Alien Breed - Evolution

A long time ago in a galaxy not so far away I used to play an Amiga500. The available games were simply brilliant, despite a processing clock speed of only 6Mhz. One of the best co-op games on the system was Team 17's Alien Breed. Set in a dark future where hostile alien creatures have taken over a ship, you must battle to regain control of the vessel and eliminate the Xenomorph infestation.

X-Box Live Arcade has just released an updated next generation version of this classic title called; Alien Breed Evolution. If you have an X-Box 360 then this game is highly recommended. Classic gaming excellence from the Team 17 studio.



Related Links
Team17 (official site)

X-Massness

Traditionally around this time the powers that be grant us lowly souls a gift for the annual celebrations. I’m eager to know whether and what this years prezzy might be. My snowballs have melted and the launcher rusted so an item is needed to let those of us who celebrate, let our hair down and commit social suicide by behaving badly.

Will it be a new shuttle? Or perhaps the stations could become adorned with twinkly lights and snow. Even better would be a giant bearded fat fellow, dressed in red and stood at each gate, laughing and endlessly churning out seasons greetings.

I think the latter option may cause some aggression toward gate staff. We must remember however that New Eden does not share the same religious beliefs, and the multicultural nature of the cluster should be remembered.

For some unfathomable reason I tend to gain an extra tyre in weight, which I duly burn after the celebrations have tired. This year I’m almost out-of-my-mind from all the quafe I’ve consumed. There’s a tradition in my family that asks us to abstain from acts of violence during the celebrations but I’ve decided to make this year an exception.

Whatever your plans this time around I wish you all happy yarr! time, and trust that you will celebrate to the fullest extent of the law, and then some.

Merry hunting…

The Fear Factor

It is wise to choose a vessel because of its abilities regardless of its appearance. However, the design of any vessel brings with it the notion that, although we want to defeat every foe, the way a ship looks is only important in so much that it suits the role it’s intended for. For many, this simply is not the case.

I tend to choose ships based on their appearance first and build from that point. B13 does not; his choices are determined by the abilities of the ship. For this reason his designs are almost always more capable, but I wouldn’t feel comfortable flying a pirate ship which looked like a broken satellite or a lopsided chew toy.

The Damnation was for years my preferred hull. However, I found myself flying an Absolution more often purely because its abilities suited my needs better. I occasionally undock the Damnation and fly her to the moon and back, my camera drones endlessly snapping shots of her wonderfully dark hull but she is quickly becoming a relic.

The Cynabal cruiser is of excellent design. This little monster is hard to fit, but she looks terrific. I adore the teethy grin on her bow and the circular engines mounted on her hide. It’s one of those ships which looks very scary but statistically does not deliver. Many pilots have told me that the revised version is much better than the old, and so I’ve added a Cynabal to my purchase orders to revise this tiny terror.

I own a Nightmare for my own amusement. This ship has lately seen something of a renaissance. She is capable of delivering serious amounts of firepower on any stationary target and her appearance is dark, organic and spiky, like a demonic fly. The ships’ little sisters; the Phantasm and the Succubus also look the part and would make excellent pirate ships.

My favourite has to be the Daredevil because it resembles the bones of a demon. Its abilities make it very capable, but its initial costs outweigh its appearance. I’ve attempted piracy in a Daredevil, but it did not fare well and this idea was relegated to a whim.

It’s a shame that we are not permitted to choose an exterior colour for our beloved vessels, and most must agree that a colour coordinated fleet would appear to be well organised, or that every pirate vessel would be black. Perhaps care-bears should be mandatory pink, I’d vote for that.

Happy hunting…

Hauler Hell

Old Man Star is haulers hell. It’s regularly patrolled by warring pirate factions whom seek all life and civilizations to pillage. I needed to traverse this system or face a lengthy detour along the fringes of Empire which I was not prepared to endure and so a plan was hastily constructed which relied on the eagerness for looting that pirates regularly exhibit.

I’d estimated a years worth of modules for which I would require whilst living on the edge. The modules were split into useful and not, the useful modules I loaded into my hauler and the poorer into Miss NExUS’ to act as bait and as a means of recycling.


My elite slave ventured into Old Man Star without hesitation. She was instructed to propel the hauler away from the gate at the earliest tangent. Using an overheated micro-warp-drive the hauler picked up speed as the boosted ECM burst disrupted the inevitable hostilities’ targeting attempts. With the hauler nearly 30km from the gate and the pirates struggling to bring her down, I jumped into the system.

My hauler materialised and I witnessed fire billowing from my ALTs ship, and soon enough there was a white flash as the vessel exploded spilling debris into the fray. The bulk of the blockade was still swarming Miss NExUS’ industrial wreck picking through the spoils, leaving the gate unguarded. Within moments my pre-aligned hauler warped to a safe spot and cloaked.

Although my ALTs hauler was lost to the pirates, the price paid was much reduced had my vessel been the punch-line. I’ve since replaced Miss NExUS’ clone and her precious hauler and thanked her, personally. Thanks to her sacrifice my realm is that of the lost and the damned and I pray to flourish within these confines, as I vow never to return to Empire…

Where The Wild Things Are

I find animals interesting from the sense that some are excellent to hunt, and pose a significat threat when cornered. Others are simply pathetic, and serve only as the fodder on the upward food chain of predators.

However, find the correct soundtrack, and you have a moment of awe and wonder...



Related Links
Dramtic Cat (YouTube)
Dramatic Gopher (YouTube)

Heads Up!

Our PODs have problems. Navigating the integral systems is something of a chore. The Jovian interface has seen little revision over the past 500 years and current technology is beginning to feel a little ad-hoc.

I have to believe that ergonomics are currently examining the interface and I trust that improvements are to be implemented. It can’t come soon enough but there is certain to be a period of grace where familiarising ones self with a new interface. Many of us may have intricate designs on the current system where-by any significant change would be met with resentment and bewilderment. I’m not yet decided on whether I want an entirely new system or whether the current dog should be improved.

Those of us who operate dual screens are probably better equipped than most and that a complete redesign seems excessive but intuition appears to have bled from the HUD over the decades. Noobs rarely find the HUD easy to understand and these are the impressions which matter the most because they haven’t had to live with the inadequacies of the Jovian interface and become accustomed to it's flaws. At face value the system needs to be obvious, despite being complicated which is a hard mandate to achieve.

I’m an expert at the current configuration and any redesign would upset my own methods, but I can clearly see that change must occur even if it’s more fundamental than additions or revisions.

“Bring Out Yer Dead…”

I have a secret – quite a few actually. The one I’m sharing is a disturbing compulsion to collect dead flesh. Currently I have over 160 frozen corpses stuffed in a cargo container at the rear of my hangar in my 0.4 safe system. The smell and sight of such a collection of meat is quite horrific and only my janitor dares enter to maintain the catalog and remove any grubs which nibble on the dripping rotting flesh.


I'd commissioned an insulation installation to maintain the corpses below freezing to prevent the inevitable thaw but for some bodies it was a little too late. The gruesome task of removing several soft green stinking popcicles was left to the janitor, as they were loaded into Miss NEXUS's hauler to eject them into the void. The repulsive smell lingered for weeks and my loyal elite slave displayed her mood with insubordination. She was subsequently punished in our own private fashion.

With my recent relocation into lawlessness the bodies have remained in my safe system as I can’t think of a legitimate reason to maintain such a morbid collection of victims. With the w-pos deployment imminent I need to decide what to do with my meaty museum. Perhaps they could decorate the docking ring on the POS as a warning against any rival pirates in the area. Unfortunately I don’t enjoy necrophilia and I have plenty of hat stands, beyond this I’m exhausted for ideas as to the fate of this miserable collection of the dead.

Perhaps they would sell in Jita, anything goes…

Weapon Of Choice

Blazing light slices through the sky as a multitude of beams carve their line of sight through the void. Defences evaporate as the focused energy overloads shield matrices' and melts armour. Tachyon Beams are my preferred weapon of choice.

Many of my ships actually house Pulse lasers because they are actually more efficient at dismantling space craft as they get better tracking and a better fire rate, although their range is more limited. Statistically many may argue that lasers are not the best weapon of choice for many, but they serve my needs perfectly and require very little maintenance.

Ammunition is rarely an issue as lasers require only capacitor to fire. My Zealot regularly blows crystals at an alarming rate and although they are expensive, they are still more cost efficient than using fired ammunition. This also means that precious cargo space is not used for storing thousands of rounds of ammunition meaning there’s more room for loot.

I used to fly Gallente ships although this is very rare that I PvP in a hybrid platform. As Gallente use drones my skills are second to non. The extra DPS gained from training Drone Interfacing to level 5 can be quite impressive, especially on Tech II sentries. I learned early on not to depend on drones for combat however and usually use them as anti-drone work. Drones can be destroyed and are not the best choice for PvP unless you are proficient at babysitting them.

Hybrid weapons can deliver massive amounts of pain onto a target but I found that range was always and issue, not to mention reloading, ammunition changes and supply. In addition to this problem they also use capacitor which is a lot to ask of a pilot.

So I continue to deliver pain by light, injecting my target with photons and heat until they pop! I love it so…

Happy hunting...

EvE Online OST

The music to my exodus. The black wastes beckon me unrelenting and uncaring. I follow without distress, slipping into the darkness once more to become a ghost of the sky...