Patteroast

Plus, for a short time on beta, there were inspirations that teleported you to Wentworth's or the Black Market. I still have one on one of my character copies on Test. Plus there's one called a 'Conceal' or something that was listed at the market for a while, but I don't think it was ever available in-game.

I don't see why they would skip tier 4 on greens, unless they thought 100% health would inevitably be wasted, but if it's only base HP, it won't be, so...

As a player who does not have unlimited billions to work with, plays in small supergroups with friends, and has a lot of alts that get played sometimes infreuently, the prestige number does tell me something: how much that specific character has been played since joining. That is not synonymous with how long they've been in, as some characters get played more than others. I have no arguments to make about the high-powered world of converting billions of inf into prestige, and being all snobby about being a top 100 supergroup. I have no experience with those things. Neither do the majority of players.

I get that you're against displaying arbitrary things along with your character, such as prestige earned to your SG-mates, or badges or powers to anyone walking past you in game. But I like those things, and a large number of other people do as well. If they were eliminated, a significant part of the playerbase would be sad, and had something they enjoyed taken away from them. If it stays how it is, you can just ignore it. Is it really such an imposition to let others have their meaningless fun?

As someone who has tried all his primaries and secondaries on a Mercs/Poison Mastermind, I think Poison's Poison Trap is way more useless than Serum. Serum does a decent job at doing what it was designed to do... the problem is that it was designed to do something that doesn't matter much except in just a few situations. It'd definitely be more balanced if it either had a much lower recharge, longer duration, smaller crash, or a combination of all of those. But I think there are a good number of more broken powers in the game than it. And hell, my example of Poison Trap from Poison won't be all that valid anymore in I21, so there's still hope.

Also, none of what's happening right now marks anything like the end of NASA, or even their manned spaceflight division. Lots of robotic research missions are underway and planned, not to mention the non-spaceflight divisions of NASA.

The reason that I don't see the changes to the manned spaceflight system at NASA as that dramatic is because we're just moving from spacecraft built by private companies under contract by the government, to spacecraft built by private companies under their own volition, to meet specific requirements that if met, the government will fund them for meeting. With requirements already being set for filling ISS resupply and crew transfer roles.

True, but the plan so far is to give funds to any company that tries to fill certain roles, if they get to the point of serious competition. I specifically mentioned SpaceX because it looks like they'll get there first, but they're not the only ones trying. I agree that monopolies are bad, and hope more companies catch up. Although two points make me hopeful. 1) Thus far, in the US, there had already been a monopoly of sorts on space... NASA. Sure, they contract out to multiple companies to build things for them, but everything that's been accomplished that we're proud of was under one government heading built by a handful of companies. At worst, I don't see it being too different from the past. 2) Any government funds to private companies would have very stringent safety and performance guidelines attached. So there will be some oversight.

Something like the fourth ion engine space probe is out there right now, the Dawn spacecraft, just went into orbit around the second most massive member of the asteroid belt, Vesta. Because of its ion engine, after a year or so it will be able to leave orbit and head to the largest asteroid and dwarf planet, Ceres.

As for other unmanned projects, we seem to be at least keeping up, still. The Juno spacecraft to Jupiter is being prepared for launch in a few days, and the new Mars rover Curiosity should be in the air by November. A lot of scientists and science enthusiasts are making as much noise as possible about the James Webb Space Telescope... sure, it's overbudget, but the Hubble Telescope is generally seen as one of the most successful projects in a while, and its days are numbered. JWST is the next step up, and just throwing away the billions spent seems rather silly. Also, it's not just our project... we collaborated on it with the European and Canadian space agencies. They probably would like a say on whether their time and money gets thrown in the trash heap.

As for putting people in space... we do seem to be at a low spot. Shutting down the Shuttle was a good idea... it was old (designed in the 70s), expensive, and never lived up to specs. Plus, it didn't exactly have the greatest safety record. The proposed Constellation program that was started under Bush is all but cancelled at this point, and I can't say I'm too disappointed. It was already pretty deeply overbudget, and unlike the James Webb it had nothing to show for it. Plus, it wasn't going to be ready until almost a decade after the shuttle was over by design. I don't want to see the US get out of the space business, but maybe the new plan will work out. Helping fund private companies to make spacecraft should help encourage more private money being put into it, and I'm pretty confident that SpaceX will be able to start taking some of the slack within the next few years.

As for the ISS... all those billions, and we're just going to deorbit it? I think the Russians, Europeans, Japanese, and Canadians who also contributed might have something to say about that. Especially since it's almost finally finished.

Anyway. Even if NASA seems to be flagging a bit (which is questionable when it comes to unmanned probes, considering our Mercury, Moon, Mars, Vesta, and Saturn orbiters currently operating, plus the fact that the Opportunity rover is still going), there's plenty to be excited about for other countries. Right now I'm cheering for Japan to get through their streak of bad luck and pull off their Venus orbiter, wishing good luck to the Russian/Chinese launch to Mars later this year, excitedly tracking the progress the Europeans are making at Mars, Venus, and their comet orbiter which is en route, waiting to see how the Chinese space station turns out, getting updates on new plans from plenty of other countries looking to get into the game, like India recently did...

There's a lot going on up there. I hope it stays that way.