[Lego] Oh no...

Paaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarts! I've ordered about a thousand parts (!) from a couple of sellers on Bricklink, and the final pack just arrived this morning. There's a few hundred reddish brown pieces, a lot of Technic parts, and even some teal stuff. But what is probably the most important set of pieces: four Mindstorms NXT/EV3 to 9V converter cables, ten pneumatic brackets, twenty Bionicle G2 gearboxes and a pair of those new pneumatic valves.

Almost every part in this bulk is for my Hailfire and Constructor projects. Yes, of course I haven't forgotten about these guys, and neither have I stopped working on them. I'm more than aware of that I haven't written many blogposts of these in the past five years. But that doesn't mean that there's no progress on them when there's no post about it.

I have been extremely busy in the past few years to a point where I either have no time to order parts that I absolutely need, no time to work on these projects, too much on my to do list with MapleStory, or where there's something else completely different that sucks all of my attention away. However, I'm more than aware that none of these are good excuses, and I don't even want to call them as such - ultimately the biggest contributor (or well, root cause) to long term project delays is simply ordering parts online that I need to resume my work.

Despite that I have done over 15 purchases on Bricklink in the past 7 years, it's still quite a mountain for me to climb each time I want to start an order. The only way for me to overcome that is to simply do more Bricklink orders until it becomes a habit. So essentially, I'm still learning how to fit this procedure in my life. However, I can tell that each time ordering parts becomes easier for me to do - to a point where this was my first attempt at micromanaging multiple orders at once.

So, I expect to have quite some spare time for my projects around the end of this month. In May, I won't have time for anything because I will be in Norway again - but at least I would have the entirety of this Summer ready to do whatever I want. And I want to work on these projects, dammit!

Anyway, these parts weren't just to add stuff to my Hailfire or Constructor. In fact, these parts are to accommodate a complete redesign of both projects, as I have done multiple times before. With the Hailfire Droid I won't change much of the wheel frames but I will have to start over with the head and the connection points to the wheel frames. The Constructor however, will be completely disassembled and built from scratch. It is much needed for it...

I will probably do a few small builds with the parts that I have on hand, but nothing too fancy in the next ten days. Don't expect any major blogposts for these projects this or next month though. I'll keep those for this Summer. But around that time I will write those long blogposts that explain in-depth about what has changed and such, the same way as it has been in the past. And no, I won't write about why my Constructor has teal parts on it. That will be for one of the final blogposts regarding the Constructor, which I'm not quite there yet.

That's it for today - I'll see you guys again next post!

[EMS] Combo Instinct - Level 30!

 

Alright! Level 30 on Combo Instinct went fast, despite that it has only been available since December. I suppose that shows how much events have been improved with giving more generous amounts of Nodestones. Of course there's also the (recent) increase in base droprate from Nodestones, the amounts of hours I've had to grind for event coins and having more % Item Droprate on my character to contribute for this milestone, but either way: this is going well.

So, what skill is next? I'm actually going to follow my gut feeling on this one. Objectively speaking, from the skills that I have left in my active V Matrix, Body of Steel would be the next logical choice. However, I've decided to save up Nodeshards again for the time being. That might sound as a boring decision, but keep in mind that these remain a rare resource to me since I don't purchase Nodestones from other players. I feel like I should save up shards, regardless what the next skill wave will introduce to the game.

Either way, it's not like I extract everything I find from Nodeshards. Duplicate skills are used to improve the ones I currently use, all others I don't need will be converted into shards - it's just that I don't invest these Nodeshards into getting a skill maxed out sooner. I'd rather keep them until there is something that feels worth my while. It is a luxury issue, at best. I could consider to invest in reinforcing the damage on Raging Blow and start working on my enhancement nodes, but it's not something I currently need. Having more damage is always nice, but it needs purpose. Plus, finding enhancements from opening Nodestones is extremely common. It would be a bit of a waste to pour shards into these because of that. I'll be fine without crafting duplicates once I've decided to start working on enhancements.

So with Sword of Burning Soul and Aura Weapon, the duration increase was way too valuable because the increases for each additional level is significant. So increasing the uptime for these skills became an absolute priority. In context of Combo Instinct, where that priority came from was a bit of a different story: despite that its duration does not increase per level, the damage output on it gains a significant boost. This boost was that large that it does really make a huge difference, so it was definitely worth my while for where I want to utilize it. But if we look at the skills I currently have left... Hmm. At best it's icing on the cake. I just don't have something as big as Sobs, AW or CI left until Nexon introduces something new or increases the appeal of leveling the more underused skills.

I'll be fine with not spending Nodeshards on my remaining skills for the time being - there's plenty of Nodestones to be opened in the future, so maxing out all skills is inevitable. Yes, even Spider in Mirror.

Anyway, hopefully that does clarify some of that dilemma. I'd rather choose to prioritize game changers over "nice to haves". I'm currently at a point where I could always use more damage, but doing so with only Nodeshards is not going to place me higher up in the food chain. If I would want to solo the normal variants of 5th Job bosses or the final 4th Job ones, then I would need more than just working exclusively on my 5th Job skills. Gotta work on that Star Force and Potential first in order to get closer to that goal. But for now, I'm sitting comfortably with my daily stuff - I haven't bumped into many walls yet. And as long as that remains, there is not a lot of need for (small but expensive) power creep. I'll definitely get to that point eventually, but not today or tomorrow. Anyway, another 5th Job skill maxed!

That's it for today - I'll see you guys again next post!