Recently I took a trip to Wales to travel on the Llangollen Railway, for their “Steel, Steam & Stars III” gala, and the Ffestiniog Railway. However on that last part, things didn’t go to plan.

On the morning of Sunday the 29th of April, I departed my hotel in Bala aiming to catch the first train out of Blaenau Ffestiniog. The weather was already terrible in Bala and during the journey to the railway it got worse and worse. By the time I reaced Blaenau Ffestiniog the car was being buffeted around by the wind and the windscreen wipers couldn’t keep up with the rain, which was going almost horizontally at the time.

I arrived at the station with plenty of time to spare, but as I’m a coward I didn’t leave the car. I decided to telephone the railway and make sure trains were running. As I feared, the first trains were cancelled due to trees on the line. The weather reports had said the rain and wind was going to be better towards Porthmadog and my SatNav stated that I should get there with twenty minutes to spare before the second train was due to depart; so I set off for Porthmadog.

When driving across the Cob, I saw steam going up the other side of the valley, so the Welsh Highland Railway hadn’t had it as bad as the Ffestiniog Line; if I had been a few minutes earlier I could have managed a full trip to Caernarfon and back on that line, as a full round trip takes around five hours. Once I reached the station I was informed the second train had been cancelled too, but that the staff were doing their best to clear the line for the third timetabled departure at 1:35 pm. At around 12:30 a train appeared and was instantly full, a quck glance told me that this was a private charter and I couldn’t board. It departed on the Welsh Highland route to the north.

At around a quarter past one, I was informed the 1:35 train was intending to go out, so I decided to treat myself and bought a first class ticket and took a seat in the nice warm observation car at the end of the train. After about five minutes the Guard appeared, unlocked the door and apologised that all trains had been cancelled on the FR due to more trees on the line, some taking down vital communication infrastructure. I and my fellow passengers managed to get a refund from the ticket office and I decided to have something to eat in the Cafe.

I think that’ll do for now, but there’s still more to come!

Although this is a cautionary tale; it also proves to show that not all citizens of New Eden are as bad as public opinion.

A few months after stable wormholes started appearing throughout the New Eden cluster, I decided to try to find one and explore it’s contents. I fitted my Helios, bought a batch of Sisters Core Scanner probes and set off into neighboring systems. After about an hour of searching, I found a wormhole and warped to it. Now, my Helios and it’s fittings had set me back most of my, relatively small, pile of ISK so I had only bought 6 probes… That was mistake number one.

In my excitement at finding my first wormhole I flew through it, forgetting to recall my probes… Mistake number two.

When I emerged on the other side, I was immediately surrounded by a dozen ships of all sizes; frigates, cruisers, battleships… I tried to activate my Covert-Ops cloaking device, but the other ships were too close. One of the frigates locked me. I panicked and prepared for the worst while quickly ordering my ship to warp to a nearby planet. The frigate got one shot off before I sped away. Not one second into my warp jump did I realize my third mistake… In my panic, I had neglected to bookmark the wormhole.

“Oh well,” I thought “I’ll just scan it down again, I know the region it’s in.” However upon opening my cargo bay I saw my first and second mistakes… I had no probes left. While warping from planet to planet, creating safespot bookmarks in-between, I checked my alliance chat. The only people online were either on the wrong side of the cluster from the wormhole, or had no probing skills. It looked like the only way to save myself was to pod myself, losing my ship and implants in the process.

“No!” I said to myself, “I won’t let this happen… There must be another way out. I need to get a distress call out to as many people as possible.” So I opened help chat, with around one thousand people there I was sure someone would agree to help me. Sadly my words fell of deaf ears; in hindsight, perhaps mentioning the dozen aggressive ships on the other side didn’t help. My last resort was Twitter, with the #EveOnline and #TweetFleet tags I sent out my distress call again.

A reply! Someone was willing to help me. They flew from Amarr space into Molden Heath, scanned down the wormhole and even distracted two frigates at the exit while I made my escape, the wormhole seemed somewhat paler than before and more unstable, but I paid no heed. I waited on the hi-sec side of the anomaly, and sure enough my saviour came through a few seconds after me.

We stayed there chatting (Well, mostly me thanking her) for about a minute; then we noticed the wormhole had gone. Wait a second… It had collapsed mere seconds after we escaped? Seriously? I thanked her again; if either of us had been any slower, we may both have ended up stuck in there.

So there you have it, three mistakes not to make, and now you know how to avoid that finincially ruining situation… “Buy plenty of probes”, “Always recall them” and “Bookmark EVERYTHING”!

And to my saviour, once again you have my thanks. You are a testement to the community and playerbase of Eve Online, and proof that not all of us are pirates, scammers or greifers.

This week, the Odyssey class starship was released in Star Trek Online; it’s the new ‘flagship’ type for Starfleet; based on the Star Cruiser. Today I’ll be explaining why, in my opinion, the Odyssey class is not as effective as it’s counterparts in Special Task Force missions (From now on referred to as STFs)…

Firstly, Escorts are the King of STFs, especially Elite STFs; their potential damage output is much greater than any Cruiser or Science ship, even if the Cruiser has a Leutenant and Leutenant Commander Tactical officer aboard… However, Escorts usually need help from Cruisers or Science ships, not only for healing, curing and buffs/debuffs, but also for becoming the target, being able to draw fire away from your less durable, but harder hitting ships is a must. In my opinion, the Odyssey falls short here, compared to the C-Store ships, the Exploration Cruiser Retrofit, and Advanced Heavy Cruiser Refit…

Most fits of the Odyssey have two, yes TWO RCS Accelerator consoles, this usually buffs the turn rate to around 11 degrees/second; however, this means that it can no longer tank as effectively while leaving abilities free to heal and cure team-mates. Therefore most Odyssey Captains look after themselves first, and Escorts second. On the Exploration Cruiser Retrofit, these two consoles are not needed, as the Saucer Sep ability turns your ship into an Escort-Cruiser hybrid; leaving you with decent firepower, good damage resists (I usually run with two kinetic and two plasma resist consoles). Granted, you lose one of the ‘trifecta’ Science abilities (Science Team, Polarize Hull or Hazard Emitters), but in my experience, only two are needed per STF. Aside from this, the higher turn rate of the Exploration Cruiser Retrofit means that your potential damage output is much higher than the Odyssey, as you can fire torpedos more often.

If you can’t afford to buy the Exploration Cruiser Retrofit, or the Advanced Heavy Cruiser Refit; I’d suggest going for the Assault Cruiseras it still has a higher turn rate compared to the Odyssey.

TL;DR: Odyssey is not good for keeping your team alive, nor at effectively dealing damage. Exploration Cruiser Retrofit, in my experience, is the best at these.

After hacking through overgrown comments and ancient posts, Daniel found himself in a blog.

He noticed a sign, covered with the dust of the ages that had passed since this place was last used. Blowing the dust off, he was taken aback when he finally realised he HAD been here before…

Well then! I’m back, and this time I really, REALLY mean it!

Over the last few weeks, (Or has it been months? Time passes so quickly here…) I have been drawn into yet another fictional universe, this time the one of Mass Effect. After being gifted Mass Effect on Steam just before Christmas, I was hooked, and have already completed Mass Effect 2. Now I’m just waiting for the third installment.

Now, I found some parts of Mass Effect better than ME2, and some parts of ME2 better than the original. In the first game, it was easy to see what weapons were better than others, and you could change the armour of your squad. The skill tree was much more extensive too.

In Mass Effect 2, the skill ‘tree’ is much smaller and simpler, there are only a few weapons of each type avaliable, and your squad are stuck with only two sets of armour, or only one if they aren’t loyal.

Speaking of Mass Effect 2, I loved the part at the end, where Harbinger (A Reaper) releases control over the Collector leader, I’d like to think it finally realises what it’s done, and resigns itself to its fate.

Well I’ve finally gotten around to playing some Portal 2 Co-Op; very fun I like the TF2/Portal 2 hat crossovers too. Atlas likes his Fancy Fedora very much.

For some reason I was expecting one of the portal guns to shoot Orange and Bue, and the other to shoot something like Yellow and Purple, or Green and Red; no idea why…

Now, the futue; for me, the future lies in the past. This month will see the release of Stronghold 3; the latest in Firefly’s epic Castle Sim/RTS crossover. I have been an avid Stronghold fan ever since I laid eyes on the BOX of the original; as I have always loved history (As anyone who knows me, or reads this blog regularly knows)

In short, I have a fun game coming up, and I cannot wait.

Holy crud people, I’m twenty years old! No longer a teenager; not sure whether that’s good or bad yet but whatever!

I have a new phone (Nokia C5-03), much better than my old Nokia 1600… As well as £70 in cash and cheque form, a print of Christopher Ware’s brilliant painting of 60007 (Sir Nigel Gresley) hauling the last train accross the old Bridge 30 on the NYMR, and an enamel sign advertising the LNER.

I also (finally) got round to deleting the D: partition on my hard-drive, it was empty, C: was almost full.

Eet ees gud day!

Been playing a lot of Minecraft lately, took me long enough to get some Melon seeds. Cursed Poison Spiders!

I also fell down a ravine… twice… into the same one.

I’m experimenting with advertising on the site, I would apprediate feedback on the topic.

Thanks, Dan.

Welcome to my new home! Supplied by that epic guy, Ubertoast! Thanks a lot man.

I’ve also converted from Blogger to WordPress, sadly I couldn’t keep my old theme, as WP won’t let me change the colour of my posts; ah well!

RIGHT! I’ve decided I’m going to make this blog a priority for my internettyness.

From now on I plan to update this blog at least once per week; preferably more often than that.