This and That

As advertised on http://www.zazzle.co.uk/
from http://www.thefrozenduck.com/

Which ship?

Thanks to all of you who voted in my poll asking ‘Which ship should I buy to start off in the Mizar system?’ The results were

1. Tank 47%
2. Storm 33%
3. Tie between Engineer and Shock at 9%

Good job too because I’ve now paid for the Thermograde armour for my MST-FF2 tank. Just another 3,000 Cryonite for the Deluvian shell. The poll was fun so I may do some more when the right question comes up.

Level up

Just the other day I got promoted to level 39, which gives me a new energy cap of 4,750. It seems ages since I levelled up. This is probably because my level is getting too high for Gemini. The experience you earn for killing Mantis drops for each level higher you are than the victim. Eventually there’s no reward at all. Killing Gemini Mantis gives very little, if any, experience reward for me now.

Finishing off Gemini Whites

I have spent a lot of time trying to get all of the Gemini white missions completed. This is partly for the Achievement, but mostly because I’m just like that. I finished all of the Vega whites before the system was redesigned, but in Antares I went through the story as quickly as possible and left quite a few whites undone. Whenever I visit Antares, such as in the first Mizar missions like ‘Rise of Vendetta’, the unfinished missions taunt me. I cashed in my Antares storm to get my Gemini upgrade and so can’t do them. At least not until I have spare Cryonite to spend on a ship for two systems back.

I have just 3 white missions left in Gemini, at Technatoria, but I’m on the verge of giving up. One is a kill mission which I could do, but the other is to acquire Protector Blueprints (BPs) from Custodian Commanders. I’ve tried this mission about 5 times now. The last time I got one of the two BPs I needed with my first kill, and thought I was nearly home. Two and a half hours and a whole debris field of Mantis wreckage later, I went to bed cursing the new Loot System with the mission still undone. I even had help from a fellow Ghost Warrior in a Draconis ship for ten minutes who must have helped me kill a dozen Commanders, plus I used two mini-BP boosters. Still no second BP drop.

Now if I was grinding for Rares then I wouldn’t complain. However I’m not one of those saddos who like to crouch over their PCs for hours on end just to fully equip some swollen, ego-boosting, compensatory gun-platform. I’m one of those saddos who likes to tick all the items on the lists in his little black book. The drop rate for Commanders is too low. I believe Splitscreen made changes to improve this already, to the drop rates and/or the number of BPs needed from Commanders. They need to tweak again because finishing these tech missions is not challenging, it’s torture. I may try once more if I can get a squad together but I won’t enjoy it.

Steering System

Speaking of giving up, I’m reverting to the old relative steering system. I’ve given the new setting a good go and I’m comfortable with it, but I hate having to use the mouse to steer. The mouse is just for selecting targets in my book, and that’s only when the ‘end’ key won’t do it. As I’ve posted before, if the ‘a’ & ‘d’ keys were finer in their control I would stay with it. However I still can’t navigate through Technatoria’s hidden route just by using the keyboard. I’ve switched to Relative Steering already (you can find it in the settings panel) and yes it is hard to go back. However I’ll get the hang of it again quicker than I did the new system.

New players seem to like the new steering so it seems that Splitscreen has achieved what they wanted to. I think it’s to their credit that they left the old system available for us long service pirates.