So what did I get up to....

Had a lot of gaming over the Chrimbo and New Year holidays. Time flew past way too quickly.
But I'm gonna do this as a mega post to cover everything in one fell swoop.

Battlefield 4 on Xbox 360 has a very short single player mode, and a shorter ending to that mode.

But was good in retrospect. Will have to get into the multiplayer.... really its main purpose as a game, I've only tried a few online games so far.

Splintercell Blacklist also on the 360 is a great, great return to splinter cells form, melding the new systems with the old stealthy style, with many an omage, am really enjoying it. As a completionist I tried to solo play the co-op mode with two controllers… but ended up needing and extra pair of hands to help out, my other half obliged and it was fun. 

____________________________________

  

I've been trying to add in some gameplay video but Blogger just wont' upload for me... and neither will Youtube... I'll keep at it.

____________________________________

I did quite a bit on Xcom Enemy Within. Progressing to the final stages of the game. And I have to say this is a much more refined, engrossing more enjoyable experience than the first version.I really like that there is a human enemy, and that you can equip their cooler looking weapons. As tactics have gone I've stuck to the old tried and tested ways I had in the first game. Usually an assault leader, heavy, 2 medics and 2 snipers. Once they are Colonel rank and geared up they are unstoppable. Combine these with the genetic enhancements and then the psi powers! Colossal. 

Next sentence has a spoiler ***So at the moment I have 2 psi people on what was my main team, this has now changed as later in the game you get to rescue/keep some psi people, that are 100% guaranteed to be gifted***.  

So my main team is slightly shifting, I just need to upgrade some more gear ( I need more chitin plating ). And do some more genetic enhancements on the remaining people.  I found the mec's to be a waste of time. I may revisit converting another soldier to a mec when I've got the extra resources; Already I've done way more research than when I did the fist version.

The best way I can show my progress is to do it with the screenies:

Team Version 1 with Exalt weapons.

Tactics boiled down to a scout that was covered by the rest of the team in overwatch.

Added in the first Genetic. Using a captured plasma weapon.

I also got to use a captured plasma pistol for the one soldier I used as a covert agent.

Sometimes there is no proper cover when manuvering people about.... I "forgot" about the exploding cars lol

Some older maps are so small that they can't hold all the enemies, so you end up finding them all.....

My first mec trooper

I found that the base mission has very random alien waves.... All were bad for me and ended up loosing a lot of my best people, however one random bunch of my soldiers v's a random "easier" bunch of aliens ended up being "acceptable" losses.

It was fate to have lost Cpt. Ruiz, he needed to be revived in the proceeding 4 missions, this time he entered the base as the last wave of reinforcements only to walk straight into 6 aliens in the same room, he entered and got shot by all of them as they were on overwatch. 

Getting the Plasma weapons is a great step up.

Best civi save for me yet!

And the Snipers are so good they can hit anything from one side of the map to the other.

And being able to capturing aliens at will is a nice bonus.

Having the genetic troopers with spi training is great as it adds a new attack round to each soldier!  

So next is to wait a few in game month's to get the extra bits I need / enhance the genetics of the other soldiers... maybe mess with a new mec trooper. 

Then get a move on with sending a psi soldier into the chamber and kick off the "ending" like the end of the first game... I wonder what will be different in this version.....

____________________________________

Wow got a lil look in as well but not nearly as much as any other game.

The usual assortment of alts got some levelling done. Some 90's got a few refinements but not much.

Got a druid to 85 and into the start of Panda land after scrounging up some greens to boost his ilevel to get into the dungeons.

I am starting to wish it was my priest that was that level instead.

The other alt that got some major levelling was my heirloomed rog, I came across a dagger I liked the look of so had to transmog the heirloom ones.... I'm enjoying this look:

____________________________________

Moving swiftly onto Eve...
Although Eve was played more I did end up doing a few things ..... wrong.

I only really did one blast of long mission running in Eve and that was on my primary alt, for SOE LP's… 

This lasted about 6 hours and was spurred on by a mistake I had made the previous night.... 

First let me say that both my mains and this main alt all did some level 4 missions to get LP's to go buy the SOE frig bpc, got some minerals together and they all built their own frig. quiet satisfying. 

So on the night in question I decided to try some fits on this new lil ship.

Well the way the Repackage right click is next to the Reprocess right click option.... yep I did it, a new Astero SOE frig got turned to minerals in a split second. 

In my own defence I was watching a movie on another screen, I was bleary eye'd tired.  But I remained calm and didn't give out. I was immediately resigned to the fact that I had done it and that CCP wouldn't replace it... But I sent in a petition anyway on the off chance it could be undone.

So I went ahead and got going on the missions needed to gain the LP, to get the BPC, to make the frigate, to get back to where I was, and I did it. Maybe I was less freaked out when I had reprocessed it bacause I knew the process of getting and making it.

A few days later I got a GM reply:

Wow, I've done one or two tickets in the past with no luck, but the sheer joy of getting this reply was HUGE!  I got the ship back, Merry Christmas! /AirPunch!  Thank you GM Bunk!!

I also noticed again how long doing minor "housekeeping" can take in eve, it really is a micromanagers dream game. And I've spent far too much time rearranging things like ships and fits. Not to mention the stations / mission hubs that all need to be supplied with ammo just in case you decide to hang out there there....

My Null sec alt received some training love over a few days, I got to update and train some more skills, nothing major but enough to give a lil boost here and there. Among them was me trying to upgrade his ratting ability, specifically being an upgrade to T2 missiles, but I was mistaken in what I had read and thought..... 
Mistake number two, I mixed up Missile Operation V, Thinking it was Heavy Missile V.

So instead of a few days training it will need 16 odd days ... that was too much for now... so got the training back to the main alt.
Among what I did get to train on him were these:

In future I will really look at the proper prereq's needed before buying and shipping the gear and skill books lol.

I did a good bit of Ratting / PI and mining on this alt.  I've had the null alt really support the other characters with isk and items. One last funding drive and I'll be happy that all else can stay with that alt. There seems to be a new bunch of corps being given rights to rat in the systems and it's becoming hard to find free spots, I may have to do some lower level anoms just to keep going.

With all the people on the net over the last while creating alts I did the same with a new character just to see how much had changed with the new player starting experience. While it starts and gets you more involved it doesn't  do as good a job in my opinion as the old one did. I recall the old one as a bunch of text that you could click through and get all the free items in one fell swoop, this new version drags you into doing everything it explains before you get the free gear/ship and in 90% of cases you are no longer given the free skill book needed to do or complete the mission. An example of this is the industry career agent. So after your 4 missions with Aura you are sent to the station that has the career agents. If you select the Industry agent they run through some stuff with you, one of these missions is to make some boosters from a bpc ( blue print copy ), to use this requires you to know a skill, Industry to level 1, this book is not given. It doesn't tell you it's needed and if I didnt' know where to look re this I would be banging my head off the keyboard. Welcome to the new harsh Eve world. sheesh. I won't be doing that in a hurry again.

I did come across an interesting portion of a bio....

Very funny! Cylon Bunny!

As I've been very ad-hoc with skills for the past few months I need to recheck the skills that each character needs and put together proper training plans. Mains and alts. 

Other than my Null alt being my main focus for activity I will try and get my main alt to do some COSMOS missions. Once he has enough rep for access to the epic arc I'll get him to do that in his 'new' 'hand me down' Tengu. I need to get both my mains to do both sets of epic arcs they have access too.... ah the list is being compiled....

I've been mulling over the idea of reigniting the hi-sec POS... then I start thinking about funding it and I loose interest lol.

And some light pvp has been in my head as well. Cheap frigs t1 fits..... 



I could go into more detail about these games but in all fairness its not really all that interesting. Good times were had. If only it had snowed.