Powertechs

I saw that the Incinerator tuning was fairly cheap on the GTN; at least 100M less than it was when I looked at it a couple of weeks ago, so I sprung for it. I don't have enough cartel coins to unlock it across the legacy yet, so I decided I needed to send it to the character who would use it the most. I did the same with the rakghoul tuning; I sent it to my Lethality Operative, because he has all kinds of poison attacks that are the exact same green drippy weirdness as the rakghoul weapon tuning. So I decided that my pyrotech would make the most sense for an Incinerator tuning, which makes your weapon look like a flamethrower. However... it turns out I don't have a pyrotech anymore; I guess Galation was my pyrotech! All three of my remaining powertech characters, Graggory, Gael Heckett and Vash Galaide, were all Advanced Prototype. What?!

I decided to turn my old hoary character Graggory into a Shield spec, since I'd never used that. After switching him, I played around a bit on the Operations dummy on my ship. It's a nice spec. And I turned Gael Heckett into the pyrotech, and loaded up the next few outfits of his, at least, with the incinerator tuning. I've also played a bit of him the last little bit on Taris. I don't remember really liking Taris that much as a planet, but I am this time. 

Although I'm also amused by the ridiculous light/dark choices. It's a dark side choice, and you get a major guilt trip if you take the rakghoul serum from the pirates, because they'll die of the rakghoul plague! But, I killed at least fifty pirates to get to that point, another twenty just leaving their base, and even had bonus missions to kill healthy pirates. You're supposed to do that. But killing the pirates who have a terminal and incredibly dangerous and contagious disease? That's bad.

Also, the rakghoul vaccine that saved the pirates no longer saves anyone else because it's 300 years old. But it worked just fine on the pirates! What the heck kind of crazy science is that?

The writers of this game are silly. Except I don't see it as harmless silliness anymore; I see it as dangerous, subversive and even treasonous. 

As a related aside, I heard the old 80s Camouflage song "Neighbors" this morning while driving my daughter and son-in-law to the airport. I used to think that was pretty harmless, if a bit pretentious. Now, it kind of ticks me off to listen to it. I might delete the mp3 from my micro-SD card that holds all my music, and from my computer hard drive too.

Anyway, here's Gael Heckett in the cantina on Taris, showing off his flaming gun and his Taris duds. I haven't messed with Corso since sometime shortly after I got him on Ord Mantell, so he still looks the same.

I'm not 100% sure still on the facemask. Nobody else on Taris wears one, but it is supposed to be toxic on the surface all the time. Whatever. I don't have enough excuses to wear facemask type things, and there are a lot of them in game. I can't just only ever load it up on characters when they're on Quesh, after all!

SOX names, Star Wars names

One aspect that I've always liked about Star Wars was the naming conventions. Luke is a real name, of course, and Skywaylker is not, but its the kind of name that you can believe in, at least. Other names like Han Solo or Leia Organa or Obiwan Kenobi are not real names (at least they weren't; my son once met some kids his age; fraternal twin boy and girl, named Luke and Leia) but even though they weren't real names, they sound like real names, because they're close to real names. I've tried to do something similar quite often by twisting real names, combining them in unusual ways, or... occasionally using a Star Wars name generator.

Speaking of which, here's some stuff I got out of donjon's Star Wars name generator. Although if I went back and generated again, I'd almost certainly get a lot of these same elements regenerated, I still think I want to archive what I generated so I can have it handy.

As an aside, my playing over the weekend was a bunch of unexpected things. Anstal Tane did Balmorra, other than the bonus series. I may actually not do the bonus series, because although I've avoided Heroics with this run of characters, kind of on a whim, I did all of the Heroics on Balmorra with him. That reminded me why I don't do Heroics; some of them were fine, even kind of fun, but some of them were tedious and they swarm you with so many enemies that if you're playing it solo, you have to be quite strategic and/or lucky to not go down a couple of times. On Balmorra, that was in the colicoid area, where you get swarmed by half a dozen pretty hefty colicoids on several occasions, all hitting you at once, and since the Scoundrel doesn't have much in the way of area affect attacks, I was in over my head.

Of course, it's also difficult when there are so many Heroics across so many worlds to remember which ones are the good ones and which ones are the tedious or unlikeable ones. This is why I'd elected earlier to mostly just ignore them entirely, except for the ones on Hutta, Ord Mantell, Tython, Korriban and Coruscant, which I know quite well and grind for XP a lot (some of the ones on Dromund Kaas too). But if I grinded just recently for these Heroics, then I don't need to grind for the Bonus Series. I just played it with Taul Kajak a few weeks ago, so it'd be repetitive (and the bonus series are often tedious) and the Heroics will more than make up for doing the bonus series in terms of gear and XP. The point, I guess, is that I'm playing for fun. I don't need to be too regimented and repetitive; just because missions exist doesn't mean I need to play them all in a certain way; I can play what I want to play. The point is to have fun, after all, isn't it?

I don't always have fun with the Scoundrel, I'll be honest. The fighting style is not my favorite. Although there is a stand back and plink plink plink option (interspersed with a few grenades) this is a slow and tedious way to win. But the alternative is to move around a lot and do melee combat. And frankly, I think the idea of punching big robots, monsters and Sith Lords in the face with your fist is fundamentally pretty silly. When I'm alternating between this character and my powertech Gael Heckett, or my mercenary Vant Galaide, or my gunfighters or snipers, even, I find that those are just much more fun to play from a combat perspective. My Operative and Scoundrels are nice because I can go into stealth mode and just skip large portions of the trash mob BS that isn't very fun in many missions. Except, of course, that Anstal still needs to level up, so I'm fighting most people for the bonus missions, or even just the kill XP.

I have one more scoundrel playing the trooper story that I haven't started yet, and I'm thinking of creating one more operative, probably playing the smuggler or hunter story—not that I need another character doing either of those either—but I won't get around to those for some time, as I've got way too many other characters to do, and I'm not always loving the Scoundrel mechanics. 

I liked my damage over time Operative better. Maybe I just felt like he had more options in combat, and I liked them better because it wasn't just punching enemies in the face. My new scoundrel uses the mirror of that, so I'm hoping to like it better, but my new Operative would be a mirror of the Scoundrel that I currently have. Maybe I won't create him after all.

What else have I played that's a bit unexpected? I've really been enjoying Gael Heckett, my cyborg smuggler using the advanced prototype powertech mechanics. I played all of the Heroics and some of the exploration on Taris with him already, and it's been fun to do that. I've enjoyed that as much as anything I've done in a few weeks, especially since I redid his pre-existing Taris outfit to something totally different, and I like it a lot more now. In fact, it's growing on me even more the more I use it, to the point that like with his Coruscant outfit, I'll be sad to "retire" it when I'm done with the planet. (I won't actually delete it, so if I ever go back to Taris to do anything with him, I can swap it back in. But otherwise, I don't know for sure what I'll do with it, I admit.) It wasn't really my intention to play much of him until I was done with more of my characters that are a bit further along, but I'm enjoying him too much not to. I've also almost finished Tython with Gandalf, who I didn't intend to do much of anything with at all... but who now may enter the rotations at a Fleet/Coruscant level after all. I've played pretty much all of that first planet just this weekend too, so that's a brand new development.

I really liked Haul Romund, who's a mercenary smuggler, also about to land on Taris, but I haven't played him since coming back. I think that's because I have other smugglers still in play and I have another mercenary still in play. He can continue to rest; although I know that when I get back to him, I'll be ready to use him, and he'll be highly anticipated. I like the smuggler story perhaps the best, along with the Hunter, and I like his mechanics a lot too. 

Anyway, long story short, I may well completely change my mind on what I thought I was going to play next. Taul Kajak is effectively done, so I'm going to put him in semi-retirement and probably not play him for anything at all in the next few weeks, and I'd like to get Anstal Tane and Vant Galaide at nearly those same points. After that, I'm not sure who I'm going to play next, but I think Mirabeau Tane and Gael Heckett are the most likely to feature in the near future even more, and when Vant finally does get to semi-retirement, Haul Romund will probably take his place as a current play mercenary. Unfortunately, that does mean that I seem to have multiple ongoing smuggler stories, but like I said above, that tends to be one of my favorite stories, so that's OK.

I do have four force user characters, but I doubt that any of them will be a major part in the short term. I'll finish up Gandalf on Tython, because I'm so close, but then he'll probably hibernate again. Then, maybe since I've already gotten her off the ship and running around doing explorations, I'll do Revecca on Balmorra. Elemer and Phovos can both wait a bit, though.

Garm

Halcorr

Iakar

Kodo

Haro

Ideon

Varlo

Drimarch

Vene

Aldes

Corr

Darand

Jallo

Donnall

Grice

Thalcard

Gavenk

Daivki

Lorn

Aldel

Jissard

Cen

Berand

Brimarch

Braven

Thule

Janrenk

Tane

Honall

Jido

Ianan

Cran

Daymet

Kinall

Celwik

Stamont

Bragant

Tharend

Iacen

Vane

Vikorr

Maxir

Derru

Korra

Porro

Psionic Knights

As an aside, before I begin, I'm going to move a lot of my SWTOR discussion from my main blog, where I've been doing way too much of it, to this blog, where it fits a little better, since SWTOR is often the conceptual art tool that I use for Space Opera X, as well as an informant in general for how to make a good space opera setting. That means I'll have more posts here in general, although many will be about SWTOR and my progress therein, and less at my main blog, https://dark-fantasy-x.blogspot.com/, but that's probably a good thing anyway. The main blog can move back to its focus on fantasy stuff and pop culture, while this blog will be my source for space opera... and related pop culture a bit too. 

Anyway, that said, I've played a lot of stuff that I didn't anticipate, really. Trying to meet seasonal goals has had me diversifying what I expected to be playing to a large degree. I played a bunch of exploration and repeatable missions with Revecca Arden on Balmorra last week (although this doesn't actually advance her story, and the missions will still be available again, I presume, when I log back in with her.) I finished Coruscant with Gael Heckett and moved him to Taris, including putting on his Taris outfit. Which I immediately didn't like. I'm not sure what I thought when I created it, but I'm probably going to rework that. Not that the "space Barbie" is really the point, but I do like to have looks that I like if I'm going to be looking at my character a lot, and this one will almost certainly bug me over a very short amount of time.

I also made a slight change to my iconic space biker Anstal Tane; I gave him a new gun with his main outfit; a world drop that looks a lot like a 1911. I also have struggled a bit, I admit, with pants for him that don't look funky or just not quite right. I've had some that I was getting more and more unhappy with (they're some of my favorite pants in general, but they didn't fit the space biker look quite right) so I have some new ones now that look an awful lot like blue jeans. This turns space biker into maybe 50s space greaser, so maybe I should turn on a few more hot-rod looking speeders for him, since greasers were more into hot rods than motorcycles. There does seem to be a lot of overlap between bikers and greasers in terms of look and attitude though.

I looked up greaser on Infogalactic, and for the heckuvit, I also switched to Wikipedia. Infogalactic uses the accepted etymology that I've heard my whole life, that greaser as a term came about because of the grease used in their iconic hair styles, with maybe a double entendre that because they tinkered with hot rods, they got automotive grease on their clothes too. Wikipedia, of course, spent several paragraphs trying to claim, without evidence, that greaser was an ethnic slur against Italians or Hispanics, and then at the very end in one simple sentence, they say that basically, or maybe it was because they iconically used a ton of grease in their hair. Unbelievable. Thanks, Wikipedia, for the woke lies guilt trip that nobody asked for. 

I don't have a new image of Anstal with his new gun and new pants, but no doubt I will soon. I also will need to come up with a new Gael Heckett Taris outfit, since once I switched to what I'd created months ago, I immediately didn't like what I was looking at. Great.

I also played around quite a bit with The Black Hole with both Hutran Thanatos and with Anstal Tane, because I could use sneak on both and get through the Heroic (which is really big and feels more like a tedious flashpoint almost). I think that means that I can now skip The Black Hole on any other character both Imperial and Republic that I want to, unless I just feel like I want to do it again in a few months. But even then, it's repeatable as much as I want.

Finally, in order to get the daily conquest points rolling, which is needed for the Galactic Seasons stuff, I've been doing Heroics and killing bad guys all over the place, because they give you enough that it is worth doing. It also is a chance to grind XP on my early guys who are waiting to "start" their stories. So, I've been doing that in particular with Karr Tanus on Ord Mantell, and Saxon Hettar and Beorn Hengest on Hutta, and Gael Heckett just a bit on Coruscant too. But then I thought; why aren't I doing that with Gandalf Greyhame on Tython? Well, the reason is because Tython only has one Heroic on the Heroic mission box, but I did that, and then decided to just play him a while since I had him. I did think it was a bit funny to run around with an old man in as close to a Gandalf robe as I could get in SWTOR acting like a somewhat cocky young Jedi, but whatever. I'm sure I'll get over that joke long before I'm done with the character. Maybe I need another consular at some point again too. Or even a councilor or counselor. Sigh. Pet peeve, I know.

Well, I had an idea for a new Tarisian outfit for Gael, and while I was updating this post, I popped over and made it. I might yet tinker with it, but I kind of like it, and it's sufficiently different from most of what I do with outfits, that I'll keep it as an outlier in terms of look, I think. Besides, I'm on Taris now; it'll be a moot point if I alter it after I'm done with the planet, because I'll rarely switch to it again.

I saw Backseat Gamers use this same Zayne Carrick tunic, also undyed, for a forest recon scout, where he put the TD-07A Scorpion or one of the lookalikes, but with my cyborg sunglasses, I get basically the same look with just the Outlander Fixer facemask. It's kind of nice; I don't often play up the supposed toxic nature of Taris, and few of the NPCs wear masks either. But, they probably should.

And, using SWTOR as conceptual design, here's a concept art piece for the Nebula Corsairs, mysterious pirates of the Takach Nebula, possibly in the Zorga system with their base, who are careful to conceal everything about themselves, even their ethnicity.

Unfortunately, the image got a little bit of clipping.

Hutran Thanatos is an operative with the poisonous damage over time spec (Lethality, I think it's called), which spreads a greenish poison in a lot of his attack moves. So, I spent some of my dwindling horde of credits on the rakghoul tuning, which makes my weapons drip a green poison that exactly matches the color and and look of the lethality graphics. Voila! He'll wear that on most of his outfits now, along with a green weapon color crystal, because of course he will!

UPDATE: Finally, I also finished with Taul Kajak. One more semi-retired character, who's now on the Republic Fleet waiting to take the Ilum missions. But time for that later. In the meantime, I'm just ready to have one more checked off into semi-retirement. Maark, Mat Thew, Luukke, Johhn, Phillippion, Hutran Thanatos, Graggory and now Taul Kajak (and departed heroes Actsion, Galation and Corinthion) Westu Taul Kajak hál!

Taul's final moments in the main story were in the same digs as he started. Full circle!

Planetary political alliance

One thing I've learned from playing SWTOR is that it isn't really very interesting to have a planet have a political alliance all of the time, or even most of the time. Most planets that you'll visit, with very few exceptions, are either neutral or contested, giving the opportunity for long-running conflicts to spill over from system to system. Think of the Cold War; you weren't likely actively having spy stories that take place in Moscow or Washington DC itself, but you'd have stuff going on in Central Europe a lot, or stuff in Central America, or other countries where Soviet and American guys could reasonably both be found on occasion, although without official standing sometimes, because the Soviet and American governments wanted to keep things discrete. 

I've got plenty to do on the Dhangetan worlds, but after that, I don't want there to be no conflict except local conflict on all of the Bernese colonial worlds, for instance. There should be reasons for any of the major players in the galactic cold war to have at least representatives and probably shady goings-on from the Seraeans, the Bernese, and the Revanchists, as well as maybe the Dhangetans and Cilindareate Arm as well.

I'm not quite sure how this affects my sector map or how I classify systems in it. I'm not quite sure what this means in general, actually, or what would change. But I think it's important, even if it's just a background assumptions change.

But maybe more of my stuff will take place on neutral or unaligned worlds anyway. I've come to think of the Dhangetan worlds in particular to be a fun place to set stuff.

Not 100% sure which of those images of Nar Shaddaa, which could represent any number of shady neutral worlds that have a lot of population actually looks better. The brightness increase might be too much, but my character Graggory himelf looks way too dark.

A few archetypes; do be discussed later

For now, just uploading the images.

Space Cowboy

Dark Hunter

The Professional

Armored Agent

Dark Agent

Swashbuckling Gunfighter

Black Ops