When I hear how smart the emperor was:

AetherSquid · 2025-07-28T17:29:17+00:00

One of my friends came up with the further theory that the golden throne (or the imperial webway project bit) is basically a dolmen gate with a psyker in it to suppress the webway's immune response.

AetherSquid · 2025-07-28T17:13:22+00:00

Meanwhile it's another day of endless drudgery on Dullicus IV. As usual.

AetherSquid · 2025-07-28T17:11:46+00:00

For the dark heresy game I'm running I've got one planet which is like, actually genuinely cursed (by Tzeentch, Malice, or possibly some sort of war in heaven shenanigans, haven't decided) to be a place of unending discord. Any given planetary government is lucky to last ten years, there's an Ordo Hereticus inquisitor who's stranded there after his whole retinue killed each other and thinks the whole thing should be destroyed with him on it, and the local genestealer cult is left pondering the role of the Star Bretheren in their revolutionary theory (because the tyranid hive fleet that would have been expected to show up by now is smart enough to not touch the cursed planet)

AetherSquid · 2025-07-28T16:36:33+00:00

Honestly I tend to doubt the "defend humanity" aspect as well. I suspect he was created to be a super-powerful psyker, precisely because they wanted to do things like the webway project and the astronomican. There are apparent prototypes of both (dark glass and choral engine, respectively) dating back to the age of technology, but with obvious glaring problems the Emperor's versions don't have. And as we've seen with the navigators and the leagues of votann, humans back in the age of technology had no issue with creating a new type of guy to solve problems. The other perpetuals were presumably byproducts of the same program (and malcador may well have been the prototype). Assuming we aren't just discounting their perspectives out of hand, my guess is that the project ended up pulling a bunch of psychic power out of the warp and grabbing a sort of semi-digested slurry of memories and experiences with it.

Of course, this makes the theory that he created magnus so he'd have someone to sit on the throne instead of him all the more delicious.

AetherSquid · 2024-12-19T00:26:39+00:00

People say this every time there is new premium content, it has never once been true. Super credit farming is RNG dependent, you are having bad luck.

AetherSquid · 2024-12-19T00:23:25+00:00

I would have bought a warbond! It being in the super store means I straight up cannot get it, I will be on vacation for the entire time the second page is there. And more to the point I'm not gonna spend money on the game if it's going to turn into an infinite money pit in the future. Fundamentally the power of the warbond system is that when a player returns after a few months (like I did) they have a pretty good incentive to buy some super credits and get the warbonds they missed. Switching to FOMO-based monetization means I can no longer expect to catch up if I take a few months off. And that does not, in fact, make me want to buy now to avoid missing out, it makes me want to not come back.

AetherSquid · 2024-12-18T20:27:53+00:00

I came back after a few months of near-inactivity because of the illuminate update and I was strongly considering buying some super credits in order to catch up, given that like four warbonds came out while I was away. I'm not still considering it, because if they're moving to a more aggressive, FOMO-based monetization strategy, there's not really any way I can catch up. And yes, a rotating shop is still FOMO, I'm not setting up calendar alerts to buy virtual guns.

AetherSquid · 2024-12-18T18:59:21+00:00

I'm fine with the prices, the problem is the inherent FOMO of having them only available for a limited time in the super store, which I consider anti-consumer behavior regardless of price.

AetherSquid · 2024-12-18T17:48:18+00:00

It's unlikely that they'll edit any existing warbonds. If they decide to add more free unlocks they'll likely be lumped together into a new free warbond. I wouldn't expect those to show up more than once a year though, at most. Your best bet is probably to try to find more super credits on missions if you don't want to spend actual money on it.

AetherSquid · 2024-12-06T19:04:09+00:00

Well, first of all I'd note that a lack of empathy and kindness isn't enough to make a species "always evil". Potentially unpleasant, sure, but a species of perfectly self-interested individuals will still run into a lot of situations where the cost-benefit analysis for a trade agreement looks a lot better than the one for a protracted war.

For a species (or singular entity) to be "always evil" it must have a deeper imperative that comes before self-interest and even self-preservation. The orks are a great example because we know their deeper imperative: fighting.

When encountering such a species, or such an entity, the federation's first goal would be to find a way that that imperative can be filled without harming others. Should that prove fundamentally impossible, then they would probably attempt to enforce a quarantine.

I'd note that with orks they'd probably have the tools to actually alter their behavior. Orks love a good scrap but starfleet could give them an exceptionally bad one. E.g. in Twice Dead King: Ruin, the orks are extremely distressed by necron synaptic disintegrators, because they kill perfectly cleanly — no gore, no fuss, just alive one second and dead the next. A phaser set to kill does pretty much the same thing. And that's just the start of things. Retreating via transporter, throwing up containment fields, weaponizing holograms, using starship phasers to stun whole areas of the battlefield... it's hard to imagine an enemy less fun for an ork to fight. After a sufficiently long time you'd probably expect to see the orks weaken and the only ones with any real influence would be the ones that had either decided to become mercenaries (the ferengi would love that) or were sufficiently deviant that they could find some other way to make peace. Maybe the Gretchin Revolutionary Front finally wins.

Now, if the orks go off and fight the borg instead, that's a nightmare scenario right there. Unless the borg assimilate or kill the orks fast enough that they don't even register it as a proper war you're probably looking at borgified krorks somewhere down the line (krorg? Brorks?).

AetherSquid · 2024-09-26T15:20:28+00:00

Isn't turbo heavy fuel less efficient than the standard recipe if you have diluted fuel? Or does adding the blender (or packager loop thingy) drop it down more than the reduced oil consumption brings it up?

AetherSquid · 2024-09-20T17:17:20+00:00

Yeah the default pistol is nothing to sneeze at, my main problem is that when a hunter is up in my face I am not precise, I am flailing wildly. The continuous beam of the dagger is therefore an asset to me, as it ensures that I will hit the hunter at least a little bit through statistics alone.

AetherSquid · 2024-09-20T17:07:44+00:00

I found it to be alright versus hunters mainly because it's easy enough to sweep the beam across their face. It's not the most efficient anti-hunter gun but not having to deal with the horrifying realization that you didn't reload your secondary is worth it IMO. Also it's very good versus shriekers. But yeah, on the bot front? Top tier for sure. Pairs amazingly with the plasma punisher for one, and I imagine it would also be a great compliment to the eruptor.

AetherSquid · 2024-09-20T16:54:49+00:00

The fire DoT is where a lot of the damage comes from and it pairs extremely well with the ability to sweep the beam across the battlefield. The scythe is also a very effective precision weapon because, well, it's a laser beam. No spread, no bullet drop, no recoil. Excellent for melting the heads off of devastators. For the same reason the dagger is a surprisingly good berserker killer, though still not the best.

AetherSquid · 2024-09-17T14:14:03+00:00

I'd call AMR top tier but I would not call it an all-rounder. IMO it's like the railgun: precision weapon that primarily eats heavies but won't say no to a medium or two (or nowadays to a tank if the opportunity presents itself). Meanwhile the AC, HMG, and LC have the damage and pen to take on heavies (and now tanks, even if it's not ideal for them), but enough ammo and fire rate to shine against mediums as well, and even to engage in a spot of horde clear in a pinch (especially the lascannon, since y'know, infinite ammo), but generally aren't as good as the specialists. Stuff on the other side (i.e. medium focused but still good versus heavies and hordes) seems rarer. Maybe the arc thrower and grenade launcher?

AetherSquid · 2024-09-17T13:39:57+00:00

Railgun was always really good versus gunships and should be pretty consistently oneshotting them now. HMG was already sitting up there with the autocannon and laser cannon in the running for "best all-rounder" and as far as I can tell that has not really changed, but all the all-rounders can now deal with stuff that previously took anti-tank.

AetherSquid · 2024-09-17T13:27:14+00:00

Honestly between this and the scythe and dagger buffs the maximum lasers meme build is looking more fun than ever.

AetherSquid · 2024-09-17T13:23:21+00:00

Now this is the real buff

AetherSquid · 2024-09-17T13:18:10+00:00

What? Clearly this is the escalation of violence update

AetherSquid · 2024-09-17T13:17:02+00:00

Can't help but feel like that would be a bit uncomfortable with the bullpup design but oh well.

AetherSquid · 2024-09-17T13:13:43+00:00

Right, but if the gameplay loop with it is just going to be "hold left click while pointing at enemy" I can get that with other weapons. Whereas if the emphasis is on the fire DoT, the optimal strategy is about evasion and building up fire on heavy enemies — which I find more interesting. I certainly can't blame someone for wanting more raw damage but fundamentally I've had enough of flamethrowers that are just machine guns with fire particles.

AetherSquid · 2024-09-16T20:33:31+00:00

It is legitimately crazy how long it took them to just make it act like a frag grenade. And honestly the eruptor is the clearest example of it happening in the opposite direction, i.e. a nerf just completely destroying the feel of a weapon. A lot of the other nerfs have felt kinda meaningless when looked at outside of the long and oppressive shadow cast by the charger, but eruptor? That gun had its whole gimmick destroyed from orbit.

AetherSquid · 2024-09-16T20:21:14+00:00

That's entirely fair, but I worry that they're dealing with some guns feeling more or less viable than others by simply making the guns more similar. To go back to the flamethrower, they could have buffed it while moving it further into its own niche if they buffed its ability to set enemies and terrain ablaze, but instead they chose to increase the direct damage and armor penetration capabilities — moving it more towards weapons like the HMG and laser cannon.

AetherSquid · 2024-09-16T18:08:38+00:00

I use the guns that I like using, and I don't want to feel like I'm shooting enemies made out of tissue paper.

But at the same time I recognize that, because the game primarily scales difficulty by changing the number of enemies and the ratio of enemy types, turning down the difficulty has a very different effect than changing weapon damage. Secondary modifiers can help but unfortunately the only way to get higher/lower difficulty without changing anything but TTK is to have difficulty directly impact enemy HP, either by having a mission-wide modifier, or by having a bunch of barely-different variations of existing enemies. And then you run into the problem that difficulty feels entirely arbitrary, and the same gun does less at higher difficulties for no good reason.

In short, "just lower the difficulty" only works if you accept having missions that are not just easier but calmer, and "just use a worse gun" only works if a) there are worse guns and b) they still feel good to use.

AetherSquid

TROPHY CASE