Lynx7725

Eh, I think I put a smilie there...

Actually today hit an odd thing. I was doing Overlord, on the dish -- just sucked a Geth Prime and a normal trooper and Warped the trooper. Geth Prime went flying off screen, and the whole game just hung. Had to reboot the whole system. It's late here so I'm not bothering with it tonight.. maybe tomorrow.

Did Grunt's mission. The Maw was less of an issue than I remembered. There's an exploit on that map and 'sides, I was just warping my way off planet with that thing. The subsequent fight was worse, as I accidentally let a Krogan get too close. Ugh.

Hey, the 360 has some advantages. You don't get to see Jacob give you lips (literally) that well, and the model problems aren't as noticable... (I noticed T'loak's detached head talking away though...)

I'll probably go PC with the rumoured ME3 pack. It's a lot more flexible that way, can FRAP, can hack, can swap save files...

You said it. I dislike it as the base models for the characters are generally nice, and the visors just get in the way. Garrus' visor is already a bit obtrusive, and the Archon visor is definitely in-your-face. The sniper visor is decent but still annoying...

Hopefully this is just a teaser. We don't really need new wardrobe for these jokers since their loyalty costumes are much better (especially as a group). A proper DLC to link ME2/SB to ME3 would be a lot nicer.

... And they seem to like dropping things in a bunch. ME2 Facebook page reports that they would be releasing an alternative appearances pack for Tali, Miranda and Grunt on 8 Feb 2011.

I am so underwhelmed.

Hope this is not the DLC they are talking about.

Ok, here's something. IGN put the PS3, XBOX and PC versions of ME2 next to each other:

Considering that the PS3 versions run on a ME3 engine, and that it's visibly crispier and not as dark, it may be a good indicator of things to come. Or not, YMMV.

I know the results. Unfortunately, the timing you acquire Legion precludes these if you want to save the crew. I'm playing a RenShep, but not that Renegade.

I think I did take Tali to Heretic Station before, in my 'Filtrator playthrough. Wasn't that memorable though. Would love to try Legion in Flotilla, for laughs.. just not on this playthrough I Guess.

If you're going up aganst the Thresher Maw, use the Collector Particle Beam Rifle, Just make sure you get him in the head. Failing that, the Maw is very vunerable to incendary ammunition and Bioitics (its health bar being only armor, after all).

Thanks for the tip, I'll give it a try when I go after the Maw.

Essentially I didn't have the time to play very much for the last week -- there's a major festival coming up and had to spend family time. So I went with a N7 mission series, the Blue Suns one. I always did like fighting against Mercs, they are sufficiently challenging but you know they can't pull off weird tricks to nail you. The Mule line of missions is particularly fun. In the kind of missions where you are in narrow confines, Wide Singularity becomes staggeringly good. Doorways are now deathtraps, and once their health are down, throwing an Unstable Warp just adds injury to insult.

To be honest, Pull seems quite irrelevant in view of Singularity. There's a difference, but not that much practically. Think I'll swap it over to Shockwave instead -- I can always use a bowling ball.

In addition, I also did Tali's loyalty mission. I took Tali and Grunt; the fight was harder than I expected. In hindsight, taking two shotgunners might be a bad idea, I've grown used to Arcangel/ Thane's Vipers and sorely missed them here. I actually had to use my Avenger to put down geth, for crying out loud.

Let's see.. I'm left with the following loyalty missions: Mordin, Grunt, Jack, Samara. I'll probably do them in that order, to push my chances as much as possible for Jack and Samara. I might go tool around a few more N7 missions just to get to Level 30 before the main story missions, but truth to be told I'm fairly played out -- I've done 2 classes and three run-throughs. If I get Dominate I might do an Engineer, but I think I'd switch soon to DAO/A/etc. in preparations for DA2.

I was under the impression that most Nerf modders used Airsoft gun batteries.

That's an idea. Airsoft is restricted where I am, so I never considered it. Something to look into.

The mechanical design of the reverse plunger and spring combination takes a lot of power to work the action. It's not only the voltage, but how much power the battery can kick out at one go. You can connect a 12V battery to the circuitry and it can do absolutely nothing -- I've done it myself. The power consumption is actually quite heavy. You can build a battery that can do the job but it can double the cost of the gun. Moreover, to get that kind of performance, you probably go with Li-poly batteries, which has a fire risk -- you are selling these to kids and teens, you don't really want to be liable for burning down their houses.

You can totally redesign the action to be able to act less mechanically (i.e., instead of a plunger just use a compressor), but that makes it less safe (as modders can easily "improve" the performance to hazardous levels). Also, doing so increases the strain on existing components, so you need to redesign them, and retool to build them.

Overall, at least in the case of the Stampede, the design compromises made is a good balance between safety, cost to consumer, cost of production, and ease of supply. It's not the most "tech" foam gun out there, but it's a decent one.

And yes, speaking from experience. I've modded my Stampede to run off rechargables, up to 12V. Once you get into it, you start to realise that the design decisions made for these guns were sensible and logical. Modders have the knowledge and luxury to keep prototypes in service, but mass production requires a different mindset.

EDIT: Oh, just a quick note... I've did a scan for RC batteries while doing the upgrade, I think a lot of RC cars don't run off 12V. More typical is 7.4V, way under the 9V used in Nerf guns. It's quite hard to find a cheap source for 12V RC batteries that does the job, from my experience... of course, I'm not an RCer, so maybe I'm missing something.

It's not so much about being evil as being ruthless. A Renegade Shepard is still a hero (he's trying to save the galaxy, after all), he's just not afraid of stomping on as many toes as he can/ has to. One thing I would like to see in ME3 is more of progressive Paragon/ Renegade consequences.. Being an ass should come back to bite you in the ass.

There are some tidbits of ME3 info, but not much -- it's still early days. From memory, there will be vehicular sequences, and mining's still in. Given that a dead ME2 Shepard won't revive, as the dev team has stated, it's likely ME3 would start with a bit of "group bonding". I'll like to see Shepard do more strategically significant tasks, or at least have the ME2 strategic choices bear fruit --

As much as I like the shooting aspect of ME2, seeing galactic-scale consequences is what space opera is about, right?

RenAdept progress: Did Miranda's, Thane's, Archangel's and Taylor's loyalty mission, and one random N7 mission. Overall, now that I figured out how to use the Adept efficiently, it's becoming mechanical. Suck, Pull, snipers, Warp. Once the mooks are dead, hammer the mini-bosses.

Moradin's and Grunt's are up next I think. Not too sure how the Maw's going to go down to biotics -- I miss my sniper rifle. Don't think the assault rifle's a good replacement... I'm down to Avenger for range splattering on full auto. Dislike the Vindicator and Mattlock's burst-only settings, and no access to the LMG. Leaving Jack's mission to later (to attempt to retain both loyalties), and Samara's last; I'm going for Dominate, so I need to get my Ren scores up.

Hmm. Given the inherent safety concerns Hasbro will have, what I really hope for in a Nerf gun is a single-handed, clip-fed, direct plunger, full auto Nerf gun, which should have speeds that are not... anemic.

It shouldn't be too far off, since the Barricade is very close to that. But I inherently dislike the flywheel design, and it's noisy to boot. Problem with full auto is that the motor and required batteries are quite heavy, so single-handed shooters might be a while off.

Cute idea -- multi-clip capability, to take advantage of all those 6-clips we have lying around. Multiple mag wells, but single chamber; but that'll be quite bulky.

I personally want a long-range bolt action, but that's fairly dangerous for Hasbro to build. So for now I'll have to be content with modding a Long Strike.

Uh that's not.. encouraging. The bigger SMG type is nice looking, as the forward pump action means greater convenience, and the back of the gun looks to be compatible with existing stocks making it good, but curved integral clip makes it less likely to be compatible with the slim clip-system darts. In addition the loading mechanism looks quite bulky. Not so but on the SMG but on the pistol it looks huge.

The pistol looks to be a recloned Recon, mated with that huge integral clip, minus the stock compatibility, but retaining the not-good pump action. I don't quite see the point of this since a Recon is better in some aspect. (And the Alpha Trooper would be better over both..)

RenAdept progress -- Did Zaeed's mission. The stack of Renegade points there is nice. Then went to Citadel and insulted everyone there. That's nice too.

I'm starting to learn how to use the Adept. Infiltrator/ Assassin is a loner; s/he sneaks in and kills things, relying on the squadies to keep mooks off his/ her back. Adepts can't do that. Adepts are crowd control and squad multipliers; they set things up so that the squadies can kill the enemies. During the last fight of the mission I had an easy time; Zaeed and Arcangel were both using Vipers. I simply Singularity or Pulled the enemies up, and the two of them will do the honours.

I think it'll work even better with Legion-Widow and Grunt-Boomstick. Both are one-shot kill weapons which I can feed with biotics. For now though, I'll probably stick with twin Vipers for the kills; having Overload from Arcangel, and Concussive shots from both is a bonus.

Do regret picking Assault Rifle training a wee bit, but to be honest sliding back to the Avenger for suppressive fire is quite useful. Three long rifles with biotic magnets might be a bit overkill in most missions.

Ah, good point. It seems that the Recon stock is only good for holding an extra CS magazine and just matching every other yellow blaster. And the Spectre stock is probably worse with its folding mechanism.

Can't speak for the Spectre, as I don't own one. At least for the Spectre, it folds away; the Recon stock just stays in the way. Holding an extra 6-clip is nice but with the introduction of 18-straight and 18-rd, it becomes quite not-useful; it's more useful to use the extended mags, but if you need more than 18 or 36 rds in a game (especially on a pump-action single shot gun), you're likely to be overloaded and not effective anyway.

On the subject of stocks, you mention that the one that comes with the Raider enhances accuracy, but what about the one that comes with the Recon?

P!ss poor. Ok, that's a bit harsh... The Raider's stock has sufficient structure to take load; you can lean into the stock with some confidence. The Recon stock is just too flimsy, the struts are plastic and won't take abuse very much. It does help in stability, but it doesn't substitute for a solid stock.

Here's a question: Is the Raider CS-35 worth getting, especially since the Alpha Trooper CS-18 does the exact same thing in a smaller package and at a lower price?

Depends on your preferences. The Alpha Trooper isn't actually a smaller package; the stock on the CS-35 is removable and they end up being roughly the same length. I ended up ebay'ing a CS-35 stock to go with my Alpha Trooper, to provide rigidity (and hence accuracy). I might go get a 35-rd drum...

One key difference is the 35-round drum. which bulks things out tremendously, but can be of use. The other key difference is the form factor. Alpha Trooper's slamfire handle is more logical to me but a tad smaller; CS-35's handle makes it perhaps more ergonomical but sticks out more. Swap out the stock and the drum, and you get similar dimensions (swap the 35rd drum out for a 18rd straight and you get a sten gun with probably more reliability... )

My opinion is that if you want to run it as an RPG, then make the Paragon/ Renegade choices have more of an obvious impact. It's a bit weird to see Samara calmly accepting me kicking an Eclipse merc out the window. Or Jack sticking around with a goody-two-shoe Paragon. But Real-Life concerns got to cap the feasibility of that...

Prefer a bit more mix of armour and customization, but just a little more. The level of inventory management is just about right, but a bit more variety is nice.

Planet scanning does nothing to the game other than to slow it down. You mine resources simply because the game require you to mine it before it unlocks the tech -- it's a counter for the sake of counting. Better IMO to have team management -- all those "deadweight" sitting around the deck while the three of you go on a mission? Assign them to a research project. The best fit get the job done fastest, but you gotta balance that against the needs of the current mission.

Progress on RenAdept: Well, her eyes are glowy now... My eventual goal for this run is to open up the Dominate power, but from previous playthroughs I know I have a long way to go.

Did the Ship mission today. Wasn't too bad, lvl 3 Warp did the trick most of the time. Picked assault rifle training, found the Mattlock to be absolute pants for me -- gone back to the Vindicator. Overall the assault rifle isn't to my liking at the moment -- too general for my taste. Maybe it'll grow on me.

The husk portion? Loved Singularity. A big ball of suck is what clearing husks calls for. I'll be real happy when the next husk-heavy mission rolls around.

Progress tonight -- did Miranda's Loyalty mission, and Tali's recruitment. By now my Singularity has gotten maxed to Wide singularity, and Warp's been upgraded.

Miranda's Loyalty mission isn't terrible; Adept has issues with mini-boss synthetics because they can't AI hack, but Miranda's mission is all humans or low level synthetics. The fun part was when I finally confronted the Eclipse boss for the mission, the two of us somehow ended up next to each other hurling biotics. I really should have just punched her lights out.

Parts are quite fun. There's some spots where the scripted enemy comes out from an elevator or doorway. In this case, there was a spot where I could slap a singularity on the door. Turns out quite cute as all the mooks started swimming when the door opens, and when Warp slaps into them the explosion typically clears the wave 'cept for the inevitable Eclipse Vanguard or Engineer.

Tali's mission though, was a lot more annoying. Lots of Geth, and you can't be quite sure when biotics would work as some of them are shielded and some aren't. I've seen biotics work on some geth destroyers and not on others in this mission. The final boss is really annoying and I had a difficult time getting rid of him -- not because he was tough, but more because he kept stealing my targeter, and made it a lot harder to target the mooks running around and causing more damage.

Don't know why, but I'm doing these missions faster now as an Adept. It sorts of annoy me to biotic artillery something to death from far away. Maybe it's because ranged biotics is not as accurate as sniping -- you need that targetting lock to maximize your biotics. When I was an infiltrator some times I'll hang back and shoot something from out of targetting range; now, I can't accurately place biotics enough to do that, and have to close to work it sufficiently.

Just played the demo for PS3...must get full version!

Its Dragon Age in space...I <3 Bioware.

You PS3ers get a good deal. It's all the DLC with no extra charge, plus it's on the new ME3 engine. Let us know how it goes.

really? where's last heavy weapon upgrade?

Apparently a glitch occurs and screws up the heavy weapon upgrades. On the N7: Blood Pack Communications Relay mission.

Really? What's the glitch? I've done that mission twice, hate it on its own mis-merit (Chlorine atmosphere my @$$...), but never realised there's any problem with the HW upgrade.

Agreed on the battery mode, but I can see the concern -- on the Alpha trooper, I can easily get jams on slamfire mode. On the Stampede, having a manual mode that can interfere with the auto mechanism is just asking for a very expensive paper weight...

Stampede's got a good feel, but it's really mostly a hip gun. I prefer the Alpha myself, I can crank shots out a lot faster than a Stampede can. A few cheap tricks and the Alpha becomes truly annoying -- downrange.

As for the Vulcan feed issue, I understand one cause is the feed chute is squared off; this makes the belt catch on the edge and pull, causing jams. I understand one fix is simply to put a curved piece of plastic to guide the belts in.

In terms of electrical mods, I can say the Vulcan is easier to do since it's got a roomier and easier to reach battery compartments. For those of you thinking to up the voltage, I would suggest you don't go above 12V or 15V -- higher and you are compromising on safety. 12V on the Stampede requires quite a bit of charge to cycle the action, but it's quite a satisfying sound when it gets it right.

I don't think I picked up any ammo.. but sometimes on the same mission my widow will tell me I have 13 rounds, sometimes 14 rounds. I did know I had to nuke that boss twice, and one more Widow round into an eye.

Progress tonight under Adept is that I've recruited Thane. Once you max out Singularity, it gets a bit more interesting, since it now pulls wider and more enemies. Crowd control becomes much easier and your other powers get more usage with all those things floating in the air. Mini bosses with protection still gives issues. I guess that's why higher difficulties, it's better to have a class that can sandpaper the protections better.

On the down side, you get to hear a lot more mooks screaming. One area, I singularity a whole bunch of Eclipse, and somehow one got flung out and landed on a lower structural level (which you are not meant to go to). She was screaming the whole time, even after the singularity expired, until I had to use Warp to shut her up.

really? where's last heavy weapon upgrade?

And oh, I was wearing that extra ammo pants.

I just feel Adrenaline Rush is better combo'ed with auto weapons. IIRC AR negates recoil, so you can really dish out the damage accurately. I agree though, the Widow is so powerful it doesn't need the cloak bonuses.. Gotta get back into habit.

Biotics, I find they are great for thinning out the herd, but once it hits a boss with lots of protection it gets very underpowered. I think it'll just become a case of stacking lots of powers on the boss, then throw a warp. The exploding biotics do additional damage, but it's a hard combo to set up.

FWIW, I have a Stampede, a Long Strike, a Alpha Trooper, a Recon, and that "disguised as a torch" one that I'm stripping for parts...

I don't game with them much. More into odd mods. Gotten a sentry gun mod to work with the Stampede (and will work with a Vulcan), modding the Long Strike with barrel replacement.. that kind of minor stuff.

Prefer to use Alpha Trooper as a primary, and Stampede as a backup. Long Strike's performance isn't good, and Recon's more for looks. Oh, have a Maverick too, that's been modded slightly to pop the cylinder out more.

EDIT: To answer an earlier question -- Stampede is ok. It's cycle is a bit slow at the default voltages so it's a bit inaccurate on first round, but the rate of fire is decent and it can lay down fire well. The 18-straight clips are good for a lot of guns, Recon and Alpha for example, but itself it can be better with the Alpha's 18-drum or even the 35-drum.

However, it seems the Vulcan is more popular than the Stampede here. I don't know why. Personally, I've tried Stampede on 12V, and the ROF is much more impressive.