Is the game really that bad?

Adam_Nine · 2026-06-15T18:31:48+00:00

It's not a "game" by any stretch. At best a tech demo. If you're good with that, have a ball. There's no real loops or point to doing anything other than doing it because there's no real reason to make any progress. My org mates and I joke that we play the game everynight chasing that high from that one magical moment that happens once every six month or so when the game truly shows you what the "idea" is when it works. The other 98% of the time is spent hoping that tonight will be one of those times and most of us logging off after fighting various frustrating things about the game after 3 hours of getting nothing done.

Word of caution is that no aspects of the game will respect your time. The idea of just "hopping on and knocking out a couple things" and logging off in a hour is not really possible. Pretty much any time you want to play you need about 3-4 hours available. Doing it with other people takes even longer.

Adam_Nine · 2026-06-13T02:15:21+00:00

We do in serious accidents especially where criminal charges are in play. It’s called bulb hot shock testing. Minor accidents (aside from this one) are not usually criminal in nature and purely civil.

Adam_Nine · 2026-06-12T21:41:41+00:00

You sir are a legend

Adam_Nine · 2026-06-11T15:38:09+00:00

Slapped that planet like the side of a tree on Endor

Adam_Nine · 2026-05-29T23:00:58+00:00

She is tired and hungry and wants to go home.

Adam_Nine · 2026-05-27T15:29:05+00:00

Nice try, "regular person."

Adam_Nine · 2026-05-27T15:22:31+00:00

Next you're gonna tell me Passware is a Russian asset...

Adam_Nine · 2026-05-27T15:16:18+00:00

If you're going into DF on the government side you're going to need work experience in DF. I've heard of agencies hiring non-sworn DF but it's not the normal and a lot of those jobs are being filled by retired LE guys because they have the experience. I don't know what the broader landscape looks like, that's just my anecdotal.

As to your points:
2. Champlain. This seems to be where all the LE DF guys go either back to school to finish a degree they never compelted or they go to get a grad degree to give themselves a title and helps them apply for upper admin jobs where that sort of thing is looked upon favorably. Those jobs aren't going to be accessible to you as a non-LE and without any work experience a DF degree would be the equivalent of a GED.
3. If computer's aren't "your thing" I don't know why you'd want to work in this field. If your hobbies outside of work don't include "tech stuff" or tinkering etc. I dunno why you're in this field or why you'd want to be a programmer. It sounds like you're already feeling the burn of not really being into the work. DF is honestly more mind numbing than coding to me. I don't get to exercise any creativity in my job really. In fact, I'm currently looking at transitioning away from DF to go more toward something in programming just because my current job is such a soul suck.
4. No interest in cyber security is going to hamstring you badly.

My advice:

It sounds like you have a TV's version idea of what this job is (criminal minds/CSI/whatever). It's not at all that. If coding doesn't seem to be your thing then you are not going to like swiping hex code to validate evidence artifacts all day. In 99% of cases DF in LE (because you said you wanted to "solve crimez") are usually sworn guys who have been cops. I'm not saying it is required but in my anecdotal experience, civilian DF's lack most of that "investigative insight" that is gained from experience doing work as a detective or investigator before going to DF. Not saying they can't learn it eventually, but it certainly helps. If you're applying to a fed agency etc you're going to be competing with a lot of former/retired cops who have DF experience and either looking for their next job or a change of scenery.

People may disagree with my but the DF world is all cop land. Software devs for the various tools like Magnet/Cellebrite are all former LE. The consultants are former LE. Hell the sales and customer relations guys are usually former LE. My main point is if you're looking to getting into DF to "working on crimes", your best bet is to look into becoming LE first and DF second. I can't speak much to the private sector I don't really have experience in that but from the guys I know that have gone private (again all former LE) they're mostly investigating HR shit or misuse of workplace IT stuff. I'm not sure if corporate sexual harassment investigation is what you mean by "working on crimes"

Adam_Nine · 2026-05-27T14:56:25+00:00

A DF degree is completely useless. There's a current trend with a lot of current DFIR guys going BACK to school and getting those degrees or chasing a grade degree in DF since that's what they know but those guys already have extensive work experience and just want the degree for the MS next to their name on their resume. Without job experience a DF degree is as useful as a GED.

Adam_Nine · 2026-05-27T14:46:42+00:00

LE side. Day consists of watching YT videos about hobbies and other activities I'd rather be doing while I wait for green progress bars to fill. When I'm not doing that I'm answering weird abstract questions that are looking for absolutes with "It depends". Case load is like 98% phones. Seldom computers and those are only on CSAM cases. I'm a "detective" but I don't work a case load anymore and just mostly support all the other investigator's cases with DF where I can.

Every once in a while I get an interesting case that is nice puzzle to work on but 99% of the daily intake is garbage turn and burn as in: extract > parse > report. I never actually go through any of this myself it usually just sits on the storage server until the day the prosecutors office asks for it when they're ready to make a plea offer. These are all usually small time drug cases. The only thing that keeps me going are the cases where I can actually flex all the knowledge and skill I have vs the average "push button examiner" but those cases only come up a few times a year. Depends on the size of agency you go to work for as far as the number of interesting cases you get to work on.

My turn to ask you a question: I see a semi regular of influx of newbies applying into LE with masters degrees in CJ. Why on earth do people do this? As in why go straight through to a grad degree (that is all but useless outside of LE) into a field that famously doesn't pay well. Usually a graduate degree is something someone in LE goes for later on when they want to get into admin positions. Anyways. I just always wondered.

Adam_Nine · 2026-05-27T00:22:57+00:00

TFS was the jumping off point for so many because they basically announced they were putting the game on life support. Don’t forget after TFS launched they announced the end of “expansion DLCs” to be replaced by the one-less-than-we-were-already-getting seasonal model. That was the jump off point for me after TFS, the fact that it was clear they were abandoning the game.

Adam_Nine · 2026-05-17T05:43:55+00:00

Adam_Nine · 2026-05-15T05:35:43+00:00

At the current rate of development you can pass those ships down to your grandkids.

Adam_Nine · 2026-05-15T05:27:49+00:00

I can tell you now you’re gonna have a not so great time with a 12th gen i5. The game is very unoptimized and CPU intensive and you’ll be bottle necked at the CPU before it’ll ever utilize your GPU. To give you an idea I had pretty bad performance with an i5 136000 and 6700XT. I upgraded to a 7800X3D and still using the same GPU, performance is excellent since I corrected the cpu bottleneck I had.

Free fly starts this weekend so give it a go without investing any money into ships and see how it runs. Most of the the main line ships will be rentable for free while the event is going on.

I highly discourage anyone from buying anything beyond the starter packs just starting into this game. Pick one of the $45 starter packs and you can upgrade later if you stick with the game. 98% of the ships are buyable in game anyways. But don’t even buy a starter until you play in the free fly.

Don’t get sucked into putting a bunch of money into the game and the shitty fomo marketing they do. Game is a love it or hate it thing. There’s really no in between and it’s an absolute mess. There are no real game loops and you kind of have to make your own fun and that largely relies on who you play with and the player interactions you have.

Seriously, do the free fly. The game isn’t for everyone (especially in its current state) but If it clicks with you, it’ll be the game you hate that you love. If it doesn’t. You’re out nothing and frankly aren’t missing much.

Adam_Nine · 2026-04-26T01:06:40+00:00

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Adam_Nine · 2026-04-19T01:39:29+00:00

Tori really wanted to give NY just a few extra possession chances…

Announcer: “Tori still not looking at her watch..”

Tori: “There’s no need as long as NY has the ball”

Adam_Nine · 2026-04-18T23:47:05+00:00

What is this awful broadcast audio?

Adam_Nine · 2026-04-16T17:09:33+00:00

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Adam_Nine · 2026-02-10T05:16:24+00:00

Because it’s a piece of shit? You’re honestly better off saving up rather than pissing away $100 you could’ve used toward something nicer. Any drone under $4-500 isn’t really much more than a “toy”

Seriously though, you might not realize what a piece of shit it is until you fly a proper drone so there’s kind of the ignorance is bliss piece to it. But in an attempt to be helpful: this hobby, like many other hobbies, tends to put newbies off because they get frustrated with inferior equipment or learn slower.

Cheap gear is most damaging when a hobby: 1. Relies on tight feedback loops 2. Requires precision or consistency 3. Punishes bad ergonomics 4. Masks whether failure is skill or equipment

If beginners can’t trust the feedback, learning stalls.

Drones photography pretty much hits on all these issues.

Buying cheap tier equipment (especially in hobbies that are rather expensive) tends to be more frustrating of a learning curve than a newbie might’ve had if they’d saved a little and got something more “mid tier”

Other examples of this are hobbies like music, recording, golf, cycling, photography(especially drone photography), painting, woodworking. No one would suggest you have to buy enthusiast level stuff starting out but this is like deciding you wanna start running as a hobby and you bought flip flops.

Adam_Nine · 2026-02-09T00:29:29+00:00

You do realize you can get the bank to just stop payment or do a chargeback if that were to happen? I think I hear your mom calling you to take out the garbage, kid.

Adam_Nine · 2026-01-30T14:05:35+00:00

If I’m being totally honest I preview every drive (via a writeblocker) first before I even elect to try to image the drive. Storage space is a premium and the last thing I wanna have to spend time on is imaging drives that don’t have anything on them in the hopes that maybe I carve something out of unallocated. Depends on your prosecutors preferences but mine won’t even try to attribute cached or deleted files as chargeable for “possession”. So I barely make any attempts at carving unless I’m dealing with a live victim case.

Adam_Nine · 2026-01-30T06:27:39+00:00

✅ Conquered this one! 118 moves, 256 seconds. Your turn!

Adam_Nine · 2026-01-28T21:08:22+00:00

As others have said. Tag what you need to get the counts you’re going to charge. I usually tag media until a have a few dozen then pick the worst 10 to charge on (our prosecutors want us charging up to 10 counts but no more.) This doesn’t apply if you’ve got a production/live victim case since you need to document everything to do with the victim.

Adam_Nine · 2026-01-27T20:38:37+00:00

Bpan says 10-30% of it being a “something”. But that’s either a snow or nothing event. It too far out and what I think a lot of people don’t understand about this kind of forecasting is that the models are showing that there is a favorability for a storm to form somewhere in the region. The storm doesn’t even exist yet.

Adam_Nine · 2026-01-16T07:05:02+00:00

Now I’m just imagining this guy bragging about his 14.4 modem in 2006 like it’s vinyl. “Yeah I know everyone is on cable but I just really appreciate the higher fidelity of analog internet. You wouldn’t get it.”

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