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[Decrepit]

Checked Steam right before I went to bed last night, 24 Jan 2018. Since buying Mashinky on 6 Jan I've played it 235 hours!!!!! I know I play it a lot, but 235hrs in just less that three weeks??? Holy smokes.

Speaking of which, since yesterday morning's posting I got a lot accomplished. Largely resolved my dilemma with that one Foundry, and improved two other Foundries. In the first case, it involved creating a super long new double-track train line. Right now I've got four trains running on it making resource deliveries, and make be able to throw in a fourth. The old forest-to-foundry line it replaces and been scrapped though I now use its tracks to collect iron bars from the foundry and take them to a toolworks for conversion to silver tokens. The little bit of coal that forest produces now goes directly to that same toolworks for conversion to coal tokens.

[Decrepit]

Disaster struck my Maskinky world first thing this morning. Both auto-save 00 and auto-save 01 were corrupt and wouldn't load. Those are the only saves the game keeps of its on accord. Luckily I had my own self-made save that loaded fine. Sadly, it was three days old. I lost a good bit of progress. Spent from a bit after breakfast until now restoring those missing new train lines I remembered. I'm almost certain there's at least one more line to restore, but I can't for the life of me recall what or where it was. Lots of my Foundry fine tuning was lost as well. I made a stab at correcting a few of those too.

I even managed to add a new short distance two-city passenger line. I'd already made a station at one of the two locales for Box delivery. That being the case, I figured I might as well add passenger service to that same Station.

This is the second time I've experienced corrupt saves that won't load. First time, only auto-save 00 that was bad. Auto-save 01 was made only a few minutes earlier so no big deal. The game is alpha after all. Still, I'd hate to lose a world I spent so much time building. Even once this map gets as fine tuned and finalized as I can make it, I'll still derive much pleasure from it riding the rails along my various routes in Engine Cab Mode.

This post has been edited by Decrepit: Jan 27 2018, 09:48 PM

[SubRosa]

That is what I hate about games that only use an auto save. It is pure stupidity.

[monkeyemoness]

@Decrepit - Yeesh. This sort of thing is what drives me to make hard saves regularly and live in fear of games that do this. They should at least have some sort of backup function built into it. (But I guess the Alpha part somewhat makes sense)


Anyways, on the subject of highly unstable save mechanisms, I'm taking some time getting used to Oblivion again. Specifically, I'm getting used to Maskar's Oblivion Overhaul. It got a big update since the last time i played, but I still haven't really learned how to work with the existing ones. So today I tamed a golden retriever puppy that was hanging around Chorrol. :U I named him Concrete and fed him a piece of meat and now he's my best friend. Pets in this system seem to be the "fighty" kind, so I think in time he'll grow up to be like the dog from Fable 2.

I get the feeling Concrete will only be the first of tamed animals in my posse

Also I'm doing an Integration: The Stranded Light run and uh...yeah... (There HAS to be something messing with the mod NPCs' faces, since some screenshots show them with better proportions)

[Decrepit]

Cab view from a BR-3 pulled timber train, stopped at a signal awaiting its turn at a Toolworks. Already offloading is a coal train pulled by a Prussian T3. The BR-3 is one engine that offers excellent views from inside the cab, rather than needing to lean out a window. (Not that there's anything wrong with leaning out a window.) These first-person cab-view train rides are one of my favorite aspects of Mashinky. Oddly, almost no YouTube Mashinky LPer seems to care much for cab view. They certainly spend little to no time there.

As to game saves, Mashinky DOES provide an easy to use manual save function. I seldom used it because Mashinky's auto-saves proved themselves reliable in the past. Since that no longer seems to be the case I've began manually saving after significant progress and at the end of each play session.

[mirocu]

Wow, really nice picture! I'm sure my brother would love this game!

[Decrepit]

Today's largish scale Mashinky project was a vanity affair. Connected an untapped forest far from any sawmill to an unused mill far off indeed, on the other side of a sizeable mountain to boot. What's more, the sawmill wasn't near any toolworks. The already in use toolworks I ultimately chose was of course on the opposite side of that same mountain. That mountain is the chief reason I decided to go through with the project. I'd built only a couple of tunnels before, none long. This project gave me the opportunity to bore two, side by side. The two single-track lines can't justify their expense, their engines eating more in operating costs and is earned per run. Still, both lines hold scenic interest when viewing via engine cab mode. Too, I hate to leave an industry untapped.

Otherwise, I fine turned the trains on a couple of industrial lines so that they now work more efficiently.

I installed several performance enhancing mods on my primary Oblivion installation, housed on my secondary computer. Observed my avatar and his ward travel to the Imperial City to solicit tasks for their upcoming Leyawiin trip, return to Weye to gather Wolfgang and Groucho, and prepare to head out on patrol.

Though that computer houses my beloved Soundblaster X-fi sound card, the sound I hear is decidedly sub par, coming from speakers built into my Viewsonic monitor. Yuk! Can't justify sinking good money into decent quality powered speakers (or a power amp for the existing speakers I have onhand) since that PC is used so seldom. Too, I'm used to my "new" rig, which makes the lowish FPS of Oblivion on the other PC all the more apparent. (It rarely bothered back when it was my primary machine.)

This post has been edited by Decrepit: Feb 1 2018, 05:38 AM

[monkeyemoness]

Finished Dark Souls. Easier than I thought, but then I was playing a Sorcerer (for the first time in the game, mind you). Still, the second half is the least fun Dark Souls experience I've ever had and I wish I could change the death notification on the 360 from "You Died" to "You Fell" I think the only boss that was as hard as I remembered it (even without OP spells) was Manus. He's just mean and I ended up flat on my ass several times from his attacks.

Anyways, started Dark Souls 2 and hearing the Majula theme brought back a lot of memories. I think 2 might be my favorite overall Souls game, even though 3 improves on a lot of things. Hell, I think 2 even has animations 3 doesn't (or I never noticed) like how your character visibly has to catch their breath after using up their stamina. Or the noticeable change in posture when in combat. Then there's also the fact that its lore doesn't rely on the first game's lol.

I'm trying a Cleric, but right from the get-go I can tell I'm going to make him into a Hexer (Hexes as a magic type being unique to 2, since in the other games they're split up into the other 3 types as "dark" versions of the magic instead)

Clerics start with decent strength, but not enough to wield their starting weapon with one hand. Their Dexterity is abysmal, which means you gotta buy a shield if you want something you can use right away since the first shield you're likely to find is a buckler. Also, it turns out that somewhere along the way, the number of casts for Lightning miracles were reduced in order to make the spells stronger but they completely forgot to buff the spells and they allegedly never did

So black magic it is.

[Decrepit]

Had another frustrating case of Mashinky non loading auto saves. I thought I had at least one good self-made save, made not long before, to restore from. Nope. Lost a good 3-4hr play session, during which two new lines were constructed and I ironed out a few delivery issues on existing lines. The good news is that, having constructed those two new lines once before, I knew what I wanted to do so that construction was relatively quick and painless the second time round. Well, except for a connection to one of the pre existing receiver stations. I'm sure I made improvements to several of its older connections while adding in the new line that first time. The second time I look and looked but couldn't see an easy means of making things better, so left old lines as they were.

One of my Mashinky pet projects is the manipulated growth of what I deem my Mashinky Metropolis at the map's northeast corner. (The game itself doesn't use the terms north, south and so on.) Beginning life as two small towns that eventually began merging together, I at some point took over and now attempt to control how the combined city grows.

In Mashinky, towns usually expand after taking a certain number of train passengers. Or receiving so many boxes or pieces of mail. But people moving is the easiest way. However it's done, once the magic number of transported people or goods is reached, a new house spawns along a road. If no road exists, a new road section is spawned to hold the house. (Sometimes roads spawn in such a way that further town growth is blocked.) In this case, I took matter into my own hands, laying roads when and where I want 'em. I also lay train tracks and position train stations in the growth area so that I eventually have something of an inner city train shuttle line.

Here's the "Metropolis" as of 31 Jan 2018. My road and track laying can easily be seen in various locales. The station furthest northeast was until fairly recently sort of out in the boonies, with no house in its areas of influence. I was quite pleased yesterday to see that the city has now almost overtaken that station. Trackwork at the city's northwest corner is very rudimentary at the moment, with no new roads in place. Once the east fills sufficiently I'll add those western roads (along with two new train stations) and let growth begin there. I do not intend for the city to grow any further west than that. Nor will it grow further south if I can help it.

[Decrepit]

Ended my Mashinky day yesterday carrying out an experiment I've wanted to try for some time now. Selected a bare spot of land along the map's "western" edge, added a fully equipped train station, roads, track, roads, and lastly plopped down a "box" store within the station complex. Created a train line connecting a box producing factory to the newly build station complex. Returned to the area not long after box deliveries to the new site began to find several homes already spawned. Success!

Here's an image of the new "town" with those few spawned homes in place. The rear end of the Train Depot seen at screen bottom abuts the maps western edge. My thought is to eventually create a series of smallish towns along the map border as a means of generating extra income from passenger traffic (and to keep the game interesting).

Addendum:
Spent a while this morning adding a station at the very northeast corner of my Maskinky Metropolis. It belongs to a passenger line snaking in from cities to the south. It is not part of the inner city shuttle line, though the two lines meet (as separate tracks) at station 130. To establish a better illusion of distance while in first-person cab-view mode the train now initially bypasses station 130, stops at the new station, then hits 130 on the way back. My expectation is that once now barren streets fill with housing the fact that I have a lot of stations within easy walking distance of each other will be sufficiently disguised. (A lesson learned from model railroading and TES Morrowind.) Here's Mashinky Metropolis northeast section as it appeared this morning, showing new track work and station. Notice that, in comparison to the Metropolis image posted yesterday, a station I then mentioned as being almost overtaken by dwellings is now most definitely submerged in housing.

This post has been edited by Decrepit: Feb 2 2018, 06:29 PM

[RaderOfTheLostArk]

I have started playing Fallout 4 in my spare time. And I have quite enjoyed it thus far. Some early impressions:

1) Not sure how I feel about the removal of skill levels. I do and I don't like it at the same time, although I can't really articulate why for either.
2) Unpopular opinion: I have liked the voiced protagonist thus far. But this is not an endorsement of a voiced protagonist for The Elder Scrolls. I still expressly don't want it for TES for various reasons. But I have liked the actual voice acting so far from my character, and I think it works fairly well with the cinematic camera and talking to various NPCs. It actually makes me more invested in the story and interactions with NPCs more dynamic and interesting.
3) Speaking of the cinematic camera, I have not minded it. Again, I'm not saying I want it for The Elder Scrolls, and I'd probably prefer not to have it for that series.
4) I wouldn't say I was adamantly against Fallout 3's degradation mechanic, but I have not missed it thus far.
5) Piper is the bomb.
6) The dialogue wheel, in concept, isn't an issue. It's really just a stylistic thing and operates basically the same as the old lists. But it is a problem that you cannot see what exactly you are going to say before you actually say it. Sure, most of the time it is going to be something that you would think is going to be said, but that isn't always the case.

For points 2 and 3 specifically, I think part of why I don't mind it in Fallout is because I am not as invested in the series like I am with The Elder Scrolls. I'd argue that player freedom is more integral to TES than any other series, and as such I want as much control over my character and their personality as possible. Voiced protagonists, in particular, I think would be too problematic for TES. This isn't just from a player freedom standpoint. You would have to have, at a minimum, 20 different voice actors: one male and one female for each race. And while it was inevitable that the voiced protagonist in Fallout 4 would cause issues for some people (fortunately for me, I have actually enjoyed the voice acting for my character and I think it suits her well), the outcry would be far worse if it was implemented in TESVI. You can't possibly please everybody with the voice acting in terms of roleplaying.

This post has been edited by RaderOfTheLostArk: Feb 4 2018, 12:43 AM

[SubRosa]

I had the same thoughts about F4 (plus a bunch more that were not so charitable). I enjoyed the voiced protagonist because they hired good voice actors. More voices to choose from would be nice though. Like you said, with ES games that would probably not work since they would have to hire more voice actors. Then again, if they give up on hiring big name stars like Patrick Stewart and Christopher Plummer, they would probably have plenty of money left over to hire five times as many quality people like Jennifer Hale and Laura Bailey.

If you are on the PC, the issue of not knowing what you are saying has been fixed by several mods, like Full Dialog Interface. It is out for X-Box and PS as well. I highly recommend it.

[Decrepit]

I can't understand it. At many Foundries, I used the iron-ore-to-coal ratio in conjunction with how many of each resource rail cars hold to determine the exact balance of coal/ore to be delivered per train load to efficiently produce iron bars. As needed, I "bled" excess of whichever of the resources was too strongly present, so that those foundries held a roughly correct proportion of one to the other. Problem solved....or so I thought. I now receive message after message informing me that a "warehouse" is full of either coal or iron ore. These almost invariably prove to be out of balance foundries. How in the wold did that happen? Good news, it doesn't harm bar production. Still, it makes for inefficient train runs from mine to foundry, carrying a load of one resource that can't be offloaded since the foundry is full. I'm sure there's a solution, but dang if I can figure it out. I'm not giving up, btw.

[TheCheshireKhajiit]

Khajiit is thinking it may be to time to play a Total War game again, but which one? Khajiit has Atilla and Rome. Rome is simpler and easier to get into, but Khajiit has experienced many annoying crashes. This one really likes the additions in Atilla and it seems much more stable, but some of the systems seem a little wonky. Decisions, decisions.

[monkeyemoness]

I'm still trucking along with Dark Souls 2, but I think I might have messed up my character's development based on how I'm doing in the game so far. Starting with Huntsman's Copse, I've been having trouble staying alive when before I would only really die to mobs of enemies. (If the original's sin is tacking on platforming segments, then this game's is throwing big mobs of difficult enemies at you) Thankfully, you can get a Ring of Life Protection from Goth Laurentius Felkin the Outcast provided you have at least 10 in both Intelligence and Faith, which is the game's infamously cheap way to avoid consequences from death if you're willing to sacrifice a ring slot for it.

Anyways, I think the reason I'm having trouble is because I'm playing a Cleric focused entirely on Miracles and not enough on physical attributes, in spite of Miracles being largely supportive in nature until late in the game. I thought that picking up Hexes would make up for that, but most Faith-based Hexes are fueled by souls (as in, the things that are both currency AND experience points). Not to mention that Hexes are scaled based on your lowest attribute between Intelligence and Faith, and since I only have the bare minimum intelligence the one Hex I can cast without fear of going broke isn't all that powerful either.

For magic like Sorcery, it's easy to know where to dump your level ups since it relies entirely on Attunement and Intelligence and is offensive from the get-go. For Pyromancy you only really need to worry about Attunement, since in the first and second games Pyromancy's power is directly influenced by the catalyst's quality instead of both that and your Intelligence AND Faith like in the final installment. That means Pyromancers end up being Battlemages or Spellswords and it's the entire reason I took to them lol.

So unless I find some really good offensive Miracles or grind a bit to either beef up Intelligence or Strength/Vitality, I'm going to be brutally murdered by the rat boss in the Doors of Pharros. :v

[RaderOfTheLostArk]

I had the same thoughts about F4 (plus a bunch more that were not so charitable). I enjoyed the voiced protagonist because they hired good voice actors. More voices to choose from would be nice though. Like you said, with ES games that would probably not work since they would have to hire more voice actors. Then again, if they give up on hiring big name stars like Patrick Stewart and Christopher Plummer, they would probably have plenty of money left over to hire five times as many quality people like Jennifer Hale and Laura Bailey.

If you are on the PC, the issue of not knowing what you are saying has been fixed by several mods, like Full Dialog Interface. It is out for X-Box and PS as well. I highly recommend it.

I remember hearing about it. I am on PC, so I might give it a look later.

It seems like there was also better direction given to voice actors in general, which helped make the voice acting better overall.

This post has been edited by RaderOfTheLostArk: Feb 4 2018, 09:17 PM

[mirocu]

Just like in 2014 when I had my temporary job, I have since awhile back begun to play Bubble Bobble on the NES when coming home. I always go to level 57 where I stop because it's a donkey kind of level anyway

[Decrepit]

I've had Mashinky right at a month now. I'm still on my original map, though there are almost no usable industries remaining to connect to other stations. There's still a lot of fine tuning to do, and creating what I call "peripheral" train lines...not really needed for but fun to construct. (They do no harm so long as maintenance costs don't put me in the black.) My NorthEast Metropolis has become so congested it tends to crash the game if I stay there any length of time.

I enjoy both the building aspect of the game (done on a decidedly old-school screen) and riding the rail along my more interesting routes in first-person engine cab mode (which occurs in "realistic view").

I'm not an efficiency fanatic. My map's train routes don't look like a well designed circuit board, as I've seen from some YouTube LPers. I consider my routing style "semi controlled chaotic" and frequently lay rail as much for potential scenic value as anything else. (This doesn't always pan out, but that's another story.) It's not that I ignore efficiency. It's just not the be all and end all for me, assuming the route in question turns a profit, or at worst breaks even.

By now most routes that run two trains are double tracked in their entirety, except for occasional short sections of single track at bridges (which I rarely create in pairs) and sometimes stations. These past few days I've reverted somewhat on newly created routes, making them single track with sections of passing track peppered throughout their length. Adds a little spice when in first-person engine cab view mode, in my opinion. Well, except for a long Iron Mine to Holding Station route set up yesterday. Boy is that a boring run. I don't think anything could make it interesting. Well, maybe if I hired strippers to entertain me in the cab...but no, the game's not sophisticated enough for that.

Another route created yesterday, a shortish run between Coal Mine and Foundry to help alleviate an imbalance between Coal and Iron Ore, is one of my favorite trains to ride. It comes in reasonably close contact with one or more other lines most of the way, allowing lots of train spotting opportunities. There's even short tunnel near the end. Ya gotta love tunnels. There are so few of 'em on my map. Next time round I'll surely pick a more hilly map? At any rate, I killed a good 30min before breakfast this morning in Mashinky doing nothing but riding that route in cab view mode.

When complete, the game is suppose to to allow mods. My hope is that there'll be era specific add-on packs, both functional and cosmetic. As it stands now, new industries and town functions generate with each new era. That's all well and good. But I'm one of those rail fans whose heart belongs with steam. I'm not much interested in advancing the game beyond the steam era, though early diesel is okay too. Therefore, era based add-on packs would come in right handy.

I also hope add-ons allow more realistic train operation. Right now, for instance, trains simply "flip" themselves when at the end of a line. I can live with that, but realistic it ain't. I'd like the ability to uncouple an engine, have it maneuver through switching track, and eventually be able to back up, recouple, and head out with the engine facing the right direction. I'd also like a functional turntable, though the game's limitations on track angles might make this super hard to implement...and they take up lots of space to boot. Watering tanks along longer routes would be nice too, even if cosmetic.

This post has been edited by Decrepit: Feb 7 2018, 04:01 PM

[haute ecole rider]

Ye gods, Decrepit, you’re bringing back many fond memories of playing Railroad Tycoon 3 in sandbox mode! Stahp it please!

[TheCheshireKhajiit]

Holy crap, holy crap!!! There’s a new Total War “saga” game coming out that focuses on Britannia!! It’s set during the Viking age and it looks like you can play as Danes, Anglo Saxons, or the Gaelic Clans!! So excited to see how the reviews are!