Grace

Blaugust 2015, Day 4

Welcome to our first installment of Shiphand Buddy! Are you ready to face the dangers of Fragment Zero?

What: Unlock the secrets of a creepy skeech-filled asteroid and save the Ekose captain

When: Available at level 6

Where: Quest givers are in Algoroc, Celestion, Deradune, and Ellevar

Gold Timers: Normal: None;   Vet: 30:00

Gracie’s Run Time: Normal: 12:58  ; Vet: 17:59

Shiphand Buddy Says: This is the newest shiphand and it has some nice touches like cute old-school sci-fi themed cutscenes and a story that ties into the world story a little more than just “some folks went into space and bad things happened to them.” The vet gold timer can be a little tight if you are new or if your dps is on the low end, but once you’re used to where to find everything you should have a few minutes of cushion.

There are 3 tunnels, you go left first, then right, then finally straight, before returning to the start again. The black box you need to collect can spawn in several random locations. I like to check the spot on the right side right after killing the first skeech waves at the start while I am close. The first tunnel has a strain infestation. There’s 3 fairly obvious big strain creatures to kill before you can find the missing crew member and move on. Make sure to kill the xenobite eggs along the walls for your gold medal.

When you exit the first tunnel, you need to gather cargo. By far the fastest way to do this is to kill the “Looter” skeech, which drop many crates at once. I usually clear the area immediately to the left as you exit the tunnel, since there are several looters up there and one of the black box spawn points is up there as well. If I get all my cargo and still haven’t found the black box I check the last location before entering tunnel number 2.

The second tunnel is full of skeech, be wary because more waves will spawn behind you as you progress. To get gold, you need to use 3 panels in this tunnel to shut down the defense system. The first is down a side passage on your left after the entrance. The second is nearby on the elevated area. The third is on a cubby on the left in the last room. Kill the skeech matron, find the missing crew member and fight your way back out.

I try to skip as much trash as possible on the way to the last tunnel, usually heading immediately right after exiting tunnel 2 and using the zero-g plus my movement abilities to bypass the skeech up in that hilly area. If you have around 80% of the “kill skeech” target met when you enter the last tunnel you should be on track to complete it for your gold medal.

The last tunnel is a pretty straight shot to a mini-boss. Just dodge and/or interrupt and he shouldn’t give you any trouble. There’s some lore all the way in the back if you’re a collector! Rescue the ekose, wait for him to do his thing, then run back outside. The final bit is just silly fun. Stay in the bubble, watch out for telegraphs, and kill a whole lot of skeech!

Differences between normal and Vet: There’s no timer and no black box to find on normal, and no minimum number of skeech to kill to get gold. There’s also no “Looters”, so you have to loot 10 crates off the ground.

Other thoughts: This isn’t the fastest, but it is a great choice for finishing some contracts. You can easily knock out “kill skeech”, “kill strain”, “interrupt telegraphs”, and “get multi-kills” in this shiphand.

Shiphand Buddy returns on Thursday with our next mission: Outpost M-13!

Source: Moonshine Mansion
Shiphand Buddy: Fragment Zero

Blaugust 2015, Day 2

To save myself some time and stress I’ll be devoting Sundays to a quick update of what games I’ve been playing for the week and any progress I’ve made. Over the past week I’ve played:

Diablo 3: I’ve been trying to get a second seasonal wizard up to level 70 before patch 2.3 arrives. Why? I don’t know. That may be the reason why so far I’m only 44.

WildStar: This week I’ve been trying to get a head start on Blaugust by running shiphands and taking lots of notes and screen shots for some guides. I also managed to save enough plat to finally buy the highest rank of riding speed. Sadly it doesn’t feel all that noticeable. On the plus side while farming shiphands I looted a second Supernova White Dye which helped me regain some of the plat I spent. I’ve also set aside a project for the month for this game. At the start of the month I took all my money and sent it to an unused alt, and I will be tracking how much I make over the month starting from 0. After playing yesterday and today I’m already up to 3 plat. I’m curious how much playtime it will take to be able to afford a CREDD, and how much I will end up with at the end of the month!

Crimzon Clover WORLD IGNITION: Last month’s Aggrochat game of the month was Astebreed, which got me in the mood for more bullet hell shoot ’em up gameplay. I honestly liked this game more than Astebreed, mostly because having a sword just felt like cheating to me.

Hatoful Boyfriend: This month’s Aggrochat game of the month. It was my pick, because it has been sitting in my Steam library for a while and I really wanted an excuse to play and talk about it. I’m going to save my opinions for the podcast for now. A note for anyone who might want to play along: I found out the hard way that this game has potential save issues. Make sure to double save each time you save or you might end up like me, staring at a screen with nothing but a pigeon picture and no way to progress 🙁

Final Fantasy V: I’m participating in the Four Job Fiesta and I feel like I’m way behind. I need to spend some more quality time with this one soon.

Alphabear: This mobile bear word puzzle game keeps me entertained at the doctor’s office and when I can’t sleep at night. The $5 for infinite honey was money well spent.

Final Fantasy XIV: Where I’ve been spending most of my time this week. I’m close to being done with gear from Alexander normal mode, and am working on the esoterics grind so I can buy my weapon on Tuesday. Our Wednesday raid was plagued with computer issues this week, so I’m really hoping we can get everything to go smoothly for a Bismark Ex kill next week. Part of me wants to look for another static in addition to my current one.  I’d like to start to work on Alexander savage, but I don’t know if I will truly be able to devote the time and energy to it.

To finish up, I want to touch on Bel’s daily writing prompt from Friday: What game that you are not playing, do you still have a deeply nostalgic connection to and why?

There’s obviously a ton of games from my childhood and growing up that would fit this, but the game I want to talk about is SWTOR. Just the fact that it was Star Wars and it was really fun (once you got past the bugs) is enough to mark it as special to me. On top of that, it marked the first time I worked up the courage to join a guild full of people whose blogs I read. I didn’t know these folks beforehand, I only knew what I read in their blogs. It felt incredibly weird to apply and I was very nervous that I’d make an ass of myself. For some reason they actually let me join, and being part of that guild was one of my best MMO experiences. I made some friends that I still talk to on a daily basis and have met in real life. More importantly I got over my fear of reaching out to people whose blogs I read, and ended up joining amazing guilds full of bloggers in multiple other games! It turns out that most of us are just regular gamers who just happen to make a little extra time to share our love of gaming with the internet. Since it is Blaugust and you’re inundated with posts from dozens of different people this month, why not consider reaching out to say hi to some of your favorites?

Source: Moonshine Mansion
What I’m Playing, August 2, 2015

Blaugust 2015, Day 1

What the hell is a Blaugust? It’s a challenge to write one blog post for every day of the month of August! Check out this post by Belghast, the evil mastermind behind Blaugust, to get the details. Since I’m officially part of the Aggrochat collective now, I figured I had little choice but to at least make a solid effort at this Blaugust thing.

The first day of Blaugust marks a change for this blog as well. If I’m going to make it through a whole month of daily posts I need a little more flexibility in what I write. So as a trial, for the next month Moonshine Mansion is unofficially a general gaming blog. If it works out and encourages me to write more then it might become permanent. Otherwise I reserve the right to go back to “mostly WildStar” at the end of the month.

Bel’s prompt for the first day was “What are you hoping to get out of Blaugust this year?” For me the answer to that is just to get in the habit of posting more frequently. I know I will never post every day, that’s just way too much for my schedule to handle all year long, but I’d like to make sure I post something at least once or twice a week once Blaugust is over. Getting in the habit of having something to say every day should help with that. I’m also looking forward to just being a part of the community of bloggers that are going through this weird ritual together. I have some fun things planned for this month to help prepare some content in advance and save my sanity a bit. The one thing I’m most excited about is a series of Shiphand guides, which will debut on Monday.

Will I be able to post every single day? Will I give up and run screaming into the night? The only way to find out is to come back and visit me each Blaugust day! Wish me luck, friends!

Source: Moonshine Mansion
Blaugust Begins!