Thought I'd dust off the old Switch Lite and play some Fire Emblem Three Houses.

This post has been edited by Dark Reaper: Apr 26 2021, 03:44 PM

SimVille is growing! Yesterday I had about 28.000 inhabitants, now I have 49.000 and I've even started to get high property values!


Update: I now have 68.000 inhabitants, one airport, a smallboat harbor and a railway! Pic

This post has been edited by mirocu: Apr 27 2021, 06:29 PM

Yesterday, for the first time in years, my PC audio systems rear channels kicked in at start-up, and remained functional the entire day! TS2021 is ever so much more enjoyable when surrounded by well-placed train sounds! Ended up driving I decent number of scenarios to completion. The game credited only one of them as a success. I suspected that was likely to happen. My downfall is, more often than not, falling behind schedule. Some scenarios are stricter about keeping to timetables than others. Some jettison them altogether. Yesterday's scenarios were strict. Timetable failures don't bother me, for the most part, so long as I execute all individual components (minus timetable) satisfactorily, as was the case in all but one of yesterday's scenarios.

Have to admit I hoped yesterday's final scenario would be flagged as complete. It went very well. I was only a couple of minutes behind by its end. Nope, failure. What's more, I was credited with only four of the nine stations my train stopped at. Such is life along the rails, I reckon.

(I intended to return to that scenario this morning and film it, failure or no failure. Alas, I proceeded to make one stupid driving error after another. Called it quits at the third station stop. Yesterday's drive, discounting timetable, was well-nigh errorless. Errorless by rookie standards, that is.)

I completely sympathize - surround sound while gaming is awesome! Happy for you, Decrepit! :thumbsup:



As for me I now have between 75.000 and 80.000 inhabitants, one nuclear plant (reducing air pollution by replacing oilburning plants) and I finally passed 100.000 Simoleons in the city's treasury!

Now folks don't get mad at me, don't ask me to turn in my PC Master Race Membership Card, but I decided to get a regular Nintendo Switch on top of the Switch Lite that I have. I probably won't be buying anymore consoles after this though as I don't need a Xbox or PS since I have my PC .

Not gonna revoke your card, but do you actually have enough games to support all those consoles?



@Decrepit - Regarding your sound system, is it USB? If so you may need to unplug and replug it in order to get a better connection so all your speakers work.

This post has been edited by mirocu: Apr 30 2021, 04:59 PM

Oh yeah plenty of games to play to keep me going for awhile .

Drove an LB&SCR E-4 in TS2021 today. It was an uncomfortable drive. The loco's brakes behave somewhat differently from what I'm used to. I did okay stopping at all stations, but it wasn't always a pretty sight. I failed the scenario, for my normal reason of falling behind timetable, not poor braking skills.

'Filmed' that one scenario I wrote about in an earlier thread. Not a spotless drive, sad to say. Make a couple of dumb mistakes, that can't be covered up (though I tried to first time). Regardless, I'll likely create a YT episode from the footage. If I do, it'll be my longest episode to date, clocking in at right at an hour.

Now this is how Myst should be played!

Got back into playing Animal Crossing New Horizon on the Switch, Actually made VERY quick progress as I already have houses, shop and museum all in just a couple of days which took me longer to get in my first run.

Just finished a super exhilarating TS2021 scenario. Had to drive a Stroudly A1 Terrier on an hour-long passenger run with a VERY tight timetable. I usually fail those by an appreciable margin. What's more, this scenario is rated level-four difficultly, the next-to-highest difficulty. But I felt pumped tonight and decided to give it a go.

Miracle of miracles, I pulled it off! Almost didn't. At the very last moment, terminus station in sight, I saw a red signal before me. I slammed on the brakes. Couldn't stop in time. Ran through the signal. I did, however, manage to stop the train before reaching the rail junction that signal protected. If I hadn't, I'd have slammed into an oncoming train crossing to other tracks. Once that train cleared the junction, I fired up my Terrier and limped into the station, now little more than a stone's throw away. Thankfully, passing the red signal, while counting against me, wasn't an auto scenario failure. My one big regret is in not 'filming' it. I thought about doing so beforehand, but chickened out, sure I'd not come close to succeeding.

I might play some One Man's Lie tonight.

Here's visual documentation of struggles at becoming a minimally competent TS2021 train driver. Lots of shunting here, which I'm very rusty at. Still, I don't end up with so much egg on my face that I'm mistaken for an omelet:

(video link) TS2021, ep05 - Railway Roundabout Driver Challenge 98 - GWR 4575 class "Small Prairie" (video link)

Aside from Train Simulator, I'm doing no gaming at all. I keep telling myself I'm going to upgrade Daggerfall Unity to its latest Beta version, but never drum up the mental energy to do so. It's an age thing, I suspect.

My SimVille now has a fusion reactor, a farm AND its own harbor! Most of the city has high, very high or even astronomical landvalues. I have zero water pollution and very little air pollution most of which is concentrated in the industrial area. The rest, coming from traffic, is miniscule. I plan to reduce pollution even more by getting rid of the garbage burning powerplants but that can prove difficult as I import garbage to get money. I may end up just relocating them further away from the city proper.



Earliest pic I have
Expanding
Current state
New harbor!

Under da sea, under da sea down here is wetter and dangerous take it from me!

SimCity 3000


Today I decided to create an exclusive residential area in SimVille. I zoned an area as light residential instead of medium or dense as that will make sure I get nice villas, gardens and pools. The high land value is essential here.
I made it so a single road leads into the area and loops while also making avenues and dotting the place with playgrounds, ponds and lots of trees. All to make it as exclusive as possible! The white and pink buildings to the left I expect to soon shift into something fancier as the land value is high there too.


This neighbourhood is located in the new area I've been working on across the river, apart from the old section of the city.


The new area
The still developing neighbourhood
Close-up
Different angle


I also want to show you the old part of town again. Notice the highrises in the business district in the upper left caused by high land values. Here's also the road leading to the harbor.

Game wise, I should've stayed in bed (the sofa). Couldn't for the life of me add acceptable text narrative to a TS2021 video I'm working on. What little I managed to compose was removed later, being subpar. Giving up on that, I tried my hand at driving various TS2021 scenarios. All attempts failed, almost before they began. Couldn't drive worth beans. One stupid scenario-ending mistake after another.

Today's one positive gaming experience is connected with one of those failed scenarios. I couldn't even begin it. Coal wagons my loco was to couple with didn't exist. Exited and checked requirements at Steam Workshop. I had all needed DLC. Or so I thought. Turns out, the LNER/BR J94 DLC the scenario requires is NOT the Class J94: Memories of Maerdy DLC I own. I was about to return to Steam Workshop and unsubscribe to the scenario, then noticed that the needed LNER/BR J94 DLC is on sale, for $2.49US! No way could I pass that up.

To counter the train driving fiascos mentioned above, here's visual documentation of a more successful excursion. A passenger run that is a race-against-the-clock, with me striving mightily to arrive at each station on schedule. I drive one of my favorite steam locomotives, a Stroudley A1 Terrier.

(video) TS2021, ep06: London to Brighton route, Going for Gold scenario (video)

I'm still replaying Oblivion, but several weeks ago, I had this strange hankering for replaying Fallout: New Vegas and I don't know why. Well, I sort of do. There have been a lot of absurd New Vegas memes that have cropped up on YouTube (and Morrowind for that matter, but I'm not sure when I will return to my 2nd playthrough of that game). The game itself already has plenty of funny moments, but the memes people have been making are the kind of s---posting that I enjoy. It's hard to explain. It's simply either your sense of humor or it isn't.

Some of my New Vegas urge was prompted by the, hmm, shall we say . . . poorly received mod for New Vegas that was 7 years in the making called Fallout: The Frontier. If you don't know about that, it's the textbook definition of a s---show. I've seen some reviews on it, and the basic idea is that the technological aspects are absolutely mind-blowing for the engine, but the writing is so hilariously atrocious I have absolutely no idea how it came to be. I'm not usually one to jump all over a game's writing--I don't consider myself to be particularly knowledgeable about writing and most times I think it's just gamers wanting to believe that they are experts at it when they're not. But this time, just about all the complaints are completely valid. The story makes no sense.

But anyway, I digress. Back to my actual playthrough of New Vegas, my new character is a lovely blue-haired, bandana-and-eyeglasses-wearing lady named Annabelle. I've already been trying out some new things that I did not do in my 1st playthrough. I took Wild Wasteland as my first perk and almost all the perks I have taken so far I did not use before. I've gone heavy on the light armor and sneaking. Cass has been my main (and so far only) companion. My courier became the first female King (*Elvis voice* baby). And I found out that you can take Benny on in a completely different way, killing him way earlier than normal. The only way my ignorant past self was aware of was simply walking right up to him on the bottom floor of the Tops. I was initially going to do that again with a silenced pistol to see if I could get away with it, but I found a completely different way to deal with him.

Spoiler? Spoiler just in case:



I'm not sure I want to do anybody's side, even the independent route, this time. I just want to do most of main game content, including stuff I have not done before, and the DLCs--in the proper order this time. And I really want to kill Ulysses instead of talking him down this time. The first time I played New Vegas, I didn't know the DLCs had a canonical order and I did Lonesome Road first because it sounded the most interesting. And that one is supposed to be last. Probably explains why I could barely damage Ulysses before he Stimpaked himself and swarmed me with robots...

I am playing what I am writing, or writing what I am playing... I see what I eat and I eat what I see is not the same thing, is it? So, I am now in Skyrim and I shall soon be returning to Oblivion. But I am also in Two Worlds 2 where Hauk (Lena's friend) had spent a few years... that is, he is living those years now... I am avoiding the main quest completely this time and playing a mercenary. We'll see how far I can come with it - avoiding the main quest, that is. I do have a strange taste in games.