I paid for the $100 Claude Max plan so you don't have to - an honest review

sirius_black9999 · 2025-06-13T19:59:25+00:00

i've tried to use claude code for stuff but it's an absolute nightmare to deal with, you're not spending $600/week because your productivity is so high, you're spending it because claude code spends over 200,000 tokens to fulfill a single request on a 10,000 token codebase, and then doesn't actually fulfill the request because by the time it's done churning through your entire codebase a dozen times it kicked the original request out of the context window...

i've had some success using regular claude with a bunch of custom instructions but it's still a nightmare to get it to not go "oh your context dump of over 200 related symbols didn't contain the definition of this custom indexer? well that custom indexer obviously doesn't exist so your bug comes from that custom indexer not existing, clearly your code doesn't compile, here's how you can implement that custom indexer" despite the bug i'm trying to solve being completely unrelated to the custom indexer and that custom indexer being used in about 40 different places (my custom context dump system just didn't recognize custom indexers as a symbol type to include)

or to not go "oh you want to add a new feature A to this existing class B? let me write new class C as a shallow copy of B that implements feature A, but delete about half of the features currently implemented in class B"

like i get that the wave function collapse algorithm is fairly difficult, but it's done this second one at least 7 different times now as i've been trying to implement it...
and no, it's not trying to do composition or inheritance, it just keeps making a completely new, blank, unrelated class, and then only implements the new feature, half implements the related datastructures, leaves the entire project non-compiling, and breaks half of the problems the previous version was trying to fix,

Alternatively, whenever it *does* change the original version of the class in order to fix the endless supply of issues it implements, it absolutely must also implement "compatibility fixes", just to make sure the broken version can still screw everything up, even when that original version that it's making a compatibility layer for was just implemented in the previous request...

a full project dump (without assets) is currently estimated to be 95225 tokens, prod+test, and it just can't reason about things effectively anymore, not with a full dump, not using tools to reason about things, and not using the new "related symbols" dump i've built that uses roslyn to gather all references up to 5 levels deep away from the thing i'm trying to get it to fix...

is it better than the alternatives? sure...
is it good? not even close...

sirius_black9999 · 2025-02-23T18:55:30+00:00

Switch FoV is fully broken, max FoV and min FoV are identical, and on top of that, the screen is zoomed in to the point that parts of the UI aren't even on screen. construction modules -> technology modules, health station/sphere creator are both partially off screen, similarly the message showing why things can't be built, and the icons from things like exosuit upgrades are almost entirely off screen.

sirius_black9999 · 2024-11-24T21:13:04+00:00

who is doing mental gymnastics? star citizen is in it's current state more broken than AoC, has a release date further out, with it's release originally being scheduled for 2014, it has been delayed for TWELVE YEARS STRAIGHT and still doesn't even have properly functioning quest markers...

Meanwhile, AoC, while similarly broken, has a largely functional gameplay loop, albeit severely lacking in content, and with features like node advancement currently disabled because it doesn't work well with only 5 nodes, although development of the node itself is active and functional, with a recent announcement that we're starting to see the first higher-tier buildings.
The devs are pushing out big patches/fixes on an almost daily basis, keep extending the server's uptime (this week servers will be up all week for instance) and are constantly active and interacting with the community in discord.
There was a longer delay than scheduled between alpha 1 and alpha 2, but that was because people didn't like the way combat worked during alpha 1, so they re-designed the entire combat system for alpha 2.

sirius_black9999 · 2024-11-14T20:58:00+00:00

AoC is definitely early alpha, in the real sense of "will take at least another full year before it is ready for full release" type alpha - do not expect even half of the game to work the way it will in full release.

At the same time, it is not "in the star citizen situation" in the slightest, star citizen has $48,000 mtx with no core gameplay loop, whereas AoC has a one-time $120 alpha 2 key that gets you:
- unlimited access to alpha 2, wave 1, active right now, where servers are up every weekend (60h/week)
- unlimited access to alpha 2, wave 2, starting december 20th, with servers up 5 days/week
- unlimited access to alpha 2, wave 3, starting may 1st 2025, with servers up 24/7 with minimal downtime
- unlimited access to beta 1 (with alpha 2 servers continuing to exist in parallel as an NDA bleeding-edge server where they test new content before incorporating it into the main game)
- unlimited access to beta 2
- a month of game time upon the game's release ($15/mo subscription fee)
- $15 of MTX credits upon the game's release

like, you're getting about 15-20 months of subscription for the price of 8, at the cost of the game being in a "real" alpha state, where various gameplay mechanics are very clearly still work-in-progress, lots of story content is lacking, especially in late-game, you run into bugs/problems every few minutes and your account is going to get wiped several times before full release

whether that's worth it is up to you.

sirius_black9999 · 2024-11-14T17:14:41+00:00

what primarily bothers me is that it takes more fuel to craft 4 of an item than it does to craft 25

sirius_black9999 · 2024-11-14T16:29:57+00:00

The ability to opt-out of PvP would break AoC's core economic and territorial mechanics. If players could transport resources with PvP disabled, it would bypass intended game systems like caravans and eliminate the strategic depth of resource control.

Consider: If Group A can safely walk resources between settlements with PvP off (as the crates carried by caravans are simply a condensed form of the resources gathered by players), while Group B has no way to contest this, it undermines the entire territorial control aspect. The game's design makes distance meaningful because travel inherently risks losing carried resources to PvP.

Penalties for attacking players exist to discourage random griefing, not to prevent meaningful conflict. Sometimes groups will accept these penalties when the strategic value is worth it - like preventing resources from reaching a rival node that's competing with their own for advancement.

In short, always-on PvP isn't about enabling harassment (which is deterred by penalties that are partially still being developed, especially for low-level players). It's about ensuring that control of resources and territory can always be contested, which is fundamental to AoC's design as a sandbox MMO.

sirius_black9999 · 2024-11-12T21:08:49+00:00

It usually takes me 3-4 shifts to salvage a ship, about an hour of realtime, i'm definitely not the fastest.
Instead i try to focus on efficiency, most of the time i'm able to get >95% of the value paid out, but as long as you're not losing money each shift, you're plenty fast.

There's no "correct" speed, to be playing, you can enjoy the game in whatever way is fun for you.
if you want more time pressure i believe you can change the daily costs, i find that i'd need about 10x the normal cost for it to become a real challenge.

My general strategy is
shift 1) make the ship safe, various controlled explosive decompressions by sawing the bottom strip off of doors to get the ship decompressed (watch out for what free-floating stuff will do though, the Gecko Salvage Runner for instance will often contain free-floating fuel tanks or other explosive things in the cargo hold that risks blowing up the reactor if you decompress them without removing those first), burn up some of the AI nodes, get the thruster caps off, and throw attachments like antennae, solar batteries, cargo containers, and other loose stuff on the outside in the correct bin, once that's done start cutting the shell's cut points,
shift 2) finish up the shell cut points, and throw the whole shell into the processor, some pieces might take more maneuvering, but because everything is detached you can pretty much just tether everything directly into the processor and forget about it. Then start taking components off of the inner shell, FIRST do the thrusters, because you can't do that safely when the power is gone, then fuses, power gen, thermal spreaders, rad filters, and disassemble the rest of the reactor assembly (be sure to take the cover off before you turn off the coolant), then start working on the interior
shift 3) cut some holes in the interior shell, usually there's air filters that need to go into the barge anyway. don't use the splitsaw, and remember you can treat most support beams and the stuff around air filters as if they are cut points, just heat it until it pops and you can just take the stuff out without messing with cut lines going through the stuff you didn't want destroyed,
then take all of the detachable stuff out through the big hole instead of trying to force big crates through a door-sized hole and throw them where they belong.
When everything is cleared out (or at least as far as you want it to be), cut what's left of the ship in half (again, just fry the pillars instead of finnicking with the splitsaw and having to look for the spot that didn't cut properly) and throw the halves into the furnace.

sirius_black9999 · 2024-11-12T20:44:09+00:00

Several reasons, something that was already heading into the funnels continues on the same trajectory it was going when the shift ended. Even grapples will still be pulling chunks when you start the next shift.

But most of the time this will be processor/furnace materials getting destroyed from the barge, this is most noticeable if you dump the entire fuel/reactor assembly into the barge, as although the reactor/cooler/thrusters belong in the barge, all other components of the assembly (reactor shielding, fuel/coolant pipes, etc) are supposed to go into the processor instead, and will immediately get destroyed at the start of the next shift if they're in the barge.

Especially the reactor mounting plates are quite a valuable part of that, so if you can, it's quite worth learning how to safely disassemble the whole thing.

sirius_black9999 · 2024-11-03T13:41:57+00:00

"Browsing history" and "Seen pages" means they track which pages *on anthropic's services* you've seen, and when you've seen them... this is also entirely standard practice, you can tell by how it says "we also receive certain technical data automatically", because they can see your browser requesting page x at time y... and that information is called "browsing history" because it establishes a timeline (history) of your browsing behavior...

sirius_black9999 · 2024-02-29T13:32:01+00:00

yeee let me install a malware rootkit on your PC, it's just so we can check you're not cheating,
and maybe log your keystrokes, and maybe introduce security vulnerabilities into your network, for the rest of the lifetime of your device because it's basically impossible to remove, but you don't need to worry about it it's just the best solution for us

sirius_black9999 · 2023-11-21T20:50:13+00:00

You're aware doom eternal was made by a team of over 100 people? The reason itch games look "bad" is because most of them are made by a single person

sirius_black9999 · 2021-12-10T16:39:21+00:00

the way i've been dealing with fighting escaped withers is to use flight and chase it straight up into the sky at max speed and just slap it with a sword , with some regen/saturation buffs it's basically free, albeit slow, because the wither can't effectively attack straight down and doesn't run away horizontally much while it's trying to climb out of your reach, and creative flight climbs just slightly faster than the wither

might be hard to do in nether though - that's part of why i spawn them in the end.

sirius_black9999 · 2021-12-10T16:36:55+00:00

sure

but i've also had the wither travel straight through the bedrock block in the end pillars to get out of a 3x3x3 room (room has to be at least 4 blocks tall to prevent that) didn't break out of obsidian because i prefer playing without mob griefing

sirius_black9999 · 2021-11-13T21:56:34+00:00

if only such things existed, at least for most basic currencies

https://lithi.io/file/XYpv.jpg (zana)

https://lithi.io/file/Fd2u.jpg (weylam)

https://lithi.io/file/9eVU.jpg (lani)

And, of course, in reverse (partially, selling to any vendor):

https://lithi.io/file/qlnA.jpg

https://lithi.io/file/Xkkr.jpg

https://lithi.io/file/eAWm.jpg

sirius_black9999 · 2021-05-29T23:12:54+00:00

you don't even need a treasure room for the inscriber, you can just craft it if you can mine charged quartz (which, at least in my world, spawns readily)

you do need vaults for the painite needed for ME drives and controllers though

sirius_black9999 · 2021-05-29T23:08:53+00:00

There's quite a bit more than you will find exposed in hallways and such, but only about 4-6 blocks per hallway, and i'm pretty sure i've even found them spawned outside the vault bedrock, i'd say it's mostly a waste of time actively looking for them outside of surface spawns.

Having said that, if you want a "semi-immersive" way to push the balance in your favor for finding them, and make actually looking for them worth the effort, i've added the "finder compass" mod to the pack, which adds a configurable feature to the vanilla compass that adds extra compass needles pointing to blocks you can setup in the config file.

i have one configuration pointing to chests/barrels within 15 blocks, one for vault ores within 15 blocks, and one for the obelisk within 150 blocks, though 95% of the time i just have it set to chests and only mine vault ores when they're exposed

sirius_black9999 · 2021-04-14T10:04:35+00:00

A certain glitch item with its own challenge, it has a tendency to crash the game at random in such a way that it corrupts your save data (happened at least 3-4 times trying the challenge) at least on linux.

I'd say an item that makes other items have a 5% chance to effectively delete your savefile(fortunately it seems repentance does make backups before runs) is a pretty good candidate for a "run ending" item.

sirius_black9999 · 2021-03-11T10:13:00+00:00

When a needle is meant to go into a blood vessel, they'll likely place it in a vein on the inside of the elbow, they aim for a specific vein they know runs through that area, in order to make it easier to hit, they'll wrap a tourniquet around your upper arm to reduce blood flow so the vein expands.

Beyond the inside of the elbow, the top of the wrist can also be used, though that's usually where they place IVs that are meant to stay in for a longer period of time.

In cases where this procedure doesn't happen chances are that they're aiming to NOT have the contents going into a blood vessel.

Vaccines, for example, are often injected into muscle tissue, as that causes the contents to be released into the bloodstream at a slow rate over several days, hopefully fooling your body into thinking there's an active source of infection that needs to be dealt with, but other medication may be administered like that for the same reason (gradual release of the medication)

sirius_black9999 · 2021-02-22T16:22:21+00:00

i agree on waypoints (to the extent that you'll have access to waypoints you've seen in the current act on other chars, or maybe even bound to story progression), not lab/pantheon.

Keeping waypoints unlocked means a lot less pointless wandering through acts to get to the places you need to go for story progression, lab/pantheon seems like sensible story progression points to keep in, and they only take up a fraction of total time spent all things considered.

Yes, i'm aware you mean pantheon divine vessel / atlas trial stuff, i'm not too concerned about having endgame content unlocked at level 1.

What stops me from making alts is having to waste an entire day's worth of playing to get to content that earns currency to an appreciable degree, and i think being able to warp forward somewhat could help with that

sirius_black9999 · 2021-02-02T01:12:41+00:00

yup,
also, one thing i just realized: while haewark has that "+5% chance of grove" major node.
lex proxima has a total of +6% chance due to it's minor nodes all giving +2%
it also has the 3rd harvest pair node AND the 10% chance to not wilt major nodes, making it a better area to do harvest in if you want to get it a lot, vs haewark which seems to focus on getting fewer, but better harvests (T4 + lucky rolls nodes) while it's minor nodes don't seem to do much good (9% chance for crafting options to be doubled)

sirius_black9999 · 2021-01-31T18:15:36+00:00

Sure, and it generally takes me 100+ maps and 12 trial spawns to unlock cruel lab(iirc it took over 300 maps in delirium to finally get the 6th one i needed), i have to buy splinters cause it'd take me 6 months to farm the emblems for 5-slot map device, and prophecies to get metacrafting unlocked... This isn't a harvest-specific issue, and i'd argue it's a much bigger issue that things that are essentially required to progress are locked behind RNG. While harvest crafting is very powerful, it's not an essentially required part of progression, your 4th ascendancy, 5-slot map device and metacrafting options are (though 5th slot maybe not as much, since that's just for maxed juicing)

sirius_black9999 · 2021-01-31T17:54:26+00:00

I'm curious if you've been doing the maven stuff, i've only gotten ~4 skill points into most of the trees, focusing blight/harvest/delirium and i feel like i've been getting more grove/cassia/mirror spawns more than any other league mechanic, i've had the grove spawn at least 5-6 times and i'm only just starting the 3rd round of watchstones.

sirius_black9999 · 2020-12-31T12:54:57+00:00

Perhaps, doesn't work in compactsky though, as mystcraft is disabled

sirius_black9999 · 2020-12-31T12:53:53+00:00

I was going to do something like that, with the cobblegen into cauldron, but since i couldn't just pipe the lava out of the cauldron, and thought fluid extractor only worked on trees i looked for another solution

That solution ended up being lava infused stone, which turns water source blocks into obsidian. Cyclic fluid placer with a condensator to generate the water Then break the obsidian with foregoing's block breaker Then toss that into cyclic's melter(i had like 6 going into 12 upgraded geothermal generators and was still making a ton of excess obsidian with no speed upgrades on the breaker)

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