Sixth Logbook Entry... DIY Ship Computer!
29 Mar 2023Darkbeetle
Okay, okay, I know what you're gonna point out. I missed a logbook?!? Yes, I did, and I'd like to apologize real quick. I ruined my 5 logbooks in a row streak. But now theres extra content for this one so it'll hopefully be almost double content. Anyways, it's actually been decently busy. Let's start off with what I didn't tell you guys from last month.So in between Logbook 5 and what was supposed to be Logbook 6, I got rich. Really rich. 1.8 billion credits rich. And then I did something which wasn't a very good idea. I was on PythonBeetle floating around a Class Y star. The cargo hold was full of Onionhead. And that's how I lost contact with the outside world for a full 3 days. I passed out and woke up feeling fully dizzy. I saw mini thargoid scouts floating around in my cockpit, which quickly dissipated as I came to my senses. So that's interesting. I only went through a measly 3 tons out of the total 192 tons onboard. This is my warning to all who will come after us: Don't do Onionhead, kids. Or at least not 3 tons of it.
You might be able to see why I didn't write a logbook last month now. I was passed out and had to recover for a while. Now that I'm back though, I can write about everything that happened! Also me doing Onionhead might not be very interesting. Now you might be asking: What about the title? Is this clickbait? Don't worry, I'll get to it eventually. For now, you guys need a history lesson.
In the 21st Century, the universe was very different from what we have today. Humanity was confined within a relatively safe, relatively peaceful, small blue marble floating in the vast expanse of space. That blue marble's name is Earth, in the Sol system. If I had to write about the entire 21st Century, with its wars and civil unrest, I would probably rather offer myself to the Thargoids. This isn't a college thesis! Not that I would ever study history, of all things. The point here is that I am trying to talk about technology from the early 21st Century. Turns out, these super cool dudes over at the Ancient Earth Technology Preservation Institute (hereon referred to as AETP) have a collection of basically every piece of technology from ancient earth. From the first hologram display to the last "traditional" screen display, you name it they have it. I was there for one thing: The computer components of the early 21st Century. Made before the war, they were in a special state where they will run current ship operating systems (with a little hacking) but may or may not show up on scanners as "unknown". Recently, the AETP made a breakthrough discovery. They found that Thargoids do not recognize ships with the ancient technology installed. Blah blah blah, more science stuff, all you need to know is that I went for the full retro experience. That means doing everything as they did it in that time period.
I started by listing out the components I would use for the build. You probably wouldn't recongnize any of these brands as they do not exist anymore, but here is the list I made: https://pcpartpicker.com/b/Mny48d
Then, it was time for building. I carefully read the manual. I was shocked at how user-friendly the installation process was. No messy "permanently damaging your ship" type procedure. "Install the CPU into the socket" and it was done in under 30 seconds. In a modern ship computer, taking it apart could be a multiple day job left to the professionals. The rest of the build was done, and it was now time for the difficult part: Managing to get an operating system onto this hardware which predated it by 1300 years. With help from the experts at AETP, I hacked the operating system allowing ship systems to run smoothly. Honestly speaking, after seeing this for myself I will straight up claim that ship operating systems nowadays are 100% anti-consumer. You got a ship from 2950? Nope, out of date, spend 100,000 credits on a new computer.
With that out of the way, I recieved some orders from my squad. They needed help raiding some settlements. So of course, I joined in the fun. Then I got trapped inside the power center after having shut it down. Only 4 energy cells, but I have 5 doors to overload! What do I do? Luckily my friend CMDR Dripnificent (also the squad leader) helped me out. Otherwise I wouldn't have gotten out! I racked up a total of over 100,000 credits in bounties and at least 100 murders per day. Who knew serving justice (depends on who you ask, of course) was this fun?
Anyways with my PC... erm, I mean ship computer upgrade done, I hope to see you all out there in the black! Just look for "Unknown" on your scanners. And on that note, have a great day. Beetle out, o7
(Out of lore) I'm actually pretty proud of my new PC. It's not the best, not the fastest, but hey it can run Elite Dangerous Odyssey at 60+ fps so I'm happy. It's got an Intel Core i5-13400F and Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 Ti. I actually got the GPU new but under MSRP which is a literal miracle considering the current market conditions. At 1440p high Elite Dangerous runs at 160+ average fps. In stations, the fps is dropped to 110. On foot, where the struggle is real, fps still has dips below 80. Just goes to show how unoptimized this piece of... --censored-- Anyways, it runs everything else near the refresh rate of my new monitor which is 165 Hz. The total cost of the PC was about $1100 USD. I did actually run into some issues, but even what I would consider the biggest one is "Front Case Fan RGB wires not reaching" which is definitely more of a non issue.
Thargoid Crusade 2 ETA is currently unknown because I haven't been working on it that much. CMDR Dripnificent has given me some ideas however, so I might just know where to steer the ship now! You know what they say, patience is a virtue. Also if this logbook seems rushed, that's because it is, and I'm sorry. I really wanted to finish this one on time. o7