Offtopic

Meowers
20 Dec 2023, 7:14am
Aleksander Majjam*Stares at your new profile picture intently*
Ah, that's a 3D render made by me last weekend. No AIs were harmed. Full picture is in the gallery: that's how a proper Meowers looks, since there are no body customisation things in the game. Okay, okay, no problem, I got that covered, lol.

(Yeah, she's a chonker)
Kasumi Goto
20 Dec 2023, 4:49pm
There are some dark secrets the world is not ready for here.

I also won't spoil them.
Aleksander Majjam
21 Dec 2023, 12:16am
Meowers
Aleksander Majjam*Stares at your new profile picture intently*

Ah, that's a 3D render made by me last weekend. No AIs were harmed. Full picture is in the gallery: that's how a proper Meowers looks, since there are no body customisation things in the game. Okay, okay, no problem, I got that covered, lol.

(Yeah, she's a chonker)


Oh! You dabble in renders a lot? You did a damn good job. How long did it take you?

Also, Meowcat looks like she could bench press a Conda while pulverizing a few watermelons between her thighs like Kortney Olson.
Aleksander Majjam
21 Dec 2023, 12:17am
Kasumi GotoThere are some dark secrets the world is not ready for here.

I also won't spoil them.


Don't tease. Give us all the secrets.
Meowers
21 Dec 2023, 12:41am
Aleksander MajjamOh! You dabble in renders a lot? You did a damn good job. How long did it take you?

Also, Meowcat looks like she could bench press a Conda while pulverizing a few watermelons between her thighs like Kortney Olson.
Thank you.
Not 'a lot', it's more like one of my skills which normally collect dust until I see an opportunity to use some of them. So, had an idea about adding some customised artwork to my wacky fanfics, but I can't draw at all. And AI is out of the question, copying in-game facial features and an ability to reuse the same model were my requirements. So, a couple of evenings in Blender/Photoshop/etc. and here it is. Of course with a template model provided by an add-on, I'm not that good to model a human body from scratch and rig it for posing, lol.

Also, yeah. "Powerlifting and pizza enthusiast" is one of my favourite descriptions of Meowers.

And honestly I believe it's nearly impossible to get a drawing of that kind of female body build from an AI, their pathetic if-else cascades and terabytes of binary barf are full of stereotypical rubbish collected all over the internet.

p.s. I giggled like nuts making that logo for the t-shirt.

p.s.2. There will be more renders in the future certainly, I don't play the game itself anymore but the universe is funny for that not-exactly-healthy habit of fanfic writing.

Last edit: 21 Dec 2023, 12:56am
Aleksander Majjam
21 Dec 2023, 1:07am
Meowers
Aleksander MajjamOh! You dabble in renders a lot? You did a damn good job. How long did it take you?

Also, Meowcat looks like she could bench press a Conda while pulverizing a few watermelons between her thighs like Kortney Olson.

Thank you.
Not 'a lot', it's more like one of my skills which normally collect dust until I see an opportunity to use some of them. So, had an idea about adding some customised artwork to my wacky fanfics, but I can't draw at all. And AI is out of the question, copying in-game facial features and an ability to reuse the same model were my requirements. So, a couple of evenings in Blender/Photoshop/etc. and here it is. Of course with a template model provided by an add-on, I'm not that good to model a human body from scratch and rig it for posing, lol.

Also, yeah. "Powerlifting and pizza enthusiast" is one of my favourite descriptions of Meowers.

And honestly I believe it's nearly impossible to get a drawing of that kind of female body build from an AI, their pathetic if-else cascades and terabytes of binary barf are full of stereotypical rubbish collected all over the internet.

p.s. I giggled like nuts making that logo for the t-shirt.


I often forget that people add a bit of writing roleplay (separate from the forum RP) as logs in their profile here. I remember seeing a few good ones with pictures and media as well, so it's a plus you're getting some good visuals to add to it. Artwork is artwork, even if you're arting on the 3D spectrum. I wish I had some artistic talent myself, but it seems I've put all my attribute points into writing. I usually just commission works from more capable peoples.

Have you tried or thought about taking your blender skills a bit more further with animation?

Also, I think I might've mentioned it before, but it still kills me to see that there are AI "artists" out there charging an insane amount of money to create "art" via a few buzzwords.

You quit Elite??
Meowers
21 Dec 2023, 1:47am
Aleksander MajjamI often forget that people add a bit of writing roleplay (separate from the forum RP) as logs in their profile here. I remember seeing a few good ones with pictures and media as well, so it's a plus you're getting some good visuals to add to it. Artwork is artwork, even if you're arting on the 3D spectrum.
Lol, my logbook is entirely fictional, except for the first 'arc' that was a 'normal' player's logbook once, with a bit of imagination added. Then I gave it a title, slapped a banner on top of the text (a little trend I started here personally, lol ) and proceeded with more fictional writing.

Aleksander MajjamI wish I had some artistic talent myself, but it seems I've put all my attribute points into writing. I usually just commission works from more capable peoples.

Have you tried or thought about taking your blender skills a bit more further with animation?
Same here, I'm not an artistic person. I can write, to some extent, I can do stuff in Photoshop, etc., nothing more, nothing professional. Years ago, in my late teens/early 20's, I tried to learn drawing, gah, no result. I'm a tech. That's just how my head works, lol. Learning something will take time I'd better spend on improving my 'main' skills that I use to make a living. Everything else is... Hobby-level.

Aleksander MajjamAlso, I think I might've mentioned it before, but it still kills me to see that there are AI "artists" out there charging an insane amount of money to create "art" via a few buzzwords.
Yep. That sucks. Though... Supply/demand rules. That's sad for the junior artists though, now they have to learn even more in order to get that first job. Maybe one day people would start to appreciate real art made by other people, not generated.

Aleksander MajjamYou quit Elite??
More than a year ago, actually. Can't stand the grind, especially those stupid materials. And some recent... Game design moves are pathetic.
Kasumi Goto
21 Dec 2023, 2:59am
Elite players : “The grind doesn’t exist”

Me : “You mean that you as a player who’s set up and already has all of those 500 low tier crappy mats which you’d have to do inane actions for like scanning data points across surface outposts which literally serve only one other purpose (assassination missions) or fly a thousand light years just so you don’t waste hundreds of hours for 10 raw materials, don’t need to bother grinding for those crappy low tier mats and can obtain high tier ones easily already through missions, but cross-trading still sucks with absymal trade ratios(and you still can’t get the raws without taking a play session… or three… to get to the shard sites and the latest selenium farming trend, or shorten that by wasting your carrier’s tritium to get there)”

(I’m learning some funny things with an alt, who is missing a lot of those low tier data mats especially, and so far my ‘natural playstyle’ for it hasn’t taken me near those places where I can supposedly get all of this data conveniently… I’d basically have to hope I stumble across one of those surface locations - an inactive one, because the active ones are even worse for it - or whichever pointer leads to them.

And that just doesn’t happen unless you fly out to the Pleiades, which I have no plans for with that alt. I guess I can always visit the Jameson crash site and pretend to know about it because it’s “famous”.)
Meowers
21 Dec 2023, 4:18pm
Aleksander MajjamHave you tried or thought about taking your blender skills a bit more further with animation?
Btw, I can try maybe. Fixing and polishing animations is a part of my work sometimes, in order not to stretch out the task time consumption by asking the artists to fix some finicky tech stuff that I know better, and explaining it to them. So... I know how animations work.
User83098
22 Dec 2023, 6:31am
it is a shame.
As has been said, there is no grind.

If you are doing a thing you don't like, don't do it or do it another way.
u-tube is nothing but how to learn to rapidly dislike any game.

do what you want in the game.
engineering is not required, imo for anything.

suits and weapons can be found everywhere at G3 with experimentals, nothing higher required.

ships are simple. not going to waste time other than to say they do NOT need engineering unless you want to be competitive with other cmdrs that do use engineering.
people compete, its natural.
in ED it is wise to know you are not getting anywhere near the level of any cmdr thats been playing for years and years.
And zero reason to try unless you enjoy pain.
and above all. do NOT watch how-to videos. talk to others instead.
Aleksander Majjam
22 Dec 2023, 5:20pm
@MeowCat - I'll reply to your stuff when I get the chance.

@Milesred - I just wanted to ask, when I search for, "Elite Dangerous Grind" and I get all sorts of hits from reddit to articles from Eurogamer detailing the grind of Elite... are they all wrong?
Episparh
22 Dec 2023, 8:19pm
Oh, Boi, that was the joke of the year.
User83098
23 Dec 2023, 4:35am
first off tell me a game where you don't do x in order to get y ?
next is, why are any people playing flight sims or any game?
everything after that is up to you.
most games are 100% all about being #1
ED is not.
there is no special reward other than playing and enjoying it for the reasons you bought it
if you choose to chase un-necessary rainbows, or chase them because other say you should, or they did and now you are racing to do the same,
that is a choice you make on how to play the game.

Also, you will find that a very large number of disgruntled ex-cmdrs hang out everywhere, many specifically to spread their opinion.
some of the utubers qualify for that same description
know too that not all cmdrs know everything, so when a guy does a shot or 3 at fdev sometimes its his own fault for not being very good at figuring things out.
And Opinions are not facts, and they don't come with General or Admiral stars, everyone including the worst cmdrs have them.

Any magazine describing any game as having grind is clearly being biased, every game has something to do to do what you want to do.

fwiw there are lists in the forums made by people like me to explain away the mile wide inch deep bit as well as the grind.
lists of things to do in the game,
nothing like any adventure game of years gone by -
no game I know of at all has as many things to do and is live so things change every week.
grind is racing to get something done, there is no reason to do so.

It's nice to have everything.
its nicer to have found it all on my own just by playing.
there is more to the game than the engineering or having the best of anything whatever that is

but it all goes back to why you bought it.
imo any game can easily be ruined by listening to others.
if you bought it to play with others, i can't imagine them complaining too much, but most would also warn you away from opinions and videos of many that are jaded, many that really aren't in to the game , or my favs, the ones that need to show all the exploits to get rich or get materials.
if all this was on the cover of the game in buying it, you would probably not buy it. but then anyone that wants to share a good game with anyone, isn't going to suggest all the things to see so it ruins the experience for you.
spoilers are just that, because they can ruin the game.

I wonder why you would search for ed grind.
but then i have 3 sons, they prefer to cheat in video games, making them very un-fun.

Fdev has made mistakes, made changes, still have bugs that ruin certain things trading places every update or patch...expected.
people running a game that is constantly under developement and coming up with ways to talk to us about things related or not..
imo they do a really hard job and do it pretty nicely.
.
I have 3 accounts. I play every day.
sometimes I just hang out in space staring and listening..
its as close as I am likely to get to being in space, bugs and all.
User83098
23 Dec 2023, 4:59am
many will tell you you can do fine with level 3 ship engineering too.

What I can also say is my first account, i simply played and eventually everything came to me. but that was from 2014, when it was also a lot easier to die a lot.
my 2nd account was just used for engineering materials when horizons released, no grind there. All I needed was a python and a t-9.

when I decided to change that, it was because the path I chose in game put me at war with some other folks.
1 cmdr against many isn't great odds, so I needed to make my second account be as useful as my main account...
not an easy task as I had over 200 ships at that time.
But because I know from playing all the hard ways and all the easy ways to do things, it took less than a month to make it worthy.
My third account was another for exactly the same reason, 3 cmdrs against the enemies.
not to mention it was a lot of fun building each one up as quickly as I needed.

For me, a bounty hunter, getting materials for engineering is easy. I kill 100 to 300+ ships when i go/went hunting. lots of materials.
exploring became more fun with being able to land, and there are materials all over, so i grab lots.
I have reasons, I play the BGS.

I bought the game because I played the original, and I love space flight games.
building ships is my hobby in the game and I have between 300-400+ in each account.
I spend a lot of time searching for things, like the stuff from many many story lines

I only bought all the lore books last year, because I did not want to know about hidden things, I wanted no hints to anything.
The game still contains unknown and adventure.
User83098
23 Dec 2023, 5:31am
to judge would be easier to know the many reasons why there are disgruntled cmdrs that hate the game or fdev.

many cmdrs put in un-reasonable effort/hours to get something.

fdev does something that takes that away

is a common theme applied to many things.
at times un-intentional, but then timing, taking 2 years to fix stabilizers on the cutter
taking 2 years to fix weapon slot issues

I am one of the cmdrs that put in un-reasonable effort/time, created my own little empire, constantly being kicked apart by fdev more than by other cmdrs.

dedicated fighters that fight 12-18 hours a day, suddenly can't use the things they were using....edge taken away by a bug that lasts too long.

apply to BGS, pvp.

There are many things in odyssey that are not near complete, as in not yet working even close as intended..
some of the changes affected the BGS in such a way that it became pointless for very many to keep pushing the boulder up the hill.

Some players are also really bad at experimenting and come to false conclusions often. - THIS is big in the BGS as well as Combat.
Situational awareness is also a state of mind
when the ant complains to the aardvark that he is a messy eater.....
or to be precise, there are numbers and equations in-game applied to every module, how used, where used, etc, then engineering,
so, the number of modules to build so many variations of a ship.
a guy complains how hard it is to kill an npc anaconda when in his hauler, not realizing the good news is its an npc.
If it were a cmdr, he could kill him by just swatting him.
or how hard bgs is when a cmdr is trying to manipulate a 6 billion population with daily total bounties that don't add up to even 1 million credits, while the pmf he is unaware of is pumping 25mil in bounties in there on a daily or bi-daily basis.

many cmdrs get frustrated for many reasons, not understanding things and not figuring them out is a seriously common cause of anger.

the result is very often people spout false information as gospel.

cmdrs complained for a long time that you cannot get bounties for an anarchy faction and made a huge fuss as to how unfair...Yet 100% false information.
Always has been false information, sad that only a very quite few figured out how to... u-tube was no help to anyone here, just made it worse.
many cmdrs left the game because of it.

i didn't use powerplay weapons at first because everyone said they are just barely better , if at all than the regular versions.....SO NOT TRUE
for my own use, I tested every powerplay weapon and every normal weapon and I came to very different conclusions than almost everyone.




Some think if they were the programmer, they would do it better, so bad game....
It takes all kinds.
Ignore most and figure out what you like in the game, if anything.
you be the judge

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