Reading List

For anyone interested I added a SciFi reading list to the right hand of the blog. Its merely a list of books I have read, am reading or mean to read soon. Also, I wont be able to post another My SciFi until Early July. Im lucky I have a few moments to put this little blurb in atm. Anyhow. Gotta run!

Fly Dangerous
Ceddy Cyanide

Odyssey

Contrary to what I had said yesterday, I was able to get on EVE last night to experience the new expansion for myself. I dont do a whole lot in EVE, so only a couple things stuck out at me

1: Jump Animations. I got a nerd boner every time I changed systems... It was glorious.
2: Undock Button. Its going to take some time to get used to it being on the complete opposite side of the screen.
3: System Scan. The animations for the scan are nice. I like them. Though is there a way to turn off the sites that show up from the scan? Like Im sitting there running the comet in Deltole yesterday and theres this big red diamond in space that keep drawing my attention away from repping my fleet mates. It was annoying. I don't care that there is a site over there wioth a 0% signal strength, Im not exploring right now leave me alone!
4: New things. The biggest new things are the Security tags, and the Navy BC's both of which are EXPENSIVE. I was going to get my sec standing up to be able to sit in a 0.5, but that would cost me around 200m in tags + the measly 13m fee. Im not paying 200+m isk just to get myself into Deltole... I'll wait till they drop in price. Also Navy BC... Im not spending 500m on a Cane hull just so I can have it now.. no matter how badly I want one....


Anyway, thats my initial take on the new expansion. Its a 'Meh' expansion I suppose. Most of my hype was just the excitment over new things. Once I actually had them it was like "Oh.. Ok cool. Now I dont have anything to hype over for a while..."


Fly Dangerous
Ceddy Cyanide

My SciFi: Episode 3

My Sci Fi is a weekly post in which I ramble on about pretty much anything SciFi related.

This Week: EVE Odyssey Launch, Star Trek and Us, and Some Cool Space Stuff

EVE Odyssey Launch

As I type this I notice my twitter feed explode with the release of the new expansion for EVE Online. Im extremely glad it is out, however, I wont be able to enjoy it for a while due to some RL/work issues. So Ill content myself with reading about it and hearing about it from my friends. I WANT TO JUMP EFFECT!!! D:<

Star Trek and Us

With the recent release of the newest edition to the Star Trek film industry, "Into Darkness" we are all reminded that Star Trek does indeed still exist and it does indeed, still have a following. For a long time the SciFi community has been divided into Trekies and, what do they call Star Wars fans anyway? Anyhow, Star Trek and Star Wars have been butting heads for decades. Me, personally, I'm a Trek fan. I don't have anything against Star Wars, its a great story, I just prefer Star Trek. However, that's not the point of this blurb. maybe I'll do a Trek vs Wars post next week, who knows.

Anyhow I was recently looking over some articles specifically for the third section of this post and I ran into a few Star trek related articles. Star Trek has existed since late 1964 when the first pilot for the show was filmed. This was rejected and it wasn't until a year later when the Second and final Pilot was filmed, starring our beloved William Shatner. The rest is history, however if your interested the picture to the left gives a pretty in-depth history of the show.

What really interested me was an article about Star Trek technology and how it works (or is supposed to work). Ive always kinda wondered why the Enterprise was shaped the way it is, and looking deeper into it in this article it makes sense. The entire back end of the ship (minus the flying saucer in the front) is ALL for the warp core and warp drive. Which makes sense. Something powerful enough to project a ship light years into space in as little time as it takes would take up a lot of room. generating the power for it and keeping the power going for it.

The article goes on about transporters, and Wormholes and deflector shields if you wanna take a look.

http://www.space.com/21201-star-trek-technology-explained-infographic.html

Some Cool Space Stuff

NASA recently put out an image of two galaxies physically colliding in space a few days ago. A spiral galaxy (like our own) is in process of colliding into a lenticular galaxy. The image is actually pretty neat looking. It almost pops out 3-Dish in the image.

Also, I wanted to point out how people argue and research some of the dumbest things for years on years and years. For example, apparently it matters what Neil Armstrong's exact words were when he stepped foot on the moon. Honestly, I don't think it warrants this much man power to figure that out... It's not that important.

Recently a panel of four cosmologists debated the existence of a Multiverse. In layman's terms there is a possibility that during the formation of the universe, different factors added together could very well mean that we are not living in the only universe that exists. Now the debate itself didn't really come to a conclusion as to whether or not its 100% accurate, but science takes time, and I doubt we have the resources to research it properly anyway.

Also Apparently the smallest possible star is 8.7% the size of our own Sun.


Fly Dangerous
Ceddy Cyanide

Next week I will be touching on Aliens and Intelligent life, among other topics. If you have any cool SciFi news, or some space related stuff for me, you can comment here, send me an email at ceddycyanide@gmail.com, or send me a tweet @SciFiCyanide

EVE In Real Life

(This should have been a part of My SciFI but missed the deadline for it as I found the article today instead of yesterday...)

So I was browsing around the interwebs. and I stumbled on this little bit of interesting news.

http://www.space.com/21345-asteroid-mining-crowdfunding-space-telescope.html

 Read the first line of that article.....

Now reread it...

Ok you back? Good. The sheer coincidence of the word venture and asteroid mining being in the opening sentance of this article made me chuckle.

Anyhow this is actually pretty cool. And our second step towards making New Eden a reality. (The first being actually landing on a celestial, aka the Moon). Next we need to set up a colony on Mars, then we need to have a war on mars (DUST 514). Somwhere we need to perfect cloning technology, develop a way to transfer DNA information remotely and develop efficient space travel. Last but not least we need to travel to a black hole and discover New Eden (based on this article).

So my question to you: How likely do you think a New Eden type situtation is in the distant future?


Fly Dangerous
Ceddy Cyanide

MySciFi

Its that time again... This Week:

Mostly EVE. Plans for the future on my toons and such.


I am the happy owner of three accounts. Each account has its main toon, while each account also has a secondary that doesnt require much training.

Selena. This is my main toon and the first one I created that really kicked off. Its technically my second toon (the first still being on the account and all). Anyhow Ive been debating what I want to do with her for ages. Shes kind of jack of all trades type of person right now. From boming to hauling I can fly almost anything (Tech1) short of a Battleship. The only T2 ships I can fly are minmatar indy ships, and my Hound. I've thought about getting her into a booster/exploration Loki, just to give me something to do once in a while. Freighter hauling for money is boring as crap and I can't stand it. I tried. SO nothing there. Though I might get her into a Nomad.... That would be helpful in the long scheme of things (assuming I can even get my hands on a Nomad...) (I also happen to have a cyno pilot alt 8d away from covert cynos)

Duke. Duke I am on more often then Selena lately. Mainly because hes my miner and I can play while not actually accomplish anything and keep in touch with the guys in game. Currently he lives in a little pocket of highsec behind a lowsec wall. Filled up a station container of Ice in expectation of the price jump next month. Soon however I will be moving him into deep highsec for some mining operations to be used to build some much much bigger ships and such later on down the road.

Sidney. He is a project. My logi toon. One day to be capable of flying every logi ship from Frigate to Supercarriers for all factions. I believe first I am going to rain him through the Amarr logi. Hes a hop skip away from sitting in a Gaurdian, but I dont want to get him there until I get him trained into a T2 fit for the Aug. Once I have him into Gaurdian Ill train up for the Archon and Aeon. Then on to the Caldari tree. Right now He can sit in all frigs, T1 cruisers for Amarr and Caldari.

My Corporations. Yes I am a member of multiple corps atm. My very first toon is a holding CEO for a NPC themed pirate corporation in 0.0 I want to get going one day. Selena is in a MTG themed corp owned by an RL friend of mine. Duke is in an Indy corp with a bunch of really great guys. Sidney is in his own corp called Healz4Hire. I've mention it in a blog post a few months back. Logi for sale. No political influences. I dont care who you are, if your giving me isk, I'll give you healz. Fairly simple. Anyone interested in hiring an Aug for their next fleet up let me know!

Fly Dangerous
Ceddy Cyanide

Frustration

So for the 6th day in a row... my laptop has been sitting dead on the shelf. I'm still not exactly sure why its broken, but Im too lazy to leave my room and go get it fixed. Which is annoying a $2600 paperweight... I think its just the power brick (I hope) not charging the machine, but Ill find out I suppose. I NEED to get on EVE. Ive been using a friends computer to update skills and such but this is not enough to satiate the thirst for space!

Oh and since I havent done it yet. Congratz to Ripard over at Jester's Trek for making Vice Chair on CSM8! I cant wait to see what come out of this CSM honestly.

ANyhow... Im going to Orlando this weekend so Ill try and tweet things about how awesome it is. If you dont have my twitter its @SciFiCyanide talk to me once in a while or something. My twitter is boring, lol. Not enough ppl to talk to and not many relevant things to say... Idk Im socially awkward what can I say?

Fly Dangerous
Ceddy Cyanide

My SciFi

My SciFi will hopefully become a weekly update on the SciFi games Ive been watching/playing, and general news about them and things related to them or just things I feel soun ds related.

This Week: EVE Online: Odyessy, Star Citizen, Oculus Rift, and Isaac Asimov.


EVE Online

So we are EXTREMELY close to the release of the Odyssey Expansion for EVE Online. Let me tell you. I am very very excited about it. Mainly for two reasons, 1) The War on Loading Bars 2) Navy Cane.  

CCP Soundwave has undertaken a war on loading bars. You know. The silly little bar that pops up when you are undocking or jumping into a new system? Yea. It’s annoying and kind of kicks you out of the game mentally. So to improve on the immersion of the game itself, they are trying to replace the loading bars with animations. Blinky lights when your undocking and an AMAZING new jump effect. Like legitimately, it is nerdbonerific. I’m so glad that they decided to do this. Small things like that make the experience all the more better.

The second thing is the navy Battlecruisers. Now when I started playing in Feb of 2012, I fell in love with the Hurricane. I spent weeks training to fly it and fly it better. InstaCane was my dream. Little did I know the Cane was dead center of CCP's nerf crosshairs. And had been. Well, by the looks of it, they are apologizing for ruining the cane, by releasing the Navy Hurricane. This is basically the old Cane with a new paintjob and a shiny pricetag. I will be buying a couple after release without doubt.

I know I said there were only two things, but one cannot discuss Odyssey, without briefly noting the Great Skill Changes. Now, I’ve taken a look at the changes and read the dev blogs and such about it. I am happy for it. EVE is a complex world as we all know, but this is making it ever so slightly less complex. Less training for certain ships, more training time for others. I really don’-t have a problem with any of the changes (though that may have something to do with the fact that none of them affect me in the near foreseen future).

Star Citizen

I know I've touched on this game once or twice but I feel the need to do it again. Star Citizen is a Space-Simulation game in development by Chris Roberts, the guy who is responsible for games like Wing Commander and Freelancer. There are a lot of reasons why you should be interested in this game. 

1) Sandbox. I love video games as much as the next guy. However, there is no one single thing that will get me hooked on a game like a sandbox environment. it was what lured me into EVE, and is what has me stoked about SC. A game where I can do anything and be anyone without visible boundaries in the game universe.

2) Constant Updates. Most online multiplayer games are updated every couple of months. So for two whole months your playing the exact same game with no changes at all whatsoever to how the game acts. Which isn't necessarily bad, and it has worked for many games. However the SC team is planning on keeping updates to every week or two. That’s every couple weeks something new is introduced to the universe that you can go find ways to break and abuse.

3) Making Your Mark. There are a lot of games that promise that the things you do in the game universe will affect the overall game. Few actually manage to keep up on that promise. Usually it ends up boiling down to whether or not NPC characters view you as 'Evil' or 'Good'. EVE Online introduced sovereign space and Faction Warfare to help the players feel like they were making a difference. However Star citizen is supposed to take that to the next level. Instead of opening the whole universe at release they are only opening part of it. It is up to the players to explore and find the rest of the universe. Star systems can be named after the character who discovers them. Content in the game will be pushed out based on actions of the player base. All these things that help you feel like you are an important part of the universe as a whole.

4) Free To Play(ish). Every other MMO style game requires a monthly payment to be made to keep the account active. SC will not. You will pay for the game itself, and that’s it. Expansions and continuing to play will not be a pay to play ordeal. They are talking about including micro transactions into the game if you want to spend money on it, but you are not required to.

5) Realism. SC has put a lot of effort into making the physics of the game as real as is possible for this game. The mass of your ship, the speed of your ship, your trajectory and angles are all formulated and effect how your ship functions and behaves in space. Thrusters placed at different locations around your ship will help you maneuver through tight spaces, you will have to factor in how much room is on your ship before deciding if you want certain modules installed. or how heavy it is.

6) No Publisher. SC is not funded by any publishing company. Cloud Imperium Games is developing and pushing this game out by themselves, with funding from the potential player base. This means a couple things. a. Costs are lower. Making the game is cheaper because they can focus their funds on directly developing the content. b. More focused player base. Publishers are all about getting their games out to the masses. To the casual gamers and the really really casual gamers. SC isn't like that. The player base will be a little smaller as its not catering to that as much. Its more focused on making SC the way a Space Sim is supposed to be made and not trying to get all the 10-13 yr olds from COD to play it too.

7) Manual Control. One thing I've heard a lot of EVE players complain about is the click to move system that is in place. All MMO games are click to win. You click the ground, you move. You click an enemy, you attack them. SC will have the manual ship control that a lot of EVE players want. Dog fighting won’t be about who has the best guns, or the best shields. It will be about who can handle their ship better in combat. Who is the better strategist and pilot. Battles won’t be won by the person with the biggest guns, but by the person with the best plan.

8) Modding. PC games are best known for their ability to be modded. Many games are alive way past their expected lifetime because of mods that the game community has built for them. An example being Team Fortress 2. Chris Roberts has announced that not only will he support modding of the game but will actually open up private servers so that modders can play test and make their mods easier. Players can even submit their mods to be included as part of the game itself. Neat right?


Oculus Rift

Every gamer ever has dreamed of being inside the games they play. Instead of controlling a character who moves around in their virtual universe, they ARE the character inside that universe. Well a company called Oculus VR has been taking steps in that direction. Just recently they released the Developers kit for their VR headset, Oculus Rift. Now this isn't the first of its kind. VR headsets are out there, but unless you have a butler to wipe the crumbs from your Doritos off your gold plated keyboard, you couldn't afford it. The developer's kit which is basically a prototype of the consumer version which will be released at a TBD date is only $300. A lot of game companies have jumped aboard this project. All the way from Doom 3 (which will be the first game to have full Rift functionality, to EVE Online, who is developing a fighter combat section of the game (called EVR) specifically for it. CCP announced this at Fanfest this year and you can watch the youtube videos if you haven't already. The thing is pretty cool looking. I will be definitely throwing my money at it when the consumer version is released.

Isaac Asimov

So I just recently finished reading the Foundation Trilogy by Isaac Asimov. This is the first time I've read any of his works, but a friend has been pressuring me to do so for a while. Well, My mind was blown. This guy knows how to write Scifi. I will warn anyone interested though that his writing style is a tad unconventional, and may be difficult to understand at certain parts, but totally worth it.


Thanks For Reading my ramblings. If there are any SciFi games, or simply Scifi related news or stories you want me to talk about, let me know I'm always interested in hearing and learning about new exciting adventures!

Fly Dangerous
Ceddy Cyanide