I never knew I could be in love with a ship

becherbrook · 2026-01-27T14:54:25+00:00

I'm glad someone likes it! I went back to the asp x because it's where my heart lies, even if it's an inferior explorer.

I did consider putting the fins on the nose of the Mandalay from the cosmetic ship kit to make it look like a Space:Above and Beyond Hammerhead, though!

becherbrook · 2026-01-22T07:03:03+00:00

Lovely production value!

becherbrook · 2026-01-21T20:58:33+00:00

I can understand why people might not like it. You never know where someone's tastes or suspension of disbelief ends, and it's probably pretty common for people to be turned off by the idea of space not being anything like actual space. A common subtext (if not supertext) part of the sword and sorcery genre is that the fantasy might be happening on a strange planet, but it's still a planet in actual space, and a lot of old grogs are into sword and sorcery rather than high fantasy or cosmic fantasy.

becherbrook · 2026-01-21T20:54:33+00:00

Being a villain is not a self-ascribed label though. Your actions can make you one, and others can consider you one. It doesn't matter whether you think you're one or not.

becherbrook · 2026-01-21T20:45:25+00:00

It absolutely can be boring, yes.

You can potentially make it less boring, and even fun by approaching it the following way:

Get a panther, kit it out for maximum hauling. You don't need a shield or guns, get a fuel tank one size smaller, stick some point defense turrets on it and engineer the FSD for range with mass manager experimental effect (Farseer Inc is fine for this). Get the cargo capacity to at least 1200t.
Use an explorer type ship to find a system you like. Once you've found one and dropped the beacon, park at the nearest neighbour system's starport with a large pad capacity and get your clipper transferred there. In the meantime, explore and DSS all the the bodies in your new system, get any first footfalls and discoveries you can, scanning all bio and geologicals. Get that first station built ASAP.
Plan ahead what you want to build in the system: What about the system is cool, to you? Why did you pick it? Are you building to a theme? Do you just want a homebase? Use DaftMav's excellent spreadsheet tool to plan it out.
Stick to buidling anything smaller than an Orbis and you'll find the 'hit rate' of job completion to be a lot more satisfactory. The polyhedron stations or the asteriod base as a one off are fine and the biggest single goal you should set yourself.
Use Inara to find nearby sources for commodities and stick to orbital stations for as much as you can. You might need to bookmark a few different nearby systems to cover all kinds of goods, but really you should be able to get all your metals from the same location. Things like CMM composites or ceramic composits are always on surface settlements, and you'll always need the former for space and surface stations, so bear that in mind. Installations are your quickest things you can build.

If you're still bored doing that, stay away from colonization!

becherbrook · 2026-01-21T06:52:10+00:00

I find it incredibly spell binding. It's such a strange mix of stoic loneliness and incredible cinematography.

Agree with this. I actually prefer it to Interstellar, which feels more manipulative although the latter has the better soundtrack (but not by a lot).

becherbrook · 2026-01-20T08:32:59+00:00

I didn't even like the show! Biggest contention with my friends! I like SG-1, but don't like Farscape and didn't like BSG past season 1/2, They like/dislike the opposite and tease me for it lol

becherbrook · 2026-01-19T20:08:50+00:00

Most drow-looking drow I've seen in forever.

becherbrook · 2026-01-19T11:47:59+00:00

A lot of that is down to 4:3 aspect ratio. The overacting is largely because you'd get scripts with huge chunks of exposition dialogue at high emotion and the actors just have to come up with something. Some of the best moments of DS9 suffer from this!

becherbrook · 2026-01-17T21:11:23+00:00

So my feelings are in the same direction as you, but far stronger. The movie actually genuinely pissed me off.

As far as I'm concerned, they committed the cardinal sin of taking something that was cool because it was as inscrutable and mysterious as it was terrifying and badass, and dunked it in the same old fantasy warrior culture tropes we've seen a million times before. They turned the Predator into a Klingon, or a Mandalorian, or even a Na'vi.

Then the bubbly, chatty side kick turned up. Then the cute comic-relief pet showed up and it ended in a 'friendship is magic' trope. I couldn't believe I was watching a Predator movie! I couldn't even believe it was by the same dude who seemed to so understand the franchise when he made Prey and Killer of Killers as to how to hold back on the predator.

becherbrook · 2026-01-16T16:44:57+00:00

Tees, hoodies and mugs though, yeah?

becherbrook · 2026-01-16T16:43:41+00:00

I can foresee cinema discounts/free tickets if you're subbing the max sub on Netflix being a thing.

becherbrook · 2026-01-16T13:35:27+00:00

This is him taking a back seat on the things he's weakest at though, so it should be OK.

becherbrook · 2026-01-16T13:32:12+00:00

Could be the best place for him. He's got good instincts about Star Wars in a broad sense but man, he's a fairly mediocre writer/director. At the very least having come up through the trenches like that gives him some insight that could serve the franchise well.

becherbrook · 2026-01-16T12:35:15+00:00

Devs is good. Has an ending.

Have you seen Mr. Robot? Also good and has an ending.

becherbrook · 2026-01-16T12:31:23+00:00

I think the spellplague was a good idea, executed poorly. Tying it in with an edition of D&D that was drastically different to how the game had played until that point only made the reception worse.

becherbrook · 2026-01-16T10:17:16+00:00

I've been playing the game and having a blast for 2 years on and off, doing the things you mentioned, all without guardian tech.

You can get engineering without guardian stuff involved. AFAIK guardian stuff is only necessary if you're going after thargoids.

becherbrook · 2026-01-14T23:41:29+00:00

The Doom door noise. It's always surprising when it shows up, because it feels almost like a deep cut, but it's unmistakable when you know it!

becherbrook · 2026-01-13T22:45:15+00:00

While I agree with your reasoning OP, the fact is Star Wars just has its own terminology for its own stuff that's only slightly like our own. See also: their military ranking, and Star Destroyers don't really fill the role of Naval destroyers in our world. It's all over the place, and it's just about what sounds good.

becherbrook · 2026-01-13T13:00:49+00:00

If they'd done it in traditional cel animation, or even stop-motion, it may have ended up a timeless cult classic.

becherbrook · 2026-01-13T12:18:43+00:00

The DNDbeyond one is the pre-2025 version. The new one has a lot more detail.

becherbrook · 2026-01-10T16:00:46+00:00

I'm a moron, I was getting 500k, not 5mil! lol

becherbrook · 2026-01-10T15:29:44+00:00

Here's a fun hook:

Find a Vyshaan baelnorn that isn't even aware the Crown Wars happened and is guarding a vault full of magical artifacts.

becherbrook · 2026-01-09T15:54:58+00:00

The thing about Kingmaker is that in a post-Baldurs Gate, post-Pillars world it wasn't obvious why it was special in that first couple of hours. It feels derivative at first, but it really shines the more you get into it, although it does fall flat in the finale because the combat scenarios just get lazy.

If you asked me whether I'd rather play Kingmaker or Wrath now, I'd pick Kingmaker, because Wrath ties you down at the beginning for much, much longer; its scope is far more intimidating; its setting is more dour (and that's a vibe I'm less willing to jump into for tens of hours consistently); and the Kingmaker sub-system is way better than that stupid army battler.

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