TUE
Finally ordered something significant from a new manufacturer.
It's a shitty sort of cotton sweater that's meant to be sold at "bargain" prices, but it's a start.
It took a month, but mostly it's because I was lazy. In addition, I had only recently realized I had overestimated the amount of "expired goods" in my office. Turns out there are about 15-20 boxes of stuff that can't be sold even at discounted prices to the general public. At most I can sell it to a rag-and-bone man for a couple dollars total.
I think I'll just donate them. I'll have to see which charity wants jackets and sweaters and can provide their own transports.
So anyway I made the order and now I think I will have to go there in November physically to find more of what I need, even though it's not advisable.
Or maybe I should ask this manufacturer to update me when he has something new. So far, I like this guy, but I'm new, hence my skepticism.
Moreover, I have yet to get anything good from him, but it could be because I don't know how to describe the materials I have in mind.
BOC's rate of CNY remittance is 5.1CNY to 1SGD today.
Oh wow, just when I don't need to pay anyone in CNY.
WED
So Evochron Mercenary was a little slow and it felt somewhat pointless after a while. As far as I can tell there's very little plot and the worst thing is that trading in the game sucks. Maybe it's supposed to be more fun as a mercenary fighter but that's not exactly my cup of tea.
Hence X: Beyond the Frontier, aka the grandfather of the genre.
Bought the X Super Box in the Steam Summer Sale but kept it in my inventory till now.
Started with the first and it was even worse then Evochron... until I read some guides and the Wiki article.
The game's much easier when I realized I could sell off the shield I started with and use it as seed capital for my trading career. The guide also suggested Energy Cells as a starting point for trading and I traded that.
Next I realized it was good but not as good as the whatever Oil the Teladi eat.
Eventually it led me to the conclusion that the game's system was incredibly flawed. The Teladi were supposed to be the most mercantile species in the known universe, yet they had not thought to create an automated system to connect their production chains?
What the heck is wrong with them?
Therefore it was easy for players to trade in the game - no competition and little outside influence to stabilise the prices.Without me, prices went haywire. The Oil I traded in could go as low as 30 credits per unit and sell at 65 at the laser weapon production facility, although when I first arrived it was available at 35 and I could sell it at 50-55 credits.
I mean, if you could build spacecrafts, space factories and space farms, why aren't you building robotic transporters to keep the entire process "in-house" to reduce costs?
Whatever the case may be, I'm glad it allows me to trade so easily.
Nevertheless it's a slow game, but the promise of a story is keeping me hooked.
In this game, humanity had already had a long history in space travel and colonisation. However, 500 years before the game began, the robots humans sent out to terraform planets turned against their creators. Just before they could attack Earth itself, a group of humans lured the robots into Earth's jumpgate and destroyed it, never to be seen again.
When the game starts, the player takes the role of a test pilot in an experimental spacecraft that could create its own jumpgates at any time. After the tutorial in the form of a series of test maneuvers, the test of the jumpgate is initiated.
Something went wrong but it was spotted too late - the jump couldn't be stopped.
He was warped into an unknown place, heavily damaging the ship in the process. The next thing the pilot saw was an alien spacecraft. After using the universal translator (I'm curious about how the heck that could work with a completely alien... alien), he realized he was in Teladi space.
The Teladi space captain had no idea where "Earth" was, but mentioned that he greatly resembled the "Argons". After repairing the ship a little, giving him some information and aid (at a cost, of course), he left the pilot to do whatever he could to repay the debt.
I spent an entire day trading slowly while doing other stuff. It's a slow game.
So far I have yet to leave the starting area, but only because it's so complex. In most games, such things would be simplified so that there's always a place with everything at low prices.
Not so in this game. There are farms, there are refineries, there are trading posts, there are shipyards and there are equipment bays. Funny how the fricking equipment bay is not part of the shipyard, and those here are so damn far from one another.
Of course, this complexity provides more opportunities for trade, so it's not all bad.
Meanwhile I'd also spoilt the game for myself, yet I'm remain interested in the game somehow.
First, I read the plot synopsis in Wikipedia, then I tried the next game, X: Tension.
The intro cinematic of this game was basically a summary of its prequel.
Turns out the Argons were the decendents of the heroes who lured the terraformers into the warp gate.
But in order to deal with the pain of being cut off from Earth, their leaders decided to rewrite history, turning Earth and the heroic ancestors into a myth.
Except a group known as the Goners stuck with the original history and remembered.
And it turns out the robots are now known as the Xenons, and the protagonist helped to destroy them at the end of the first game. About time, I guess.
However, this great event led to the revelation that the Argon's official history was false, and the Goners were welcomed back to their people.
Unfortunately, despite a unified effort by the best scientists of all the races, the experimental ship could not be repaired.
Stranded in a strange world, the pilot requested for a small ship and left. Hence begins the second game.
I think the worst thing about this game, so far, is that I have to dock manually. This means I have to constantly keep an eye on the game even though it's boring as fuck to fly long distances even with a time accelerator that speeds things up tenfold.
This is making me miss the instant travel in Bethesda's games.
Just learnt that the Body Shop is having a sale at Concorde Hotel. Dang! I want some essential oils!
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