Rant about PC Microphones: Specifically, the search for a Shock Mount

To optimize audio quality of a PC recording, one of the things that was emphasized was the necesity of a "shock mount", which are basically isolation for the microphone from the desk, because any sort of vibration on the desk can be transmitted to the microphone, thus affecting audio quality. And we're talking about condenser mics, not the tiny boom mics on headsets. 

Unfortunately, some mics are so niche or so unsupported, you cannot get shock mounts for them, or at least there are none advertised for them. One such is the Joby Wavo Pod. With MSRP of $99 launched back in 2022, Amazon is already discounting them to as low as $19.99. 

However, there seems to be no shock mount for it, until you look up its diameter, which is nowhere to be found on Joby's website. (FWIW, it's 60mm) Most shock mounts are the "tube" type, where two half pipes form a tube tightened by elastic shock cord in a complex pattern, which provides friction to secure the mic as well as isolation from the mounting "ring". 

You *can* find 55-65mm shock mounts on Amazon, but they cost almost as much as the mic itself... starting at $15. Then you realize those are not really compatible because the microphone has controls on the body, and the shock mount would cover those up. 

You have to get a VERTICAL shock mounts, which basically goes between the mounting "bolt" and the "nut" on the microphone itself. Which completely bypasses the friction mount problem. 

PC Gaming: Power of Mods, Grind of Mod Debugging

One of the best aspects of gaming on the PC is availability of mods, esp. if the developers of the game made the game mod-friendly, which allowed gamers who can program to create mods that adds, enhances, or changes certain aspects of the game. 

One of the more mod-friendly AAA tier games that came out recently was Mechwarrior 5: Mercenaries, where the developers, PGI, used their experience with Mechwarrior Online (MWO) to help create MW5, which was released back in December, 2019! PGI then followed the game up with no less than SIX official DLCs, adding more mechs, patches, improved AI, but also lore friendly additions, such as melee weapons. Yet from the very beginning it was clear that the fans aren't going to wait for PGI to create stuff, and extremely ambitious mods, such as Yet Another Mech Labs (YAML) turn the simple mechlab in the game, which lets you modify the giant "robots" called mechs with different weapons, ammo, while balance their heat, weight, and so on, into table-top-game accurate affairs. Yet others added non-lore weapons, variants only mentioned in the novels, and bajillion other little mods. 

Yet for every official DLC released, there's always some teeth-gnashing as all the mod makers scramble to update their mod to be compatible with the latest DLC. Yet some mod makers have left the mod-making scene, leaving others to pick up the pieces, while different mod makers have different visions on how to change things (there are dozens of "rebalance" mods as each tries to realize a vision on what constitutes a proper play balance). 

This means as just players, you often have to study the mods you download, to make sure they don't conflict with each other, or accidentally break a third mod, or worse, crash the game. Which means you have to make sure you load them in the right order, known as "load order". 

I haven't played MW5 in over a year, but with release of DLC6 earlier in 2024 and hopefully, the upcoming release of MW5 Clan Invasion (whcih will finally update the game engine to Unreal Engine 5), I should get back into the game. So I updated my mods, downloaded the latest versions, and get the game started... Only to have it crash. It's clear something is breaking some of the mods. Unfortunately, there's no debugger available, and the only way to find the culprit is to disable stuff until the game runs, then enable stuff until it doesn't. Then whatever you enabled last is the culprit. Yes, it's grinding without playing. Yikes. 

With 71 mods, I think I ended up disabling half, as those are either too old or no longer needed. But I basically spend the past 8-12 hours debuging my MW5, setup... I've yet to play the game. Hahaha. 

FWIW, here's a load order for MW5 that seems to work... for now. 39 mods. 

« Generated by MW5 Load Order Configurator 3.2 for MW5Mercs. »

LO   oLO   Mod

71    33   "RevisedNightvision" 1.0(11) by Gundug

70    31   "Yet Another Mechlab" 0.93(2874) by cszolee79 and trueg

69    99   "vonBiomes" 1.0(2595) by vonSeiten

67     0   "MedsMod2024v7778L" 1.0(27) by GenericMeds

66    84   "Expanded_Logos" 1.0(8) by G3n.Zer0

64    38   "MoreMercLevels" 1.0(4) by Gloobnib

63    36   "PilotOverhaul" 7.0.3(776) by Wpnx330

61    45   "UnderTonnageBonus2 & Purchase Salvage2" 5.01(158) by WolfEagle1

60    34   "Coyotesmission" 1.0(6061) by coyotekins

58    30   "TTRulez_LanceMateOrderz" 1.0(24) by Oraeon1224

55    28   "Yeti's Jumpship Animation Remover" 1.0(12) by Yeti

54    27   "Yet Another Weapon" 2.2(434) by cszolee79

52    25   "XenoPax Art Optimizer 3.0" 1.0(216) by xenoargh

49    22   "UpdatedHighEmployment" 1.0(14) by 

48    21   "StarMapMouseOver_V3_07 - Logos" 3.5(4) by JGood121

47    20   "Restore Traits" 1.3.5(20) by Bobbert

44    17   "QOL Upgrades 2 - Thermals and Headlights" 2.2(35) by cszolee79

43    16   "PrecisionSights" 1.1.1(0) by MindlessVictim

42    15   "No Friendly Fire" 1.2(1) by yrrot

41    14   "MW5 Compatibility Pack" 5.2(81) by MagnumGB

40    13   "Mod Options" 1.1.3(16) by Bobbert

39    12   "MechAttributeViewer" 1.8(42) by yrrot

38    11   "LancemateStatusBar" 1.0(43) by yrrot

34     7   "Enhanced Cooldown Pips" 1.0(16) by diji

33     6   "Cockpit Glass" 0.96b(153) by Nek

30     4   "BetterCrates" 1.5(5) by Grahamldlw

29     4   "TTRulez_AIMod2" 1.0(186) by Oraeon1224

28     3   "Assorted DLC Fixes" 1.1a(4) by DeadRaiser

27     2   "Advanced Zoom" 1.2.6(61) by Bobbert

16     0   "LeopardRedone" 1.0(11) by RainingFire

12     0   "Expanded Logos Menu" 1.0(16) by G3n.Zer0

10     0   "CompassHeadings" 2.0(12) by Azuvector

 7     0   "Accuracy Recurve" 1.0(2) by Puff

 6     0   "XenoPax Optimize 4.0" 1.0(73) by xenoargh

 5     0   "Throttle Gauge w Line Markers" 1.0(6) by DAP

 4     0   "Higher Visibility Torso Twist" 1.0(7) by DAP

 3     0   "HeatGauge" 1.0(2) by DAP

 2     1   "Simple Enhanced Environment" 1.0(6) by Zanieon

 1     0   "minimap topography" 1.0(90) by K'Braid

« End of load order. »

Cybersecurity: Where did the term "pwn" come from?

It is surprising how many people got the "true" origin of the verb "pwn" not quite right... even operators of "HaveIBeenPwned.com". They at least understood it's a typo ("O" and "P" are right next to each other on the keyboard!). But they then linked to an Inverse article, who went into a bunch of alt explanations such as it's a corruption of "pawn" (from a chess match) to "Phrack World News" (abbreviated as PWN). Neither theory explains how it was transformed into a verb. In fact, Inverse article chose to disregard the typo theory.  

The true origin of the term pwn, is synonymous with own, usually used in past tense as "owned". In l33tspeak of the time, being "owned" means you were utterly controlled, dominated, and humiliated, usually because you are losing or lost in an online multiplayer game. 

So how did pwn variation got created? 

For that, you need to thank Warcraft, NOT World of Warcraft that came much later. The ORIGINAL Warcraft: Orcs & Humans RTS, and its mods, basically, maps, at the time. 

To make a long story short, one of the map designers wrote a "losing condition" text. When you lose to the other side, you're supposed to get a message to the effect of "You've been owned!" However, he had a typo that day and the map was uploaded with the text "You've been pwned!" instead. The expression then, as we would say today, "went viral", and the rest is history. 

In fact, you can still find this definition in the Urban Dictionary. 

But wait, you ask, what is "HaveIBeenpwned.com"? 

It is a website where you can check your email addresses to see if your information have been leaked in various hacks and data leaks before. Those information tend to surface on the Dark Web, and some gather those up and make them search accessible to let people check if they were affected by the leak. 

App Discovery: EaseUS Todo Backup 2024

The free PC backup utility space used to be dominated by Macrium Reflect. Unfortunately, it is a bit TOO good, that most people just use the free version and not enough people pay. In 2024, Macrium phased out the free version. This lead to a hunt for a replacement. And I've found that EaseUS Todo Backup 2024 seems to fit the needs of most. 

Photo by Jandira Sonnendeck on Unsplash

EaseUS is a well-known PC utilities provider using the freemium model in the US, and offers a full range of PC utilities centered around data storage, such as partition manager, data recovery, backup and restore, disk cloning, and so on. Today we will concentrate on their Backup solution, Todo Backup Free. 

Do keep in mind that in order to "encourage" you to upgrade to Todo Backup Home, the free version's throughput is limited to 100 MB/s or so. So expect a typical backup job of 1TB to take about 2-3 hours, which means this should be scheduled for overnight. 

With that limitation in mind, this is a full-featured backup which allows full backup, incremental backup, full disk backup, partition backup, even individual files and folders backup. 

The upgrade pricing is a bit weird, as multiple options are offered: yearly plan, one-time (no upgrade), or perpetual upgrade. At this time, the yearly plan is $40, the one-time fee is $60, and perpetual upgrade license is $80. All of this is for one computer only. However, please do NOT buy from the website. Download the free version and try it first. 

If you hit upgrade from the app, the price is only $30 per year, instead of $40 on the website, and lifetime upgrade price is $59, not $80. But anyway, PCWorld has a discount code: PCWORLD25 for 25% off the $30 yearly price. 

EaseUS does offer bundle savings, but you need to check their website for details. 

Personally question the utility of cloud backup, unless you have a very wide pipe broadband (cable or fiber). I think you can do better with a local RAID setup, but that's just my opinion. You should check PCWorld's Cloud Backup survey (May 2024) for their opinions. 

But you do need a backup. Please go download the free solution and make one now. Your hardware can go down. You could be hit by malware such as ransomware. And so on. Better be safe than sorry. 

PC Macroboard Update: I Bought One! Epomaker EK21 VIA

Sometimes, somethings are just too good of a bargain you can't pass it up. And when I saw a macroboard available for sale, it took me several minutes to decide to take advantage of it. 

I am buying this: Epomaker EK21 VIA

Epomaker EK21 VIA, courtesy of Epomaker.com

You may be asking: so what? It's a numpad. 

Ah, but it's a triple mode numpad: wired, Bluetooth, and dongle-wireless. 

Okay, so? 

It's also VIA firmware customizable. No proprietary software needed. Use the nearly universal VIA website to map everything, from macros to layers. And it has a knob in the upper left corner. It's RGB, hot swappable switches, And it has 4 layers (0 through 3), and can be paired to up to 3 devices under Bluetooth. No more struggling with proprietary macro software. 

And the best thing is the price. It's on sale for $33.99, and there's a $5 off coupon you get if you do the spinner game on their website. Shipping from China is free. Final out the door price: $28.99. No tax either. 

I can easily program the RGB lights to indicate the layer mode, which means I have 20 keys and 1 knob to program * 4 layers to map. Even if we take away 1 key as layer switch, that's still 19 keys + 1 knob x 4 I can map actions to. 

The only thing that could be better would be it has a display, like Stream Dock or XenceLabs macropad. And those are $100. Maybe discounted to $80 if I find it REALLY on sale. And they don't have nearly as many keys as this. For saving $50+ dollars, I can live with the limitations, esp. if I find my "relegendable" keycaps I stashed away somewhere. 

When in Doubt, Reboot! (It actually works)

It is now 2024, and the the latest CPUs have dedicated AI cores. Unfortunately, the old adage "when in doubt, reboot" still applies, even with Windows 11 and Android 14, the latest and greatest, esp. if you left both running for a long while,  and they start to glitch out. And that gets extra annoying. 

Photo by Mitesh on Unsplash

Just now, I had a hard time trying to reconnect Microsoft's Link to PC to my Pixel 6. It had worked fine for several days, but just today, it won't maintain the connection. It'd just disconnect after appearing to reconnect, then pop up with an error and ask me to relink via a QR code. Tried stopping the app on the phone and end task on the PC, neither worked. Ended up restarting the phone, the connection became stable. 

As an IT professional, I *will* tell you that a reboot solves 99.5% of all problems. You will lose a bit of work, but most modern apps autosave your progress... usually. 

But have you ever wondered WHY computers glitch out, and require a reboot? 

Because computers are made by humans, and humans write the programs that runs on computer. 

Generally speaking, programs all have bugs. By the time the programs reach you and me on our PCs, the major bugs have been squashed, and it's only the smaller and undetected bugs that remained. The smaller ones are judged to be tolerable. It's the hidden ones that makes program behave... glitchy. 

Programs typically asks the operating system (OS) for a chunk of memory for its own use, and was supposed to release such chunk when it is done with the chunk, so the OS can reissue them to another program. In practice, this "release" is rarely done, and each program ended up with a LOT of small chunks of memory, and when the program itself crash, NONE of those little bits of memory was released back to the OS. The end result is a program that increasing lost track of its own memory, the longer it ran, the worse this gets. 

It is typically recommended that you reboot your smartphone ones a day, maybe once every two days. And a PC, probably once a day or twice a week. 

And your computer will really feel more responsive after a reboot, and programs will crash less. 

The Wonderful and Wacky World of MacroBoards (for PC)

A Macroboard is basically a small keyboard that one can program to to perform a whole series of functions (aka macros). However, there are a wide variety of them, from cheap to expensive, from nearly useless to extremely useful, from cheap crap to built like a tank, from a tiny three-key all the way up to a 64-key keyboard plus extra control knobs and such. Welcome to the wonderful wacky world of macroboards. 

DOIO Megalodon Console 64 keyboard/macroboard

3-key macroboard on Alliexpress.com, about $6 USD

As I am a PC Windows user, I am going to talk about it from the PC users' perspective. Don't own a Mac, can't talk about them. 

Anyway, as you can see the sizes of these keyboards vary greatly. You can also sometimes find twist-knobs on these to give you 1-D scrolling control. The knob has a geeky name: rotary encoder. And often act as a pushbutton key itself. 

So these macroboards come in various sizes and shapes and layouts, and there are a ton of other differentiating factors, which we will list here:

• Size (how many keys, how many encoders)
• Layout (how the keys and encoders are arranged)
• Interface to computer (MicroUSB or USB-C wired, 2.4 GHz wireless, Bluetooth)
• Backlight for the keys (none, white, RGB)
• Firmware (proprietary simple, proprietary GUI, GMK / VIA ROM) 
• Display keys or mini-display per key as labels (expensive)
• Number of layers supported (more layers, more keys can be programmed)
• Key mounting method (if MX stems, can be replaced with other MX keys)
• Key switch mounting method (if swappable)
• Case material (acrylic, plastic, aluminum, mixed, etc.) and color (if any choice)
• Source/vendor: retailer, etsy?, Aliexpress, Temu, Amazon, Newegg, keyboard shop, etc.
• Others?

Generally, the more features you see (the larger it is, it supports wireless and wired, etc.) the most it will cost. The little 3-key board costs about $6 on Aliexpress. A 6-key 1-knob board costs about $12-20. Something that's the size of a numpad (about 18-20 keys) should be between $35-90 depending on feature set. At the higher end, the Console 64 board above costs well over $200 depending on what switches and keys you want with it, but it's also GMK/VIA compatible. 

For the truly high-end, there are the per-key display macroboards such as the Elgato StreamDeck and proprietary editing boards such as the LoupeDeck and even single purpose boards such as the Davinci Resolve Speed Editor from Black Magic Designs, to be used with Davinci Resolve video editor. 

Elgato Stream Deck Mk II courtesy of Elgato

Loupedeck+Loupedeck+ courtesy of Loupedeck

BMD Davinci Resolve Speed Editor

If you prefer something DIY many mechanical keyboard shops offer proprietary kits. You just add your own mechanical keyboard switches and keycaps, and assemble a few other things. Adafruit, for example, has their RP2040 which even has an OLED display, in addition to 12 keys and a rotary encoder. 

Generally, you get what you pay for. If it's too cheap, they probably took a shortcut somewhere and you may not realize it until you got it in hand and test it yourself. As an example, I dug up My 3-knob 11-key macropad and decided to use it, then found out that while it "supports" 3 layers, the only way to switch among the layers was via a TINY button that's NOT one of the 11 buttons on top, making it almost impossible to use. It also require a proprietary software that were difficult to download, and the directly linked version doesn't work, requiring you to download an "upgraded" version. It's a piece of junk, basically. I know I didn't pay more than $50 for this, and I still feel ripped off. 

But what can a macropad do for you? Quite a bit. 

• Launch programs and put them in specific spots on the screen
• Trigger specific functions in almost any software on your PC
• Automatically switch customization as it detects different software loading
• Control not just overall volume, but volume for individual apps, great for streaming
• Add soundboard and reaction functions to the stream, no need to pick from menu
• Map all the video conference controls to buttons, from mute all to kick user
• Control your smarthome with a few button presses
• And much more...

That is, of course, ONLY if your macroboard can be mapped to those functions, which is why the big brands, like Elgato, enjoys an advantage here due to their wide support by 3rd party vendors, and GMK/VIA, because they standardized the interface, thus requiring NO special drivers once the macros were loaded into the hardware. 

If you barely use your keyboard, then macroboard probably will NOT help you much. But if you spend a LOT of time fiddling with controls on your PC and wish you can just push ONE button to get it all done, or need to control a lot of different software, preferably with a single control center, then a macroboard may seem like a godsend. 

If you just want something cheap to get your "feet wet", so to speak, and you don't mind ordering from China, here's one... multiple knobs, 9 keys, less than $40, VIA compatible. You will need to indicate which kit you want, and what switches you want on those, AND you need extra keys to put on the switches. This is NOT a ready-to-unbox product. If you want one that's ready to run out of the box that'll cost you $50-60. 

And if you're willing to pay that much, why not pay for the best? That'd be the Xencelabs Quick Keys. Yes, it's $100, but it has a wheel, 4 layers, and 10 keys (so 40 shortcuts), and there's a per-key display so you don't have to guess what each key does. It will literally tell you. Sure, you can get better looking ones, like Elgato Steam Deck with per button display, but why when this costs less? 

Again, welcome to the wonderful and wacky world of macroboards. May you find interesting uses for them (and not spend the money on the wrong things). 

Weird Limitation on this 3 knob 11 key macroboard...

A while back, I'm not sure where, I picked up this macro keyboard that has 3 rotating encoders (knobs) and 11 keys. However, I can't find a use for it at the time, so I put it back in the box. (I actually also have a single knob 6 key version I probably bought off Temu)  Now that I dug it out again, I start to wonder what can I do with it. 

Took me a while, but I FINALLY found the right driver for it. It was made by Videyt, but their download website is NOT well designed. The software listed next to the device actually will NOT work. I had to download the version just above it, the "upgraded" version's software, to see the device. 

And somehow Chrome won't finish the download. Had to bring out Firefox to download the file correctly. 

Then there's the problem of setting "layers". You see, while the software claims to support 3 layers of settings, there seems to be no key or keymapping in the software that lets you toggle through the layers. 

It wasn't until I find better description of the device that I realize there isn't one. There is an EXTERNAL button that toggles among the 3 layers. The button was so tiny and recessed flat I thought it was a reset or Bluetooth pairing request button. It wasn't until I saw a diagram that labelled the LED as layer indicator that I realized there's only a manual switch. Yes, I know this is not an exact match, but it's close enough. And yes, mine has RGB lights... and Bluetooth. 

Probably should have paid a bit more so I can get one that's compatible with GMK or VIA firmware... so I can toggle layers via one of the keys, not a switch. Hahaha. Still, those are like $70-100, whereas this one... is about $35-45. (The little 1 knob 6 key one is like... $10-15?)

ed

App Discovery: Camo -- why not use your smartphone as your PC webcam?

PCs generally do not come with a webcam, though laptops do. Yet the ones come with laptop are... tiny and non-upgradable. Sure, you can BUY a webcam... but why do that when there's usually at least two perfectly great cameras... in your smartphone, that's usually MUCH better than any webcam? You don't know how? Let me introduce you to Camo. 

Basically, you download Camo.Studio on the PC side, and the Camo app on the smartphone side (yes, Android and iOS compatible). Start the pairing mode, scan the QR code with the Camo app (make sure both are on the same Wifi) and voila, your smartphone cam and microphone can be used on the PC as if it's a webcam input. And you can tune it with your Camo.Studio before using it as a video feed for anything else... Zoom, Google Meet, Youtube Live, and so on. 

Your smartphone's camera are usually much more capable than any webcam. On my OG Google Pixel 6 (Pixel 8 is already out, you know) even the FRONT camera is 8 MP. Most webcams are barely capable of 1080p, unless you pay for the premium ones. Why would you? 

Best of all... All this is FREE! Both Camo.Studio and the companion app are free! Yes, they do sell a premium subscription if you want HIGHER resolution feed, more tuning power, more profiles, presets, frames, presets, but that's not my job to explain EVERYTHING to you. 

It's FREE. Just download it and TRY it yourself! How you mount it... I leave up to you. 

State of My Games (2021/03/28)

 Let's see... been replaying some games... Actually, mostly one game: Hardspace Shipbreaker

The game is actually pretty simple: you basically sold your life to Lynx Salvage for a job off  Earth... Now with a BILLION credits in debt, you need to make enough money to pay for your expenses (which amounts to half a million a day) but that includes equipment rental that you can make MILLIONS by taking apart ships that Lynx towed in for whatever reasons, and dropping the pieces you took off and dumping them into the furnace (raw materials), processor (processed material), or barge (reusable components) respectively. But each ship has tricks to take apart properly. If you do it wrong, you'll get hurt, or even worse, die and be charged a resurrection fee, or you'll lose so much salvage you'll not make enough to pay your expenses. You also have to pay for consumables like explosives, tethers, fuel, oxygen, repair kits, and so on. But you'll also discover the story hidden in the universe... Will you ever pay off your debt? Then what? In regular mode your "workday" is limited to 15 minutes. Let's just say even a simple ship will take you 40+. A complicated ship can easily take 2+ hours. 

Also "finished" Criminal Girls: Invite Only, which is a sorta hentai game, but self-censored by the publisher as to be more PG-13 than R or even X rated. It's all tease, but no actual exposure, unless you download mods and whatnot. Visually, it's cute, but looks like it came out of the 80's or 90's as if it's on SNES, as you get both the regular and the Kawai version of the girls, 7 in all, with two bonus girls as sorta secret content. The "suggestive" poses don't actually expose anything but the writing at least is a little more than the zero-plot Hentai game writing. 

Just getting started on Sniper Ghost Warrior Contracts, where your job is to take out targets in Siberia. Enemies have drones, and lots and lots of soldiers. You can shoot from any direction that you can reach. There are also a lot of secondary objectives. Some are timed though, so don't dawdle. Graphics are good, and you get bonus if you do things a certain way (challenges). Earn tokens with achievements, and tokens can be used to unlock more weapons and gadgets. So who hired you, and what do they REALLY want? Does it even matter? 

Played a bit of Rise of Industry, a supply chain game, but the complexity, the lack of Quality of Life UI stuff (you are given what the cities want, but you can't see the tech tree or supply chain for such) makes the game less enjoyable than it should be. 

Tried a few hours in Deadliest Catch, the game, but it felt a bit like busy work. As one of the rookie captains, you have to outfit your vessel, hire a crew, prep the deck, and go find crabs. You also have to do the typical deckhand work: unload the bait, process the bait, load the pot, fit the pot with floats and bait, drop the pot, then when the pot's soaked long enough, do the reverse: throw the hook, grab the pot, load it on the crane, drag the pot, dump the crab onto the sort tray, stow the pot, stow the stuff (bait bit and floats), then sort the crab, dump the crabs you can't use, drop the rest into the hold, repeat as needed. Fortunately, your crew is supposed to do some of that, but they may not be very good at it. You get to run around on the crab boat, but the layout is not that simple. I don't know if they do mechanical emergencies like on the show, or injuries that require help, or man overboard, but let's just say, crabbing is kinda boring. 

Will probably do a few more ships in Hardspace Shipbreaker, as I haven't reached rank 10 yet, and the game promised to have a story mode as well. And I want to learn how to break cat 6 ships. After that, will probably do Space Engineers. 

State of My Games (2021/03/05)

Played quite a bit of Battlevoid Sector Siege (RTS tower defense / ship attack) where you are surrounded by six different alien races all wanted to annihilate you, but fortunately, you are very good at attack and defense. I've conquered like 6+ sectors (each enemy only has like 5-6 sectors) but at level 2 or 3 things are getting hectic as you don't produce enough to afford losing any ships, yet you have to send ships out to explore to grab planets, and enemies have automatic warp ships that drop in when you arppoach, THEN periodic "fleets" that sweep through and your defense have to accommodate both. In later waves they started throwing marine boarding ships at you, and things become a bit desperate, even as defenders, they often have enough numerical superiority to capture your ship and/or defense station, unless you have one of those marine-heavy stations. 

Played a bit of Little Big Workshop, where the challenge seems to NOT accept the challenge missions when it was first offered, but ONLY when you get the right equipment so you can work on it. 

Played a little bit of Raiden V, sequel to all the Raiden shoot'em-ups, and it's... okay, but having only 1/3rd of the screen for combat is really "meh". 

Went back to Afterburn for about 30 minutes, but got a bit frustrated as I keep dying. But did get a daily #2 on the leaderboard. :) 

Need to keep on trying other games though. I'm cleaning out my backlog and I realized I have about 8 months of Humble Bundle games I need to give away or play. :D

-----

Next on the schedule: more Little Big Workshop, Rise of Industry, AutoMaChef, Industry Giant II, Angel Wings, maybe go back to Everspace. 

State of My Games (2020/02/27)

Plane Mechanic Simulator pretty much bored me, so I left it and didn't play it again. 

Did try Everspace, and it was not bad. Some of the interface does take a bit of getting used to, but every game is a little different, as things are randomly generated. That time pressure feeling is nice, as you can't always dawdle in the area. Will keep playing. 

Tried one game in Total Tank Simulator, which is like a parody version of World of Tanks where you setup two armies using X number of points, (from hyper-heavy down to infantry). Not sure if I want to try again. It's kinda underwhelming even in tutorial mode. I think it's because the game decided to flip on and/off no-harm mode even though it's a shooter. 

Started playing PC Building Simulator and couldn't stop, and ended up playing like 3-4 days straight. You play a guy who just took over your uncle's PC repair shop and if you do well you can buy out his stake in it. Had to learn the intricacies of the game, even though I am a computer engineer and probably knew PCs better than most. :D  

Tried the demo "WH40K Dakka Squadron" where you pilot an Ork fighter and fight other Orks. I didn't like the gamepad interface, and IMHO, it's a bit difficult. 

Tried Mindustry, where Factorio (factory assembly line) meets tower defense. You are one ship dropped onto an alien planet with just one home hub. You need to setup mines to get yourself more resources to build things, setup defenses to protect your area from enemy attack waves, and so on. It gets a lot more complicated due to multiple types of resources, processing plants to convert them, and expanding tech tree that you need to unlock by making new materials. It's complicated, and it's interesting, if a bit exasperating due to lack of a good tutorial mode. 

Playing Battlevoid Harbinger, a rogue-lite in space where you, commanding your warship, needs to travel the local cluster of systems, survive, destroy enemy bases, help local bases with their missions, and generally, destroy an alien mothership or base in the area. But you can't do it immediately, as you need to build up your own ship, get 2 other companion ships, and improve your weapon loadout, by taking on enemies and getting loot and upgrade points. It's more difficult than it seems. 

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What's next? Probably going back to PC Building Sim, Everspace, try the other Battlevoid game: Battlevoid Sector Siege, where you need to command your starbase and its defensive network against an invading horde of enemy ships. Between that, try some games I owned but never played, like Little Big Workshop, Automachef, and Angel Wings. 

State of My Games (20201/02/16)

Wow, it's been two weeks since I've updated state of my games. 

Finished Crying Suns, and tried multiple ships for the first two chapters. On Rookie mode it wasn't too hard. Though they definitely are different. 

Tried to play Hotel Giant, but it appears the creators's HD Update didn't quite work. It doesn't quite run right on my Win10 / RTX2070 dual monitor setup, even when restricted to 1 monitor only. 

Finished Detective Di and the Silk Rose Murders. Pretty good localization to English, though some of the verbiage feels a bit too modern or contemporary. I have a series of videos showing me completing the game. It's not that long, a couple hours at most. 

Giving up on Aeronautica Imeprialis: Flight Command (aka WH40K Flight Command). Played the human campaign, but the planes are kinda lame, the encyclopedia entries severely lacking (there is no explanation on which planes are bombers, which planes are fighters, neither friendly or ally) and the viewpoint jumping around makes for a VERY confusing view where you don't know what killed your guys, who killed the enemy, and basically an overall tactical situation. It's just not good. Did finish some scenarios, but I guess I *could* have played the Ork side too. Nah. 

Finished Aven Colony, a colony manager where you need to keep in balance a TON of factors... power, food, shelter, water, growth, mining, construction, defense, crime, expansion, trade, and so on. Add exploration and combat, health, and morale, and you have a micro-manager's dream... but probably a regular gamer's nightmare. 

Played AFTERBURN, which is an arcade game with you the lone plane with unlimited weapons, have clear the sky and ground of various enemies, and you will be overwhelmed by dozens of targets at a time. Actually did finish Mission 6 (final mission) which was VERY long and VERY difficult to survive. I think I tried about dozen times and only managed to finish it once. But it was fun. 

Re-trying Islanders, a very calm colony building sim that's about creating the best combinations, though the naunces are escaping me. 

Re-trying Molek-Syntez, the chemical composition game from Zachtronics, and managed to solve yet another puzzle. They are getting hard. 

Playing Plane Mechanic Simulator, where you fix up iconic war planes of WW2 on the eve of Battle of Britain. Leave the hint mode on, as you need to figure out where certain things from before you know how to disassemble it, And some of the engine parts are really detailed (read: tedious), like piston ring and head gasket. 

I think I want to try Mainlining, Everspace, and Hardspace Shipbreaker. 

PSA: Uninstall "The Great Suspender" immediately (should be already done)

The Great Suspender was a good extension as it "suspends" the tabs you don't use so Chrome doesn't eat up so much memory. But recently, a different maintainer took over the app, and some changes appear to be not so innocent. When several places classified the item as malware or potential malware, you should uninstall it immediately. And indeed, my own version was automatically uninstalled by the Chrome store. 

And this is actually a common pattern: a free utility changes hands, and suddenly some sort of trackers or potentially malware got added to the app. Another way is to release a utility that sounds VERY similar to an existing popular one. Chrome, having over 60% of all browser market share, is the most popular target of hacks. And being a trusted app, if it can be compromised from within, it can be VERY dangerous, as it also saves your passwords, and tracks basically EVERYTHING you do. 

What can a rogue extension do? Rogue extensions have been found to:

• bank hack -- steal login info if you log into a certain bank
• Phishing specific app logins via browser, such as Whatsapp
• impersonate popular extensions such as AdBlock Plus
• mine Bitcoin -- Coinhive was dubbed the first cryptojacking extension, using your PC to mine Bitcoins for someone else
• and much more

So beware of browser extensions you download. Only download from Chrome store if you can (which will remove the bad ones for you, even if by remote). 

For now, I have downloaded a replacement of Great Suspender which supposedly is without the controversial appendages. But as a separate download, it's not an approved extension, so I will likely have to replace that with one from the Chrome store soon. 

State of My Games (2021/01/30)

 Finished Book of Demons (Diablo clone), review is on Steam. 

Decided to try Zombie Army Trilogy, which is a recast of Sniper Elite V2 into a survival shooter similar to Left 4 Dead series. It is extremely difficult.

Went back to Human Resource Machine a bit, and found I am NOT much in optimizing for speed. :D  I can solve the problems quite easily, but often doing more steps than the program liked. 

Played chapter 2 in Crying Suns, and it was interesting alright, as different starting ships require very different strategies. Using a scrapper ship means you need to spam the enemy with as many squadrons as you can, as your squadrons are your fodder. Wonder what new ship will I get for chapter 3? Probably the church ship. 

Found PuzzleTronics for like 50 cents. It is a "swap the tiles" type puzzle where you try to assemble an electronic circuit properly to get the LED(s) to light up. There are 50 puzzles, and each should only take a few seconds, but it's pretty good clean fun. I think I'm on 25. 

Speaking of cheap, I also got Plane Mechanic Simulator, will be trying that soon. 

I am not sure if I want to go back to Wasteland 2 (Director's Cut). It is basically Fallout 1 and 2, as it was made by the same guy. 

I sorta want to go back to Phantom Doctrine, and sort of don't. 

Did finish Zombie Army Trilogy, which is basically Sniper Elite V2 turned into a zombie survival shooter where you need to defeat you know who after he unleashed Plan Z (Zombies) upon the world, hoping for mutual destruction, as this clearly can't be victory... Let's just say, even with unlimited ammo cheat and unlimited health cheat, I STILL died about 7 times, mostly during the final fight. 

State of My Games (2021/01/24)

 What has happened in my gaming? 

Have to give up on Vector Thrust (again). I was reminded why I didn't play the game that long: it won't recognize my bone standard Xbox 360 controller (wireless). And playing on a keyboard is a no-no. 

I'm at the point in Warstone TD I'm trying to come up with Mithril, but you only get those as mission rewards, and I ran out of missions to play as I don't play online. So that's that.  There are DLCs, but I don't feel like playing those at the moment.  

Played Trailmakers to the end, got enough to make the spaceship and left the planet. Did record a video of me trying to get 2-3 more items mainly as a demo. It's on my Youtube channel already and should be on my Steam feed soon. I do recommend it. 

Tried Duskers. This is one of those games I probably will never finish due to it just being... extremely hard, but extremely atmospheric. Basically, you woke from your cryogenic sleep to find you alone in the universe... every space ship or space depot you find was derelict or abandoned, no one alive anywhere, just a bunch old patrol bots, turrets, and nasties like the swarm, leapers, or the slime. All you have are a couple drones: you can remote control them, or you can issue them simple orders via the remote interface. But video feed could fail. Their equipment can malfunction. And your drones cannot fight the enemy. Best you can do is to contain them by locking them in other rooms. But your motion sensor may give inconclusive results. Should you take the chance? Can you live with the consequences? What happened to the universe? Will you be able to find out before your equipment fail? Or will you find another ship before yours fail altogether? 

Tried Forged Battalion, which is like Command & Conquer albeit on steroids. The plot is your typical underdog vs oppressive regime. The graphics are nice, but not spectacular. The main trick here is the extensive tech tree and the ability to customize your units based on the tech tree you unlock. Unlock treads instead of wheels? Your chassis got heavier and you get more armor and thus more HP. Unlock heavy barrel? Now you can equip your units with armor piercing (AP) rounds. Unlock armor? Make armored versions of your units. Combine the upgrades, but keep in mind your economy is still fixed and these new units would be more expensive and take longer to produce. Otherwise, this is still the same: make more units and crush the enemy base real-time strategy (RTS) game where you need to build the right number of structures to power your factories, produce the units, and so on. The fixed scenarios have pretty big maps and each has a twist or two. On the third mission you're already fighting against TWO enemies AND protecting an installation. And there are like 15 missions. Due to differences in tech tree things be hectic. I am not sure I want to play all 15 missions, as I know what the game's about now. 

Trying RAM pressure, which is a game in the style of XCOM, but with a global server so it's closer in spirit to MMO's like The Division, but it's still turn-based tactical combat. Alien ship and fragments have landed on Earth, and you, as a mercenary unit working for (US, Russia, or China) will attempt to wipe out anyone at the landing site and secure it for your side. Other mercs are doing the same. So you may be against generic PvE (play vs environment) enemies, or you may be facing other players in a much tougher fight. You may even be fighting the aliens too. Use the money you earned to upgrade your equipment and HQ, assign skills and perks to your operators, hire new operators as necessary to round out your team, and advance the plot: are there survivors? Can first contact be made peacefully? Or was all this just a warning of things to come?  Early access game is free, but you can support the devs by "buying" additional equipment in the game with real money. 

Right now, my reaction is a bit mixed. I'll put it in a different post. 

Some thoughts about Tower Defense Game Genre, and how MarZ could have been better

I would not say I am a tower defense game guru, but I can hold my own generally unless the game expects me to somehow figure out a tactic no one ever hinted at me before. I can perform a deep dive when I had to, and I did so for the game Defense Grid. 

If I play in easy mode, I don't expect to breeze through EVERY mission, but I don't expect to repeat the third mission multiple times and getting no hint on why I am not succeeding. This points to a problem in game design... bad difficulty curve, lack of hint system, or expecting the player to read the minds of the mission makers. And as it turned out, it was one of two major flaws in MarZ. 

So I decided to look for some help. After watching someone who aced the mission (no casualties, no damage to lander), he did it by fighting one or two fronts at a time, NOT mining resources if not needed. In other words, he's very quick in selling off his towers (or even refinery) to concentrate on a different front. You need the 100% refund perk to make this work though. Normal sell price is a 20% loss, and you need to continue mining to make up for that.  

This is where I also noticed I did NOT pick my perks... or used my slo-mo, and pause button. But really, how was I supposed to notice? If they want us to pick a perk, they should just tell us. And also with the "sell everything and rebuild it in a different direction". This could have been easily fixed by adding a few bits of scripted dialog between the levels, like "they are coming from the northeast!" and "Commander, sell off the towers and rebuild them to the northeast!" and so on. 

You can even make it reactive. If you hadn't rebuild the towers, make the dialog go "Commander! Build the towers toward the northeast! Hurry! Sell off the existing towers if you have to! You have the perk! Use it!"  Though I guess the perk doesn't fit into "reality". 

Which brings us to the other problem of MarZ... lack of alternate strategies and/or tactics. 

Most tower defenses ended up being "puzzles" instead of wargames... Albeit with very flexible solutions. You can often achieve the same results with a variety of mix of towers, depending on your specific tower defense genre: fixed path, or grid-based. Fixed-path TD basically have you spam the path with as many towers as possible, or if you can't make the towers as powerful as possible. Grid-based TD lets you force the enemy into longer runs so they have to go past your towers multiple times and get hit multiple times. 

MarZ, by limiting the number of overall towers available (through the use of "hubs"), rather than let resources be the overall limit of towers, basically limited the number of overall solutions available, since there are only 2 upgrade levels (the third one, "specialization", what I call the "plus upgrade", adds very little and is only useful for uber swarms near endgame and only for certain towers, and since tower damage doesn't happen that often, having a repair drone just automates repairs, not enhance combat power). Given that there only are like 5 towers in the game, that's a bit limited. 

MG -- your regular gun tower, the upgrade adds more guns for heavier enemies. Plus upgrade turns the triple cannon into a Gatling gun for super zombie gibbing action. No minimum range. 

Rocket  -- explosive warhead, proximity kills, the upgrade adds additional shots before reload. Plus upgrade adds a mortar for light damage at long range. Has a minimum range. 

Laser -- long-range focus on a single enemy, the upgrade adds more power and range. Plus upgrade adds prism, basically cascades onto multiple enemies for slightly less damage, but makes more kills. Has a minimum range.  

Tesla -- slows enemies down, and pops tesla bubbles, the upgrade adds range and damage. Plus upgrade adds teleporter: sends one enemy back out of range. No minimum range.  

Drone -- sends drones out to engage any enemies, usually one at a time. Upgrade adds drones to the swarm, and each does more damage. Plus upgrade adds minefields. No minimum range. 

IMHO, the plus upgrades (or as the game designers call them, "specializations") are not all worth it. The only ones that are truly worth it, IMHO, would be laser, and drone. Tesla's upgrade, teleport, doesn't seem to work on bosses or minibosses, and you'd never want it to be this near anyway. Rocket's upgrade, mortar, doesn't fire often enough to be useful and is often landing in the wrong spot for faster enemies, IMHO. MG's minigun upgrade seems to be a bit too little too late. My credits and tower slot can be better used by one of the other weapons with more range or damage. 

When there are "obvious" choices in terms of tactics, tower mix, upgrades, and so on, the design is not as balanced as it could be. 

Let us compare it to two pretty classic tower defense games: FieldRunners, and Warstone TD. 

Fieldrunners is a grid-based TD with no tower limit. It only has four towers: gun, goo/ice, missile, tesla/laser. But there is no limit on the number of towers you can build, and it's a "build a rat maze" type tower defense game. So you can have a lot of different combinations and path designs. The extended mode adds two more tower types, but still the same game. 

Warstone TD has 5 unit types, But you are limited to how many units you can deploy limited to the number of "warstones" you own (and thus can plop down next to enemy's path). You only have 5 units types, but 2 of the units can have different upgrades: peasant > mercenary > knight / witcher > knight templar / inquisitor; and archer > amazon > shieldmaiden / assassin > valkyrie / ninja. So depending on how you upgrade your units, they can do very different things to enemy units. Thus, the tactics will be different depending on your upgrade path, even if you can only place so many units on screen. 

MarZ has limited number of towers, AND limited tower choices (with no specialization like Warstone), not path choices like Fieldrunners. So the tactics you can deploy is limited: just build up max towers you can build and max upgrade, and that's about it. No wonder it feels so... limiting. 

State of My Games (2021/1/18)

 "Finished" Warstone TD, Treasure Hunter Simulator (all achievements), and started on Crying Suns and finished Chapter 1. You can read about my overall reactions to THS in a previous blogpost. 

Right now I will go back and continue Crying Suns, as well as try some things in Warstone, basically trying the harder variations on the missions for Warstone TD, trying to get extra starts in the various battles, as it is an interesting tactical puzzle trying to fulfill the requirements, such as use only X unit types, or not use a certain spell. 

Since you *can* take some resources with you into each battle in Warstone (with the "backpack") you can sorta cheat by bringing some bonus damage items, extra spell scrolls, bigger mana reserve, more potions, and so on, but given you only have 6 slots, it is still a challenge. 

For example, one of the scenario requirements is "do not use Amazons". Since archers upgrade to Amazon, this basically asks you to stick with melee only, or archer only, no upgraded archers. And this can get dicey when enemies come in droves. But if you brought more than a few fireball spells... Hmmm...

Another was "let peasants make 75 kills", which basically requires you to put peasants, the weakest melee unit, all over the place, as there was only like 100 enemies total, and do NOT put up any archers, only use your spells to deal with the flyers. 

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Next is probably Detective Di, maybe go back and try Vector Thrust, do a couple more puzzles in Molek Syntez, or Human Resource Machine. 

Or I can start a new game in Duskers or Aven Colony. 

The Failure of "Treasure Hunter Simulator": how it trivializes archaeology and turned it into an unbalanced, buggy, hiking and metal detecting game

Treasure Hunter Simulator (THS) is supposed to be an archaeology game: go to different maps and try to locate historically significant artifacts. In reality, the gameplay was a mess, logically it made no sense, and programmatically it's a buggy mess. It was a failure in every sense of the word. The only good points are it has a relaxing pace, and when you turn up the graphics, the Unreal Engine makes the levels quite pretty. 

You can read my full review on Steam here. But we're here to talk about the failures. 

Gameplay Problems

THS can be accurately retitled as "hiking and metal detecting simulator", since all you do, except for the few "side jobs", is to hiking around the map, and use metal detectors all over the place, then dig holes all over the place finding the "treasures", which often turned out to be junk, like old nails, soda can tabs, etc. Only occasionally you will find something worth a little more. An old sawblade may be worth $10. A good condition Medieval helmet may be worth 350. But usually you find lame stuff like old medallions, old doorstop, old buttons that may be worth $5 on a good day. 

You will need TENS OF THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS to afford the best metal detectors, which doesn't quite work the way you expect them to. You'd think detecting large objects is easier, but not in this game. Detecting large objects is only reserved for upgraded detectors. Your default model can only detect shallow and SMALL objects. Huh? 

Frankly, with the amount of random junk lying about, there really is no sense of discovery, but drudge work, as you "grind" your way through more junk to find the few treasures in order to afford the better stuff. Having an artificial "delay" for "identification" when it's an object you've seen only the 100th time does not help with the immersion at all. And since most of the time you are looking DOWN at the ground to get the detection right, the beautiful vista and level design are wasted, except for the few who appreciate the graphical touches and take screenshots. 

It also really makes no sense for some maps to charge an entrance fee... to a supposed archaeologist! 

The job pays are also absurdly low. For example, one of the jobs on the Syrian Temple map, pays $380. However, the entrance fee to the map is $300!  So your net pay is $80! And since they only give you one job at a time, you can't even queue them together, and thus save on the entrance fee! They had to be paid each and every time! 

State of My Games: January 13th, 2021

Finished MarZ, as mentioned in a previous post. 

Tried Greed Corp, a turn-based tactical combat game, decided while interesting, it didn't quite grab me. 

Played 80 hours on StarCralwers, leveled all 8 classes to level 30 (level cap) (or very close to it) and did one ending. Did not feel like playing New Game Plus, which is MOTS. So that's that. 

Finished Radio Commander, which has you giving orders to your units on a battlefield, but since all you have is a radio, fog of war is extremely heavy and thus, tension is extremely high. But there are only 9 missions plus quick battles. On the other hand, the game has two more things going for it... relatively low price, and ability to give commands via microphone and voice recognition for full immersion. 

Also finished Unheard, turns out I had ONE case left, and that was a bit of fun. Voice acting was a bit over-the-top, but it's an intriguing game where you try to piece together the puzzle based on full-audio surveillance of every room on the premises. There is a DLC, but I'm not sure I want to play it. :D

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Will probably move onto Detective Di, Warstone TD, Crying Suns

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Other games I've tried? Hmmm... 

Within the Warhammer 40K series, I've tried: 

Deathwatch -- a squad of five space marines against a whole Tyranid invasion. Think XCOM-lite, and mobile port... and boring grind

Kill Team -- action game where you take TWO space marines through an Ork invasion

Mechanicus -- turn-based tactical combat where you are taking controls of the Adeptus Mechanicus against a planet full of Necrons, and figure out how to upgrade your tech-priests so they survive the fights. And you're fighting against a timer. If the Necrons achieve full awakening, you won't be able to stop them. 

Space Marine -- take control of Captain Titus, Ultramarines chapter, and a seasoned veteran. You're sent to stop the Ork invasion, but you end up fighting against a lot more other enemies of the Imperium as well in order to secure the Imperial Forge World. A third-person shooter with melee weapons. 

Space Wolf --the Space Wolf chapter ship was ambushed by the Chaos Marines of the Word Bearers and crashed on the world of Kanak, a feral world full of barbarians, vile creatures, and chaos marines. You will emerge victorious, by conducting turn-based card-based combat against all foes, obtaining more cards, merging them for upgrades, and fight off all comers. Not bad, as they are still giving free loot as promo codes every week.  And there are PvP multiplayer as well. DLCs add additional shorter campaigns. 

Battlefleet Gothic Armada -- fleet combat in Warhammer 40K, take your fleet against the chaos forces.

I also have

Vermintide (regular Warhammer, not 40K) -- a multiplayer PvE shooter where you need to go, with your friends, as one of the many classes available, to fight the "end times" horde of vermins. 

Warhammer Quest -- choose your own adventure with die-roll combat

These I'm not too keen on. Fantasy doesn't really grip me.