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Post by dogonporch on Aug 9, 2019 16:31:40 GMT
.... AI has its limitations due to age...but still pretty darn good. I've never encountered an aerial combat sim that had realistic AI, they're either dumb as a box of rocks or they're all aces who never miss a shot. I recall the AI in SWOTL were so fixated on the player that they would completely ignore a squadron of B-17s bombing their home town to chase the player half way across Europe. EF2000 was absolutely deadly, once you had done what your mission called for, successful or not (you never knew anyway), go full afterburner and get the hell out of there, staying below radar altitude, because in a couple of minutes a pair of MiGs would arrive ...capable of defeating the entire NATO air forces by themselves. There seems to be about a dozen versions of IL-2 available, I just ordered the "1946, Complete Edition". IL-2 came out in parts. That version you ordered should have all in one.
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Post by sleepygirl on Aug 9, 2019 20:52:00 GMT
.... AI has its limitations due to age...but still pretty darn good. I've never encountered an aerial combat sim that had realistic AI, they're either dumb as a box of rocks or they're all aces who never miss a shot. I recall the AI in SWOTL were so fixated on the player that they would completely ignore a squadron of B-17s bombing their home town to chase the player half way across Europe. EF2000 was absolutely deadly, once you had done what your mission called for, successful or not (you never knew anyway), go full afterburner and get the hell out of there, staying below radar altitude, because in a couple of minutes a pair of MiGs would arrive ...capable of defeating the entire NATO air forces by themselves. There seems to be about a dozen versions of IL-2 available, I just ordered the "1946, Complete Edition". Sounds like some of the AI glitches in Oblivion where the player character either gets ignored completely or fixated on for apparently random reasons. IL-2 is on GOG, but I decided not to buy it since air combat isn't really my thing. I just like to fly old biplanes and play air tourist. I'm finding that arrows are now hitting at the point where T'Saara is aiming for. It is frustrating at lower levels to line up a shot with care and have it strike way off. Even with my real world Bear Archery bow I can do better than that and I'm not a particularly good archer at all.
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Post by jgf on Aug 10, 2019 17:56:55 GMT
Archers and mages seem at a distinct disadvantage at low levels, but I think both make up for it later in the game; so you must play a defensive game til you become more adept. At higher levels both do similar, if not more, damage as melee fighters but do it from a distance, so often can take out an enemy before they are even aware of your presence.
I enjoy playing a pure mage (no weapons or armor skill at all), at the start they are a sniveling little wimp; three or four fireballs to kill a rat then they must hide til their mana replenishes or use a precious, at the stage of the game, potion to restore it. But at level 25 they have combination spells that can clear a room in a few seconds.
In my younger days I was a decent archer (had to be to bring down a mammoth), but family, business, other interests took my time; when I moved to Ohio in '91 I gave all my equipment to a friend. Wish I had kept the longbow though, a beautiful handmade weapon formed from two contrasting woods laminated, with a woven leather grip, 58" strung, about 60lb draw (almost too much for me, lol); I bartered some engineering work for it, the man passed away a few years later.
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Post by sleepygirl on Aug 10, 2019 19:39:19 GMT
Wow! your old longbow sounds amazing. My bow is just a Bear Archery 'Student' recurve bow with a fairly minimal draw since it's intended for young people and women to quote the sales blurb. I was going to get more seriously into archery and I started to get some gear together. I even got myself a fletching jig, but life happened and I had to take early retirement due to my health starting to pack up and then my Mum started to develop dementia and looked after her for eight years until finally Mum had to go into 24 hr care because I was in no state to look after her anymore. I suppose I should sell my archery stuff, but it just seems like too much effort to do anything about it. So mammoth hunting eh? Sounds very intrepid. As much as I've sometimes wondered about playing a mage I never have since it's just so difficult to survive in the lower levels. I would guess that athletics would have to be a finely honed skill to cope with all the necessary running away in order to get clear of danger. I'm not entirely joking since T'Saara used her athletics and acrobatic skills a lot at lower levels in order to cut and run for it and get to a position where enemies couldn't get to her so she could use her bow without being mobbed.
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Post by jgf on Aug 11, 2019 15:16:13 GMT
Bear is good equipment, my two most used bows were Bear recurves, one wood, one fiberglass; ah, the memories ...a $300 fine for bowfishing out of season (when bass are spawning you're only allowed to catch them with normal fishing tackle, I wasn't aware of this), an argument at a target shoot (I popped all five balloons, didn't matter to me that for one of them I hit the string and it fell and popped, the judge disagreed, lol). Also had a compound bow, all polished aluminum and mirror finish black polymers, a gift from a ladyfriend; I called it the "sci-fi" bow ...and never liked it (though appreciated the gift). To me a compound bow takes a very simple weapon design and complicates it; in a survival situation I'm much prefer a plain recurve.
I play a pure mage focusing on stealth and distraction, you don't have to fight everyone. The first few levels concentrate on building skills and spells, stay away from any dangerous situations, especially if you do not use a companion. Chameleon spells/clothing, command spells, and summoning will get you through much of the game without you actually fighting, though a strong destruction touch spell is good in a pinch (anything but frost, too many opponents have a resistance to that). For example, have a full set of clothing with each piece enchanted for chameleon (if you are lucky enough to get a grand soul gem for each piece you can get 107% chameleon - complete invisibility that doesn't dissipate when you do something; but getting around 50%-60% is more likely) and a chameleon spell to get you to 100% for 20+ seconds, and you can sneak past almost anyone. A good sneak skill helps even more, and is easy to get. If you cannot sneak by and there are multiple enemies, get full chameleon and ready a command spell, sneak in and cast it on the nearest enemy then scurry out, he will fight the others and get killed, repeat on another enemy til only one is left, summon something to finish him off. (If there are multiple enemies you're not likely to summon anything strong enough to be useful before they kill it.) As you advance, or if you want to play more aggressively, add a ranged destruction spell (a few points of damage for a few seconds uses less mana than the same damage instantly, and mana is your "ammo"), and a combo elemental shield spell (3 points of fire, frost, shock, and poison shields also give 12 points physical shield; 20 seconds is good). Build your alchemy skill early, you will need those restore magic, fortify magic, and fortify health potions; as you get stronger you can make spells that will require you gulping down three or four fortify magic spells just to cast once - "doomsday" spells that will kill everything in the room but leave you defenceless for several minutes. It's an entirely different mindset than a typical hack-and-slash player, or even an armored marksman; you've got to use your wits and a good knowledge of the various magic spells to survive.
I inadvertently found a spell (on some arrows) I'd not considered useful before - drain speed, it's now part of my mage's arsenal. An ogre is virtually paralyzed by 30pts of drain speed, at much less mana cost than a paralyze spell, allowing you to run away or kill him before the spell wears off; it takes around 50pts to greatly affect a bandit or marauder. And with Vilja as my companion, I slow an enemy almost to a standstill and she dons her armor to run do the hack-and-slash bit on him while I watch.
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Post by sleepygirl on Aug 12, 2019 1:22:08 GMT
I was never much impressed by those 'Star Wars' compound bows either and I'd much rather have a good classic recurve bow which is both elegant and simple and has zero moving parts.
I seriously agree that stealth is a good skill to have and T'Saara is getting better at this all the time. Being able to avoid conflict with powerful enemies is absolutely golden. When I was playing Oblivion with my little fairy character Niggle her stealth skill was absolutely essential since she was quite fragile and no melee fighter. It was quite possible for her to sneak into some Ayleid tombs and take all the loot she wanted without being seen.
For far too long I didn't bother with alchemy and then once I got Eiolynn working on learning alchemy so she could make poisons my eyes were suddenly opened as to just how useful it was. Poisons apart being able to make your own ever so useful potions such as Cure Disease and even basic Restore Fatigue potions is a big plus.
Drain XXXXX spells and enchantments are Eiolynn's speciality. Slow burn spells take less mana which is important since she doesn't have much and being the character that she is she takes a perverse joy in seeing an enemy slowly begin to drag their feet and lose their ability to function. Eiolynn has a command spell as well, but I don't let her use it too much since her potential to cause absolute mayhem with it might go to her head.
For some reason I haven't had too much success with Chameleon spells, but that might be because I always seem to lose my character when they're in play. I much preferred how they did Chameleon in Morrowind because I at least could tell where my character was!
The Summon Rats spell mod was always Eiolynn's favourite, it takes most of her mana to cast it, but on the other hand having cast it enemies are too much occupied with defending themselves to be doing anything else. Low level summons like summoning a skeleton don't usually do much, but Eiolynn mostly does that to distract enemies rather than expecting her summons to do them any real harm. As you would expect any Daedric creatures are entirely off Eiolynn's summon spell list.
Frost spells! - oh yes. UnDead are all about Frost spells since fire is a big no-no for them and that's what Eiolynn also uses as a Destructive one hit ranged spell; - which leads to silly situations when fighting other Undead since they are also resistant to Frost just the same as Eiolynn is.
Sometime I should see if I can give a Mage character a test run just as a way of trying something different that's out of my comfort zone. Playing T'Saara as a pure stealth archer has certainly done that for me as after playing Eiolynn for almost two years off and on I really was getting too comfortable with her as a character and playing her was getting to be too much of a milk run despite her nerfed stats.
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Post by sleepygirl on Jan 27, 2021 5:05:56 GMT
Back again! I'd got all fed up with trying to fix problems in the Trainz simulator after the last 'upgrade' patch broke all kinds of things so I figured it was about time to save the world again in Oblivion. It took me ages to get my Oblivion install working properly again and fix all the glitchy bugs from when I tried out 'Kvatch Rebuilt' and got the Main Quest broken for me. This time around I'm keeping it simple with Eiolynn and I'm not even bothering with a body mod, just a few minor fixes here and there and she's good to go. The backstory for Eiolynn is that she's from a long vanished race of River Elves and this time around I've been taking her back more to her roots and making her a bit less civilised and much happier when she's around water and the more wild places in the countryside. Eiolynn version #2a Looking upon Kvatch from afar.
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Post by blockhead on Jan 28, 2021 3:00:28 GMT
Welcome back.
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Post by sleepygirl on Jan 28, 2021 5:47:20 GMT
Welcome back. Thanks. An unwelcome light in the night.
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Post by Sniffles on Jan 28, 2021 8:32:32 GMT
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Post by sleepygirl on Jan 29, 2021 0:07:56 GMT
Thanks. That moment when you find the sword you've been searching for your whole Undeath.
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Post by sleepygirl on Jan 29, 2021 8:37:30 GMT
Can I have a moan? - and it's not about Azura's Star. I always like that part of the main quest. No it's after that when Eiolynn gets back from Azura's Shrine and Jauffre sends her off to teach the Bruma Guard how to close Oblivion Gates. I severely dislike having to do this since all the idiots running around with huge longswords can hit Eiolynn as much as they like, but should one of them jump in front of her sword and die she ends up being arrested dragged off to pay a fine. And then of course later there will be the cloaked idiot from the Dark Brotherhood dropping by to bother her. Eiolynn hates the Dark Brotherhood with a passion. This time around Eiolynn only had Captain Burd and his blasted two handed sword to dodge while climbing the Sigil Tower which made a nice change from having to dodge longswords as well while getting caught up in a close melee fight. I'm sure Captain Burd was trying to cut her head off. You can see Eiolynn's usual fighting kit in the picture; - a lightweight round shield and a shortsword. Jauffre gave her a nice katana, but she hasn't used it yet. Eiolynn also carries a bow and an assortment of various kinds of poisoned arrows, - but she can't use those while anybody is 'helping' or she'd never be able to afford all the fines. Mind you at Kvatch she usually ends up with three 'friendly' arrows in her back, - so really when it comes right down to it she'd rather everybody sodded off and let her get on with it.
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Post by Sniffles on Jan 29, 2021 11:23:32 GMT
Can I have a moan? - and it's not about Azura's Star. I always like that part of the main quest. No it's after that when Eiolynn gets back from Azura's Shrine and Jauffre sends her off to teach the Bruma Guard how to close Oblivion Gates. I severely dislike having to do this since all the idiots running around with huge longswords can hit Eiolynn as much as they like, but should one of them jump in front of her sword and die she ends up being arrested dragged off to pay a fine. And then of course later there will be the cloaked idiot from the Dark Brotherhood dropping by to bother her. Eiolynn hates the Dark Brotherhood with a passion. This time around Eiolynn only had Captain Burd and his blasted two handed sword to dodge while climbing the Sigil Tower which made a nice change from having to dodge longswords as well while getting caught up in a close melee fight. I'm sure Captain Burd was trying to cut her head off. You can see Eiolynn's usual fighting kit in the picture; - a lightweight round shield and a shortsword. Jauffre gave her a nice katana, but she hasn't used it yet. Eiolynn also carries a bow and an assortment of various kinds of poisoned arrows, - but she can't use those while anybody is 'helping' or she'd never be able to afford all the fines. Mind you at Kvatch she usually ends up with three 'friendly' arrows in her back, - so really when it comes right down to it she'd rather everybody sodded off and let her get on with it. I can definitely relate. Keeping my character under level 5 or so, everything in the entire world is out to kill you... and will given the slightest opportunity. The Dork Botherhood is the pits. Pandering to hack and slash players usually found out vandalizing the surrounding area after football games when they aren't trolling people on line.
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Post by sleepygirl on Jan 29, 2021 14:00:55 GMT
I find it really annoying that I can't throw away the Dark Brotherhood dagger because it's a 'quest item'. Definitely not a quest that I want. There was one time that I got Eiolynn to join the DB when the bothersome person in the black hood came calling and she then spent all her time killing DB members until they finally threw her out. Eiolynn at Cloudtop. Not because she was doing the Fingers of the Mountain quest, but because she was on her way to somewhere else and stopped for a while. She picked up a Daedric longsword while closing the Oblivion gate at Chorrol and busted it a short while after this snap was taken fighting a Vampire Patriarch. I knew it was rubbish when I got Eiolynn to pick it up, but I wanted to see how long it would last before it fell apart. Hunting vampires in the depths of Lipsand Tarn. Eiolynn ended up catching haemophoric polygiggle, but she had some cure disease potions in her rucksack so she was fine. Stupid really, she's Undead and 100% resistant to disease and she can still catch haemophoric polygiggle. If I let her become a vampire she turns into a 'god character' that can kill anything and everything and really is no fun at all to play. Back outside again after causing mayhem. Her upper body tattoos have a light armour effect and her huntsmans leggings and gloves are enchanted. She doesn't like people seeing her face which is why she nearly always wears that iron mask.
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Post by sleepygirl on Jan 30, 2021 14:41:43 GMT
Eiolynn tidied herself up to go and see High Chancellor Ocato to ask for aid for Bruma; - not that it did any good and she needn't have bothered to go to all that trouble. After she liberated Tiber Septim's currias from Sancre Tor Eiolynn replaced her fur helmet with a Blades helmet and exchanged her lightweight round shield for Valdemar's shield. She's taken to carrying Northwind instead of her own shortsword as well. This is about the most Blades equipment that she will make use of since she thinks the Blades armour is too heavy and cumbersome, but I suppose it's the thought that counts. A sword Eiolynn almost missed out on. The Longsword of the Glacier was hidden inside one of those fleshy 'Punished' containers, only she was set upon by heavily armoured Daedra before she could check it out. Once the fighting was over and things were at a pause Eiolynn went back to have a look and found the sword even though there were more hostiles on the way and she had a clear run for the Sigil Stone. Of course when the new lot of hostiles arrived they were the perfect test subjects for her new sword.
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