(Between playing Vega Strike) COVID-19 update of Namibia
There have been a handful of cases more in Walvis Bay, and the chances of us staying in lock down for longer is pretty good.
A lot of people have been getting really upset at this, there is massive loss of income all around. Businesses struggling to run with all the new rules. However, all is not lost. There are positive things about this pandemic. Like the picture below, it’s completely barren, but beautiful.
We have been making a life sharing the Namibian beauty with you. Now it’s just pictures on the internet, but soon enough you can come experience this otherworldly place together with our warm hospitality and awesome atmosphere.
This pandemic’s hitting all of us, it seems that every Namibian except the government is suffering.
I suppose when they come looking for income tax they’ll wake up, as 45% of nothing is still nothing.
People in Namibia is standing together like never before, as the hardship is something that we all share. Everybody in the nation are helping each other, and we are getting to respect each other.
The businesses that are still open are paying their staff, even though times are tough. People are reaching out to each other, asking for help, and getting that help. All with no government involvement. It really is great to see such great cooperation.
The Namibian government does want to help, but there is just nothing left in the state coffers. Maybe we will finally see that we don’t need such wasteful people in charge that care so little for the people that put them in charge.
The age of people not caring about each other is soon going to be over. Come to Namibia when the pandemic is all over. We have sunshine and good beer, too! When you come, contact Awesome Chapters!
On wards! Keep a stiff upper lip, and look ahead! What does not kill you makes you stronger!
So, what did I do with the week? I played with Vega Strike space sim that I told you about last week. It is a glorious game, and has so much potential. The code needs a bit of work to update it, and iron out some bugs. Luckily we have a bit of spare time! I even have the opportunity to learn how to code somewhat…
So, with nothing on this earth I can do to make life more fun for the readers of this blog, let’s go to space! Read my review of this fantastic game below:
Vega Strike Review
Vega Strike is a Realistic Universe Simulator
The initial impression of Vega Strike is that it is a very realistic simulator, the distances are in the same scale as actual star systems. Vega Strike provides an exciting near light travel mechanism that is well implemented. This SPEC drive provides a nice balance between simulator and game, and is a welcome addition to remove tedium.
Auto Pilot
The auto pilot in Vega Strike is light years ahead of anything available on planet earth now, and with auto docking on you can run a mission without touching the joy stick. Even with the ship you start with. Should you want to take the stick, it’s there, responsive, and with a very realistic flight model.
Trading in Vega Strike
The trading aspect of Vega Strike is well thought out, with many surprising aspects making for a very in-depth experience. When you first start out in the Vega Strike universe, everything is new, and you don’t know the price of anything. But, as any good trader knows, keeping a good record of deals and details is essential.
VegaStrike provides assistance through automatically remembering the prices of various planets you have visited. This information is then displayed when you do your trading on planets and bases that you visit. Pretty soon you are making serious cash to pay for ship upgrades.
Immersive atmosphere
The universe you get to play in with Vega Strike is massive, with masses of star systems to jump to. The various creatures that inhabit this universe are quite varied, and fun to learn about.
Add in some very nice background music and Vega Strike provides a very immersive experience. New and better ships can be bought, and let’s be honest, the ship you start with is a bit of a dog, sluggish as well, but it can haul 40 times it’s own weight through space.
Standing on the shoulders of giants
Just the fact that something like that is possible shows the lengths the creators went to to simulate a very complex and fun environment. Vega Strike captures the spirit of Elite perfectly, and adds so much more.
As there is no big company pumping money into this game, some the artwork can do with a little TLC.
You can help
If you are an artist that have enjoyed Privateer of the Wing Commander series, you might remember the hand drawn that art was state of the art for the time. Vega Strike can do with some donations. The community is quite helpful, and open to new ideas. Everyone would be overjoyed at getting some great date art in the game.
To give us all an idea of just how pretty space art can be, check out the science fiction section on Deviantart. If you want to be noticed and get people to see your art, this is as good a gallery as any other.
Most of Vega Strike is really beautiful! So much work has gone into it, and it shows.
You can view beautifully 3D rendered landscapes of the planets you visit, the planets in space is gorgeous, and there are plenty of base types to see as you explore this universe. It is the characters that you meet that might be able to do with a bit more realism, as they do look a bit cartoon-ish. I really hope I am not stepping on any toes with this statement.
I have played VegaStrike many years ago, and truly loved it. Some time ago, development stopped, or tapered off as life gets in the way of the developers time. Eventually it fell off completely, and so started disappearing from all the linux repositories.
So nice was my impression of this game that I still periodically check the news for this game. Imagine my joy when I discovered that there is life again, and an effort is being made of sprucing up this old codebase to run on modern systems?
Running Arch Linux?
I package some software for Arch Linux, and made the Arch Packages for Vega Strike listed below. The other software packages that I maintain int the AUR are:
Kdenlive – a non-linear video editor for Linux
Slowmovideo – Ultra smooth, Ultra slow, Ultimate speed control. Intra-frame motion estimation, for the smoothest slomo videos you can imagine. (NOTHING else can make a video like the one in the example – where I juggle balls on a seismic research vessel.)
You can play Vega Strike now.
On Arch linux you can now install this game and follow the development by installing the vegastrike-git package from AUR. You have the choice of various Vega Strike engines, the most recent master following the Python3 conversion at the moment. The master has an interesting bug that is proving a little tough to hunt down in vegastrike-engine-git.
Do you know how to code? Hunting this bug down will help a lot!
If you prefer a more stable experience, you can install vegastrike-engine-stable-git. There is also a branch that follows the lastest released package, also on git so that any bug fixes get to you as soon as they happen.
If you are a packager, and not running Arch, there is help available for packaging this game for your Linux distrobution of choice. There was a Windows port a long time ago, and it should not need too much to get back up and running, if you know how to port software to Windows.
One last and unexpected benefit of all this new action on the VegaStrike engine, is that a very good remake of the Privateer from the Wing Commander Universe runs beautifully on it.
In Arch Linux, simply install the privateer_wcu package from AUR, and away you go! The developers suggest using the latest version of the VegaStrike engine for the best experience.
