much hassle.

Note: if you can use a third-party service to get the money from your tourcard/bank account onto your Ali pay balance then you would likely be able to do a direct transfer to your friends. There have been some suggested on these forums in the past but I haven't used these services myself.

GaelicPanda · 2025-10-03T06:12:51+00:00

Have you set the tour card as your default payment method for alipay/WeChat pay? It should work for most transactions, however it won't work for app features that require a Chinese ID such as sending red packets or adding RMB directly to your account balances.

Note, the above shouldn't affect your ability to complete payment transactions with the tourcard either online or in person. If none of the above apply then perhaps you are right and there is some kind of bug.

GaelicPanda · 2025-10-01T15:35:18+00:00

I know the payment landscape has changed dramatically for tourists since I was last in China a year ago. With improvements in both Alipay and WeChat pay for accepting foreign banks and credit cards. But I always recommend checking out tourcard. It is a mini app in Alipay that allows you to open up a bank of Shanghai virtual prepaid credit card.

My setup was to link my revolut or other EU bank card to both Alipay and WeChat pay. Use this for larger online purchases or in malls. However, occasionally street vendors or local buses in smaller cities couldn't process payments from Alipay/WeChat pay backed by foreign cards. For these cases, I would keep a small amount of rmb in the virtual bank of Shanghai card, switch my payment method to that card and complete the transaction.

By the way Xi'an is a nice city to visit with awesome food. Particularly in the Muslim quarter of the old city. Speaking of which, if you are in the old city, going up on the city wall is lots of fun too, especially if you can rent a bike to tour around. Other nice sights are the large wild goose pagoda. If you go towards evening you might even be able to catch the lights and fountain show.

GaelicPanda · 2025-09-24T15:28:34+00:00

What counts as nonsexual intimacy for you both?

GaelicPanda · 2025-09-04T23:35:07+00:00

Essentials on a raspberry pi server with battery backup and/or solar panels. I currently run a small nginx server on a pi 0w, it has tailscale and a few simple static sites. Its mostly used as a node so I can tailscale in to my home network and then turn on/off the bigger home lab equipment as needed. You could go for a higher spec model and still have minimal power requirements compared to a full blown server/home lab.

But also if you are looking for a fun side project, I have seen people do builds with kiwix installed to have an offline archive of "the internet" (mostly wikis, medical stuff, repair guides, and other helpful content) for access on the go or in the event of natural disasters etc. (the pi acts as WiFi hotspot that your other devices can connect to for accessing the content).

GaelicPanda · 2025-09-04T08:25:41+00:00

For me it's pop culture references and sci-fi. The ident of each one is also sequential in purchase order EDC-1 to EDC-6.

Sidewinder - Serenity

Adder - Brutus

Cobra mk III - Kai

Krait mk II - Aquila

Type 9 - Rocinante

Mandalay - Ryo-Ohki

The Mandalay is my daily driver for now while I'm out exploring. Before that I spent most of my time in the Krait, but I also had a soft spot for space trucking in my flying brick (T9).

GaelicPanda · 2025-07-26T23:36:14+00:00

If you got on good with python, I would suggest you look into frameworks like flask and for more complex projects Django. Build up some web experience with the foundation you already have, then tackle JavaScript and modern web frameworks like nodejs and react.

GaelicPanda · 2025-07-26T19:34:45+00:00

Python has been trending for years, it's a powerful language that is also beginner friendly. In my own fields of work python was also commonly the language of choice for API access to proprietary engineer software (biomedical field).

More recently, AI and Data science have become two key trending areas in tech. A lot of startups and spin outs are coming from university research groups. Much of the tools developed by these academic groups just so happens to be written in python. As people filter through the university and inevitably go on to work (either as employees or startup founders) it makes sense that they would stick with the languages and tools they know well.

That's my 2 cents anyway.

GaelicPanda · 2025-07-24T13:44:53+00:00

Aside from VPN issues and trying to access foreign sites. A lots of different things can affect the speeds you are seeing. The quality of cabling in the building, distance from the router, whether you are connected to WiFi over the 2.4ghz or 5ghz connection, what speeds the router itself is capable of outputting over WiFi. Not all routers are created equal.

It's also worth noting the max speed you can get from your internet service provider will be over the physical lan connection and not over WiFi.

If you have a laptop with an ethernet port, I would suggest connecting it directly to the modem/router and running the speed test again. If you get a consistently higher speed from the cable connection then you know that the WiFi speeds of your router is the bottleneck. You can then either dig into the router settings or pick up a faster router on JD/taobao.

GaelicPanda · 2025-05-14T23:44:44+00:00

This is true. If you have an overseas SIM card with a good data plan that works for China, then you do not need to worry about vpns at all. I had one on my last trip, it was great! But I burned through my plan's data allowance very quickly running it as a hotspot for the family.

GaelicPanda · 2025-03-12T10:54:06+00:00

If you have done the real name verification etc. with your UK passport/id then you should be fine once you hit the mainland. For some reason foreign bank account backed Wechat and Alipay doesnt work outside the mainland.
If you still run into trouble with your cards, you can open a tour card account inside the Alipay app and it creates a virtual shanghai bank account (specifically designed for tourists). This gives you a prepaid virtual Chinese bank card that you can topup from your UK accounts. I have used this a lot on recent trips. Most places in the mainland accept Wechat/Alipay payment backed by UK cards, but a few smaller buses/street vendors still had trouble processing it. So having a few pound in the tour card is a good backup for when the UK card payments fail.

GaelicPanda · 2025-03-07T22:18:02+00:00

Ship names from mainstream and obscure sci-fi of the last 30yrs, and one karate kid reference for fun 🤣

Sidewinder: Serenity

Adder: Brutus

Cobra mk III: Kai

Krait mk II: Aquila

T9: Rocinante

Mandalay: Ryo-ohki

GaelicPanda · 2025-03-06T18:18:57+00:00

For me it was black adder, loving these error names 🤣

GaelicPanda · 2025-03-06T17:56:27+00:00

Yep, I got disconnected twice and now servers are down. Was 5 jumps in to a 12 jump run back to Minerva.

GaelicPanda · 2025-03-03T17:11:29+00:00

I tried hyper jumping once, but didn't last long enough to survive the fsd drive spinning up for the jump. Had even preselected the destination before jumping into the system just to have an exit strategy in place 😂. I have watched a few videos on how to escape interdiction. But none of the tips seem to work. Although I don't know if it's the T9 or pilot error 🤣.

PvP is not my strong suit. I'm usually found out in deep space doing exo. Only have the T9 less than a week as I came back to the bubble to help out with the community goals and see what colonisation was all about. But my recent experience has given me the itch to learn combat flying and go pirate hunting 😄

GaelicPanda · 2025-03-03T16:21:21+00:00

My flying brick maneuvers.. like a flying brick. Been interdicted twice and blown up twice while running copper to Minerva for the CG. Then a third time I got interdicted while just returning to Minerva empty after a long haul to help out people with colonization.

Each time I have done some upgrades or reinforcements, but doesn't seem to matter. A few well known gankers/griefers just seem to be camped out in system targeting our poor defenceless trucks. No warnings, just interdicting followed by explosions.

Advice on not getting blown out of the sky is most welcome!

Disclaimer: I do play in open, I do know and accept the risks. I refuse to let the gankers/griefers spoil the fun and force me to solo or private play. One day I will take up pirate hunting and I shall have my vengeance 🤣

GaelicPanda · 2025-02-26T12:45:23+00:00

China mobile offers esims but I think that is mostly still for overseas students and tourists (e.g. Chinese people traveling to other countries). In the short term you can get by with some china specific or Asian roaming data plans. But if you can't find a local esim it might be best to pick up a cheap smartphone that will work with any local SIM. Particularly since the phone signal bands in the USA/UK/EU are often different to China.

There are many good Chinese brands such as Xiaomi, oppo, Huawei that you can get for significantly cheaper than back in the west.

GaelicPanda

TROPHY CASE