Where Creativity Takes Wing
Cold, dark, remote, Antarctica is as close to space as you can get on Earth. Humans conduct research in Antarctic bases on a wide range of topics, from climate studies and astronomy to glaciology and human physiology and psychology. Dr. Stijn Thoolen, the ESA-sponsored research doctor based at the French/Italian Concordia research station in Antarctica,…
via Meet the Experts: Isolation in Antarctica — Chronicles from Concordia
Large areas of the Infinite Wilds are frozen over, and this kind of travel has its own challenges. There are various strategies and equipment you can use to help deal with these, with a varying degree of success. Different horses are needed for these different landscapes, too.
Snow slows you down tremendously, and it can be hard to climb the slippery hills. Snow fields can also be quite vast so you may be a while crossing them. Also, the landscapes are quite beautiful and not to be missed!
Snowshoes can be purchased with Essence and they equip automatically. They make the terrain less slippery and boost your walking speed. They are really helpful if you want to complete a puzzle or quiz post that’s located on a slope.
Skis can also be purchased with Essence and they are great for cross country skiing, giving something of a speed boost, but they truly shine if you have to go downhill. You can reach some pretty respectable speeds! Steering works better when you use the mouse as well. The shortcut is =,
For snow, it’s best to have large horses, preferably with big feet, who are good in Speed, Strength, and Bravery. Shires, Shire Sport Horses, other similar drafts, and various flavors of Grade Draft are all good for this. A lighter horse that is still relatively tall, strong fast and brave, can do pretty well too.
Ice Crusts are very slick and can be difficult to travel on. Your snowshoes don’t work here and horses get hurt easily on the sharp ice.
Skates can’t be used here – and wagons or carts can but it’s a pain to deal with all the ridges and bumps. Walking or riding is your best bet. Or maybe a balloon?
I’ve had really good luck with my Hunter Thoroughbred on ice crusts. I think any good runner-jumpers would do well. Horses who are brave and agile do well here, and speed never hurts. I highly recommend getting a Salus Amulet or at the very least, a preventive vet exam.
The majority of ice you see will be in sheet form, over the oceans. Horses don’t like this area because it easily frightens them – I don’t blame them! Nobody likes the chance of a cold bath. However, there are multiple ways of dealing with it.
Skis work here, though not very well. You can also just run, but who wants to do that? This is where the Ice Skates truly shine. You can use them with alternating key strokes, much like a Kayak, though if you just press Forward you will still make progress, albeit more slowly. You can also use Pony Carts, Horse Carts, and Chariots, though the ice still cracks under horses from time to time. Shortcut is ~.
The ideal horse for ice travel is strong, fast, brave, and light. Of course, light horses don’t tend to be as strong, so there’s a balance that must be struck. Strong ponies tend to have a broad chest along with their other attributes. Some people breed miniature ponies with draft breeds to boost the strengh of the resulting foal – this can be tricky but it can work. There are also various breeds that are designed more for ice draft work. Also, the horses of the Decay Biome tend to be tiny and some of them are strong.
Broken up ice sheets floating on a sea, too spread about to walk across. This situation can be a pain. You pretty much have to either swim slowly through it or sometimes you can use a kayak. Luckily it just borders major ice sheets so you won’t have to endure long stretches of it.
Not a player yet? Interested in joining?
Click HERE or go to the HI3 site and put in my user ID, 1023. Whenever you buy your first subscription, you’ll be rewarded with 10 Esroh Essence (good for more energy) and 1000 gold dust to help you along!
…you’ll love Felisfire!
It’s a browser-based game where you can raise and breed several interesting breeds of xenofelinoid, most of which also have wings, on a far off planet in the future. It’s a lot of fun seeing what kinds of markings you can put together for different looks, and you both have the ability to create custom cats but also breed existing ones together to see what happens.
The story is interesting and rich, the community warm and welcoming, and there are also other things you can do like explore the planet, play games, add different accessories to your cats for unique looks, and more. Felisfire is coming out of Beta and there are more features being rolled out all the time.
One of the things I enjoy about Felisfire is that it is run by a small group of dedicated people, not a major media corporation. This makes the moderators and staff very approachable and available if you want to talk to them. The more I play online, the more I come to prefer games that aren’t owned by huge corporations because I like to be treated like a person, not a cash cow. FelisFire definitely treats you like a person. It also doesn’t force you to be super involved every day, though you do get bonuses for consecutive logins. You can play a little, or a lot, as you like, which is a real must for me.
If you’d like to try designing a cat and see some of the available breeds, check out this link:
If you’d like to get a free ticket for the next colony transport, feel free to use my User ID when joining, and afterwards contact me for help if you have any questions. I might even decide to throw in a welcome gift or two. My ID is 242, or you can click on the button below. 
See you on Planet Felisfire!
Here are some of my kitty designs so you can get an idea of the art style:
https://open.spotify.com/embed/track/3cBv7SUsROM3EoweastD7C?si=CupAN8UJT96q-9xQvX6bUw
Dr. Stijn Thoolen is the ESA-sponsored medical doctor spending 12 months at Concordia research station in Antarctica. He facilitates a number of experiments on the effects of isolation, light deprivation, and extreme temperatures on the human body and mind. Find this blog post in the original Dutch below. Concordia, February 7, 2020Sunlight: 24 hours (but…
She’s turning into a real beauty, even if her ears stick out to the side in a rather amusing fashion. And it ‘s nice to finally see her cute face! She’s got that lovely little fluff of orange hair just like a cute little redhaired girl. We’re likely to call her Nishiko.
I’m still itching to meet her but have a month (at the very least) to wait. Latest reports say that she’s running around and swatting her siblings and learning to play.
Here are the previous entries:
I was a bit at a loss regarding what to do for my Mom for Mother’s Day. She may be moving in a couple years so doesn’t need more junk. Also my shopping options are a bit more limited for obvious reasons. So I decided to send her an e-Card.
I found that my local Humane Society, a no-kill shelter, had lovely e-Cards that could be filled out with a custom donation amount. So I donated in her name and sent her that.
Not only are a lot of charities really hurting in this time, but different people may have challenges in getting presents or cards for the moms in their lives, so this seems like a perfect solution! It helps someone, it brightens someones day, and in my case, it might help save a life!
You can look up “Charity e-cards” online or perhaps “Charity e-cards” plus a category like “pets” or “humane society” or “women” or something like that to narrow down the results.
Best of all, it doesn’t rely on shipping speeds or have to be handled by a person!
Happy Mother’s Day everyone!
Apparently she’s walking now, her eyes have been open for a bit now, and she’s turning into a wiggly little explorer. This pic is a little fuzzy but I love seeing it! Her sibling is also included below.
It looks like we may be calling her Nishko.
Here are past editions:
(Also the long awaited ice skates and skis.)
But in the mean time, hang gliders!
First, here’s what it says on the site:
+ Must find a high point to launch from. Launch succeeds when open air roughly 3 meters in front of you.
+ Hang glider automatically pitches down to prevent stalls.
+ Pitch Forward (Descend) with Up Arrow 
+ Pitch Backward (Go Up) With Back Arrow (S)
+ Steer with mouse/Arrows
+ “Super Woman” award added. First level achieved with 1000m of total hang gliding distance.
+ Added 3 Course Air Rings 10m, 25m, 50m high
+ Added course requirement which will Auto-Start the Hang Glider equipment if owned.
+ Courses For Hang Gliding will be quite difficult. Expect to have to forfeit a lot 🙂
+ Hint: Record a location at the top of mountain before jumping so you can quick travel back if (you) want. (GOOD TIP, JOR!)
Now that you’ve read what the site has to say, here are the things I’ve discovered when hang gliding.
You will need 10,000 Essence with 1,000 of that having been earned in Fjords, to buy the hang glider. Once bought, it doesn’t require fuel or anything like that. You can launch from any mountaintop, mesa, cliff, fjord, et cetera.
It doesn’t seem like the most fantastic way to travel because you can only travel a few klicks at best but is great for short term exploration, finding resources or new puzzle areas. It’s also just boatloads of fun and the flight controls are easy.
The wind is not a factor with speed, only descent.
There was a recent update including an altimeter on screen to the lower left.
You cannot launch from a balloon or while falling in the air – you have to be on a solid piece of ground.
You can stretch your glide a bit by flattening it out, but do so carefully. Best glide is around 20 to 21 MPH, or 32 to 33 KPH, or so I’ve found so far.
The hang glider colors are based on your profile, same as carts, kayak, etc are.
Speed: You will fly faster if you are descending faster. So far when I’ve been gliding best with as little sink rate as possible, I’ve been flying at between 19 and 25 MPH. I saw 70 MPH one time when I was descending too fast though. The trick is to handle your wing angle really carefully so you don’t accidentally dump all your lift.
Turn up the world sound effects and you’ll be able to hear the wind as you glide. As you pitch the nose down, you will hear the wind get louder. Pull the nose up and listen as the wind gets quieter – it goes silent before it stalls, just like in real life. If you pitch the nose down again at that point you can glide a lot longer – play with it a bit and you’ll get the hang of it. Basically if you pick up speed you can trade it for a little extra lift, and get to keep most of that if you avoid the stall recovery. I was able to boost my best glide distance considerably within a few flights of doing that.
If you climb until the point just before it stalls and then drop your nose quickly to pick up speed, then begin climbing again at a slightly higher point then where you began your last climb, it’s possible to gain altitude slowly and fly pretty much until you reach terrain that’s too high or until your system lags. I know someone who managed to get up to around 300 meters in altitude with a lot of patience. It can be done!
Usually, using the mouse helps a lot for control.
Pulling the camera back so you can easily see yourself also helps immensely. There is a practice area at Whistler club, called Big Air, reachable by wagon.
Successful gliding flight looks rather bouncy, not like a long smooth glide.
You can also collect Epics, pots of gold, and even chop wood if you are careful. To collect Epics, fly next to the Epic as close as you can. To collect a pot of gold, try to fly through the rainbow while pressing E. To chop wood, fly as close as you can to the top of the tree and press E.
Basically you want somewhere that’s high up, has sloping terrain around it, and has a fairly sharp dropoff.
Mesas
Tall Alpine mountains
Beach Spirals
Fumaroles (if you can get to the top, that is)
Tall Fall Forest or Jungle Mountains
Fjords if you don’t mind landing in the water
Ice Cliffs
Tall Redrock cliffs
Tall towers and other buildings now work for launches! Yay!
…and let me know if you have more ideas! Pictures of the hang glider are below.
Not a player yet? Interested in joining?
Click HERE or go to the HI3 site and put in my user ID, 1023. Whenever you buy your first subscription, you’ll be rewarded with 10 Esroh Essence (good for more energy) and 1000 gold dust to help you along!
Many times when trying to complete a quest or create just one more bottle of that rare dye, you will need to look for rare items or areas. These things will still be difficult to find, but here are some tips that will help you have a better chance.
If you just need an ingredient but it doesn’t matter where it came from, check the shopping boards to search player shops. Shopping boards look like a big sign and can be found at most clubs.
You can also use Pitcher Plants to get rare items. Rare items come from using Wishing Coins too but it’s more rare. Pitcher plants can be found in swampy areas. TigerTon’s wagon also has a cheap route to one. Caveat: Gathering an item from a pitcher plant doesn’t count for quests.
Some clubs have wagon routes to commonly needed rare areas. For example, Blood Ruby Knights has a wagon that goes to Fire Flowers. International Space Station has a wagon that goes to Snow Ghosts and Crystal Flowers. Check the club profiles and wagons for updates.
If you do use a Club wagon to get to a rare area or resource, take only what you need. After all, other people might need it too. If you need to gather a lot, it’s probably best to find your own area and save it as a Travel location so you can come back on your own.
If you get to an area that has resources you need, but someone has picked them, either find another resource area or come back the next day. Stuff regrows in just a couple days.
If you need to know what a rare flower or plant looks like, build a Planter on your ranch. The plants will be exactly the same as you would find them in the wild, so you can look at them from various distances and get better at spotting them.
Below are pictures of various resources and where they can be found. In some cases I’ve included a distance shot as well as a close up so you can get an idea of what it looks like when riding.
Volcanic Calderas are a pain in the butt to find on your own because they are rare but obvious once you see them. They are in Volcanic Biome, of course, and look like a massive black mountain. If you see whitish gray steam or smoke coming from the top, you know you’ve got yourself a caldera. Head to “Where the Drafts Go” Village if you want to see one. Not every caldera has fire flowers, either. They grow where the lava pools are. The volcano below no longer exists, I did the screen grab during Beta.
Not a player yet? Interested in joining?
Click HERE or go to the HI3 site and put in my user ID, 1023. Whenever you buy your first subscription, you’ll be rewarded with 10 Esroh Essence (good for more energy) and 1000 gold dust to help you along!
Here is my second series of arty photographs.
I am featuring aloe flowers, matcha bowl, and an oleander bush. I’m trying to catch a bit of that impermanent, Wabi aesthetic here along with just a touch of drama. No cat to photobomb my efforts this time. He doesn’t go outside!
Mindflight 
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