Treble

Yep! There are two sets of three. I had to remove two from each to help with fit

Thanks to my estimable hetero lifemate @bradigor, I took possession of a non-working Thrustmaster T.Flight HOTAS X. After a ludicrously short amount of tinkering, I had fixed it binding and it worked perfectly. Brad had already said I could keep it if I could fix it, so he got severe "seller's" remorse. Soz Brad! After playing Elite: Dangerous VR with it for a bit, I'd fallen in love. One problem though: too many controls, not enough buttons. With VR, using a keyboard isn't viable so extra buttons are a cracking idea. After a bit of thought (and heavy Googling) I realised I could re-purpose a Zero Delay board, and add up to another 12 buttons. ED doesn't care about player 1/player 2 shit -- if the PC sees an input, ED goes, 'Yep, I'll 'ave that!'. So I have plans... many plans. The first was to go into the throttle piece and add basic buttons. The second phase is more involved, and I'll post about when the parts I did rock-up... Day 1 I started by drilling the holes I needed in the side of the throttle grip. This is one of two. It's a great space with loads of internal clearance, easy to access during play , and can't be knocked accidentally. I then countersunk these holes, as the tact (tactile) switches I want to use can sit flush. Now, the tact switches I got are intended to be surface mounted (i.e. on a PCB) so that was going to present some challenges... After some head-scratching, I thought a flexible plastic backing might be ok. Luckily I have some credit card-sized plastics that i'd bought for another craft project, and snipped one to fit. With a liberal application of the cack-handed crafter's friend, i.e. hot glue, I managed to fit a flexible support in place that complimented the tact switch beautifully. After the test fit, I had to make sure the button actually, y'know, worked. I'd bought some dupont wires (they have connectors to reduce the amount of soldering you have to do) and tested the wired button on my PC. Perfect. n.b. the potatoes in the background aren't a subtle slight on my Surface Go. It's a perfectly capable little thing [pats PC gently] Now, I didn't grab any pics of wiring the cables through the throttle assembly, but it was a tight fit. You'll see where they come out in later pics. I had to drill some of the plastic for extra space, but as the stick is fairly low tech inside, but large to accommodate big ol' human paws, there's lots of room to muck about. Once threaded, it was a simple job to connect the duponts to the blue button, cut a little cable run with some snips, and add a bit more hot glue. Because why TF not. I test fitted the board using blu-tack, and saw it left enough space for 4 buttons along the edge of the base - the only easily-accessible part of the stick left. Other places were available, but were awkward for several reasons. Repeating the drill/credit card/hot glue approach, button #2 (yellow) was fitted and the wires threaded. The green/yellow tape is not a salute to the Scouts, but binds two wires together: I had to use male/female duponts as extensions. A few zip ties later, and the cable routing is neatly achieved. We'll stealth-mod this bugger yet! ...and there we go, part one complete. Two fully-operable buttons stealth modded onto the side. And it only took 5 hours! Tune in tomorrow for part two

As others said, it's CPU restricted. This should be transformed when the DX12 (and/or Vulkan) drivers come out for it. That'll shift stuff to the CPU cores and to the GPU more effectively. As for the value of the 30XX series, their true value will be in coping with Ray Traced stuff. So base speeds aren't leaps and bounds over 20XX but it copes with modern and future titles and their machine-learned stuff much better.

You should join our Discord. It's more like 'compare Casios'

Ironically, nowhere near as apocalyptic as San Fran is right now.

I don't necessarily disagree about the quality, but I think what he sees as his Novellas are substantively different from what he sees as his novels. They are often two-handers (or have a small cast of characters) and a very high-concept setup. The length is often far larger than what a normal human being would consider to be novella, yeah, but whatever we call them they are structurally different from his novels I think. No argument about his golden period. It was definitely when he was hungry. And, unfortunately, when he was pissed :|

I genuinely don't understand the criticisms of his endings. Not to the degree it's reached in pop culture, at least. He doesn't plan them, so they feel fresh most of the time. As he says himself, if the story swings towards a character death, he goes for it. No-one feels like they're wearing plot armour. Some are weak for sure, but most are like the moment when the tornado blows away and your heroes are left with the detritus, destruction and the dead. For me, that's very fulfilling as it's more like real life - the evil is vanquished, but for how long and at what personal cost? - and that's satisfying. For me at least. Two caveats: the endings to his deliberately schlocky books tend to be much more scary and thrilling (Thinner, Dark Half, Pet Sematary... anything that reads like a horror or mystery comic) as they are closest to his novellas and short stories (his best writing). Whereas the more convoluted, Machean/Jackson/Lovecraftian stories are the 'tornado' endings that focus far more on the impact of the characters' lives (IT, Revival, DT series amongst others) and let a lot of people down. Second caveat is more positive: all the books with 'weak' endings read better when tied into the Dark Tower series. Particularly The Stand (to veer dangerously back on-topic!) and Insomnia. Final thought: its not worth judging King on his novels, really. His best work is in short story and novella writing. His best tales are the likes of The Mist, Umney's Last Case, Rita Hayworth/The Body/Apt Pupil from Different Seasons, all of Four Past Midnight, all of the stories in The Bachman Books (but obviously The Long Walk as the standout), N, and loads of others that are untouchable in terms of scares and atmosphere.

For my money, MSI.

Ooh, go on...

Bought. Anyway, as someone who enjoyed 4 and 5, I'm clearly not arsed about narrative in these games. For me, Halo's story works entirely on an aesthetic level. You're a big bloke with ace guns, in an alien landscape. I don't need anything more than that. Which is why this game seems particularly badly thought-out. It looks like warmed-over ideas from 15 years ago or more. There's a big difference between keenly deploying some aesthetic cues to ground your audience, and stuffing your demo with member berries. With the technical issues too, I think this is going to get a day-one reboot, now that people have internalised that there's going to be a big delay.

Is that Blood, Sweat and Pixels? Because the Kindle edition is on sale for £1.99 right now

No, holding doesn't sap your stamina. Excessive weight and sprinting sap that bar. Plus other things in the later game... How many orders did you pick up? You only have to take the key order (they're listed as 'Sam's Orders' and 'Other Orders'. You only need do the Sam ones for plot progression.) Leave any side stuff until you get new abilities. First power up:

Port Knot City, lol. Are you holding the triggers to balance yourself? Can you manufacture anything yet that helps with weight? I won't spoil what's available later