Opafi

So, it seems like after FFG lost Star Wars: Armada to Atomic Mass Games (both studios under Asmodee) and fired the responsible heads in the process, said heads switched sides to the other "Star" sci fi franchise and were busy doing something similar with warp cores and glowing nacelles. It's supposed to be released in a few weeks and can be preordered.

First impressions are available already ( https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=yLPi9N7-0I0 , https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tjBILyzBZ5Q , https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=gIOyB9ZXn8s ). Let's see how well the universe of politics, ethical dilemmas and people that turn into lizards if they move too fast translates into a miniatures tabletop game.

People keep complaining about 3d sucking... And I don't get it.

I once had a voodoo 2 card with shutter glasses and it was awesome if the games were compatible (huds were always an issue, but stuff like racing games or third person stuff worked well). 3d movies work well if they're well done. I even had an HTC 3d phone with an autostereoscopic display and a camera that could take stereo pictures. I just got a used 3ds off a flea market and am in love, wishing my steam deck had a stereoscopic display. I'm not sold on vr yet, but I really enjoyed it the few times I tried it.

Bad games won't become good in 3d. Neither will bad movies or any other type of media. But the constant complaining feels to me like those people that hated colour movies when they came out. Yeah, colour won't make your terrible script any better, but it's an additional dimension (ha) to work with... Just like 3d. If used well, it can enhance the experience. Mario Kart is nice - but the spatial perception does give you a better idea of where your opponents are on bumpy tracks. Prometheus wasn't a perfect movie, but man, that scene in the medical automaton that slices her up to get the xenomorph out really gave me vibes of claustrophobia, just because I felt a little bit more stuck in that tube with her. And that old picture of my son wasn't particularly good, but damn, even without a 3d display at hand I sometimes open it and simply cross-eye myself into the depth perception just because it's so nice to have that baby head almost touchable. So yeah, I think 3d displays and media rock.

Does anybody really use the steam deck with multiple users and can tell me what I'm doing wrong?

I got the mid range deck, enjoyed how I could play almost my entire library and created a steam account for my oldest son so he could use it, too, without us messing up each other's save games or stats. I set up family sharing for our accounts and added some games to the family library, but from that point onwards the experience has pretty much been a mess for me.

First of all, setting up the family sharing was pretty much a convoluted process where I really didn't understand what I was supposed to be doing... Were the family PINs supposed to be the same for both accounts? Who selects what in order to get the young man to play skyrim? It was all weird, but we eventually managed. The result is, however, an annoying setup that is just weird.

• When I turn on the deck, it now always starts in family mode on my account, so I always have to enter the PIN before doing anything that is not playing a game that I added to the family library. Which is most of my games. Shop won't open before I enter the pin, nothing works while being in family mode and it always starts in family mode.
• Considering how often I have to insert the family PIN, it's annoying how buggy the keyboard is with the PIN entry form... Every time I enter a digit via the touch pads, the keyboard just freezes for a second or so. No idea if that has something to do with localisation or something.
• Starting a game won't ask for the account... I have both accounts set up on the deck, but unlike e.g. the switch, the deck always starts games on the account that was last logged in, no questions asked.
• There is no proper separation of data for each user. When I added vampire survivors to the family library and he started it on his account afterwards, the first thing that happened was a hundred achievements getting unlocked because his game simply loaded my state. Same for other games which just show save games from all users, which is super annoying for the usual auto save and continue game flow.
• He says he can't really chat or play games in multiplayer if he's using my shared games on his account... No idea what's going on there, have not yet gotten around to trouble shoot that.

Am I doing something wrong or what is this? We had the deck with us on our last vacation and with the Internet being just not available a lot of the time (which is imperative to switch accounts) and all those issues outlined above, it basically got no usage at all and I'm getting more and more annoyed by this.

So, I have some epic scale Eldar lying around that I'd like to give a shot. And as I liked the design of the Eldar tanks, I got too many tanks, but thankfully there's a tank craftworld (Yme-Loc) with rules.

But... There are too many rules!

There's rules that were used for epic UK tournaments at http://epic-uk.co.uk/wp/army-lists/

There's another list over at taccomms: https://www.tacticalwargames.net/taccmd/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=31593

And there's even another tank heavy list there, at https://www.tacticalwargames.net/taccmd/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=23411 , although that's "Craftworld Mymeara", for whatever reason.

... Aaaand there's a list in the army builder: https://adam77.github.io/snapfire/war/chooser.html?list=EL_ymeloc_EPICUK (which seems to be the epic UK version, but a different version).

Does anybody know which one to take? I'd like to paint some units firsts that I'm then actually going to use instead of painting all guardians first just to not fields them, so coming up with a small list would really be my first step. I'm inclined to use the army builder one, just because it's easy to use.

So, having recently gotten Star Wars: Armada, my son got hooked on it about as much as me, so we've been playing a few games over the past two weeks.

Today, we played our first 400 points game. I played Rebels: an mc75 ordnance cruiser, an mc30 scout frigate, a cr90a, a CR90b and the four x wings from the base game. He played Imperials with an ISD1 and carrier upgrades, an Interdictor with the two upgrades that could slow down nearby vessels and that created that speed-zero-zone when placing ships and lots of squadrons.

This was our initial setup. I navigated the cr90s quickly over to the the two mcs, the isd got stuck in the asteroids and the two mcs destroyed the Interdictor in turns three and four.

Here's the deal though... After that happened, I quickly glanced at his cards, figured I had a comfortable lead over him and simply left. Turns four and five were essentially just me stepping on the gas and getting away from his isd.

The whole game felt just so... I dunno, boring? Anticlimatic? It was one turn ramp up, one and a half turns of space battle and finally three and a half turns escaping and no fighting.

Is that really how the game turns out? Are we missing something? Forgetting something?

So, pretty much title.

A shop in Germany had a pretty good deal on some selected Armada packs and the game seemed like exactly my kind of vibe (big ships, slow movement that you need to plan ahead for, Star Wars from the 80s), so I just said eff it and treated me some Christmas presents. The order isn't even on its way yet, but I'm eager to try it over Christmas with my oldest. The point is that I have no idea about the game (beyond some rules videos I watched) and pretty much just bought what was on sale, so I probably ended up buying stuff you don't really need and am probably lacking some expansions that are considered essential. Also, I'd like to avoid frustration for my son and me, so if you have any advice on how to create more or less even armies with what I ordered, I'd be super grateful.

What I ordered is the base game, the expansion cards set, an MC30c frigate, a CR90 corvette, a nebulon b frigate, a rebel transport flotilla, an interdictor class star destroyer, an onager class star destroyer, an imperium class star destroyer, a pack of empire fighters and an MC75 cruiser. So, all in all, some larger vessels and a set of fighters for the empire and some smaller vessels for the rebels.

Does that work? Will this result in enjoyable games or was the selection that was on sale only on sale because it sucked? Any advice on how to start with what I got beyond playing the training scenario and just going with it?

So, I recently went to a concert where they showed music videos before their gig. One that kind of got stuck in my head was a sort of weird one where three singers were inside a large glowing frame of a box while various people with different kinds of costumes danced around them (like e.g. a group of matadors). It was shot in one take, so no cuts. Music style was some kind of electronic. Do you have an idea what music video that could have been? I already tried Google and chatgpt, no success so far.

/Update: I found it!

Found that somebody had set up a Spotify Playlist with all the tracks used for the pre-concert show of the current tour of that band. The one I was looking for was "tiger is coming" by Leenalchi and the video I was looking for can be found at https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=SmTRaSg2fTQ

I just got a new Pixel 7a a few days ago. I specifically got that one to get the smallest of the bunch. It's advertised as the smallest (and cheaper) model, phone size comparisons showed it to be indeed smaller than most competing devices and it's even listed in some "best small phones" lists.

Now it's here and it's massive. If I keep the pinkie below the phone, I literally can't reach the top of the screen at all, which is the entire notification bar - and my fingers are long! It's annoying me to the point of being just about to return it to get something like the s22 or s23, just to save those 6mm of height - which is ridiculous, as it'd end up costing me a hundred bucks extra and I won't get the free buds pro. I've been using Android since the G1 and outright refused to even consider anything else over years... But now I'm thinking about the iPhones 13 mini and se, just because I'm able to use them with one hand.

I want to like this device. So, could you people please tell me if I'm... Dunno, just doing it wrong? Like, not getting it or something? How do you pull down the notification bar in apps with one hand? How do you post those top-left buttons to close your current view? Enlighten me, please!

/edit Just in case anybody still sees this: I returned it. Went back to my s10e, which is eol and needs a charge in the afternoon, which is still annoying me less than that massive piece of hardware.