17 to 01: Season 3 Supplemental

This is not the end: We'll be around for The TOS Era: Supplemental after watching Star Trek IV: The One With The Whales.

Suggested Eras for Star Trek:
1966-1986: The TOS Era
1987-1993: The TNG Era
1994-1999: Maximum Trek
2000-2008: The Lost Years
2009-Present: NuTrek

17 to 01 is available on iTunes. It updates Thursday mornings at 2:00 AM ET / 1:00 CT. We're also amazingly on Stitcher.

TRO: 3087 - Zeus

3087 is a Battletech alternate universe where The Jihad never happened. Instead, political fracturing continues in the wake of the technological and military upheavals of the 3050's. Its history is told through the pages and designs of TRO: 3087. With any luck this series will be the last anyone hears about 3087.

ZEU-10S Zeus

Overview

The ZEU-10S is the latest in the venerable Lyran mech’s long line. In the testing phases during the First Jade Falcon Incursion, prototypes were rushed to the field via mercenary units in an effort to stem the rising tide of Clanners.

The prototypes’ performance gave Defiance Industries exceptional data and the Jade Falcon halt just short of Coventry gave the Commonwealth ample motivation for producing the perfected final version.

This new, more powerful version was initially circulated to politically influential units and individuals. Few were on the front-lines for the resumed Falcon operations in ‘79 and units who received Zeuses from their crash redeployment showed marked improvement in repelling the Falcons. Sadly, that improvement was not enough rapid enough to save Coventry, the line the ‘Mech was created to hold.

Despite ever-shorter resources, the Lyran Commonwealth has gone to great pains to keep it in production. This has included incentivizing the relocation of facilities which produce its gauss rifle and advanced structure. These efforts have been kept quiet out of concerns that they would undermine the defiant messages flowing out of Tharkad about the Commonwealth’s inevitable victory over the Falcons.

Realtime Facemapping

Can't wait 'til my next birthday when I can start being afraid of new technology.

Make Stellaris Great Again, Part 1

If you’ve never heard of Stellaris, it’s Civilization meets Spaceward Ho!, which I will assume is a comprehensive description suitable for everyone. It’s everything me and the guys ever dreamed of in a space game. You get to colonize planets, do some diplomacy, and build big fleets that have beautiful battles in space. You even get to make some moral decisions and do some research...y’know, Star Trek stuff. It’s great and we loved it.

But the luster has worn off quickly. The lifetime of a video game is pretty short and despite being excellent, Stellaris only had an average run with us. This isn’t an open letter to the devs or anything because I don’t know anything about game development. It’s not a list of bitches about the game because nothing is less productive than that. It’s nothing more than a vague plan offered for free with an offer for a red hat as a $25.00 upsell that simply reads “Make Stellaris Great Again.”

Quit animating every ship. It’s beautiful when I’ve got a fleet of 15 guys who shoot lasers and missiles in an asynchronous display of attempted murder by hard vacuum. I see the shots glance off of shields. But eventually I’ll have to destroy every other civilization in the galaxy and I’re going to need a pretty big fleet for that. Probably bigger than everyone else’s.

There’s a fleet cap of 1000 points worth of ships, but it’s only a guideline. After 1k points, I simply pay higher upkeep on ships above that limit. That means even more massive massive fleets, which I’ll get to later. The system can’t handle those numbers and significant fleet actions begin causing the game to slow down, space out, or just plain freeze up.

17 to 01: All Our Yesterdays

The only multi-episode story arc of Star Trek is resolved here. There's so much to like about this episode. I mean, yeah, part of the conflict is caused because people won't stop doing things for sixty seconds to explain to one another what's going on. And yeah, Kirk ends up treading water for the B-plot, but...

It's good, okay? Trust me, it's good.

A BAFTA is a British Academy of Film and Television Arts award.

17 to 01 is available on iTunes. It updates Thursday mornings at 2:00 AM ET / 1:00 CT. We're also amazingly on Stitcher.

TRO: 3087 - Orion

3087 is a Battletech alternate universe where The Jihad never happened. Instead, political fracturing continues in the wake of the technological and military upheavals of the 3050's. Its history is told through the pages and designs of TRO: 3087. With any luck this series will be the last anyone hears about 3087.

ON2-MC Orion
Overview
The Diamond Shark trade mission into the Inner Sphere entered the Free Worlds League a little over a year into The League’s civil war. Their intent to negotiate with the League at Goth Khakar was thwarted when both sides of the war attempted to secure exclusive negotiation rights. 
The Sharks had to clear their own landing zone and force both parties to the negotiating table. Any industrial output promised to the Clan from one side could have been a legitimate military target to the other, limiting what League governments could offer. However, resource and exploration rights to lands held by the former Atreus government were on the table and the Sharks walked away with mineral-rich enclaves while both sides of the Civil War enjoyed advanced upgrade packages. 
The Orion ON2-M was chosen as the recipient of this package because it was new enough to be compatible with cutting-edge technology, but old enough to have the kinks worked out of it.

Star Wars on Obsolete Hardware