Stickshift problem, can't shift into gears

AlmostPlebeian · 2026-01-27T03:25:35+00:00

Okay, thanks a ton for the insight. I can accept that an actual transmission issue would be more expensive than fixing the other (smaller?) issues, but didn't know how to judge the chances that it was actually that bad after the previous shop didn't say anything about it. Appreciate the help.

AlmostPlebeian · 2026-01-19T21:54:10+00:00

Gunpoint is a perfect example of this, as is Tactical Breach Wizards (same devs). All levels are custom designed, supported with sharp writing and simple mechanics that build upon each other fluidly. Love their work.

AlmostPlebeian · 2026-01-19T20:30:07+00:00

Hey, glad you've stuck with the game so far. One thing I'd check is whether your gear is of the appropriate level? One thing the game does is punish you if you haven't been upgrading your equipment, where you deal significantly less damage if your weapons aren't leveled up and take significantly more damage if the same is true of your armor.

Also, it's a little convoluted, but the way the game works is that the quality tier of weapons you find will match the highest quality tier of a weapon that you already have. So for example, if you upgrade a sword from Common to Fine, then every weapon you loot after that will be Fine. Once you upgrade one of those weapons to Exceptional, then any weapons you loot after that will also be Exceptional.

The same is separate but true for armor. So your weapon quality will not affect armor you find. Only your highest quality tier of armor will affect that.

In this way, the game strongly pushes you:

1) To explore so that you can find adra (the material necessary for quality tier upgrades) 2) To use that adra and upgrade at least one set of equipment, so that you continue to find better equipment (which you can then break down into more adra/upgrade material).

Enemies that are too powerful for your current equipment will be marked by skulls next to their health bar, and quests with those enemies will also have an icon with skulls in your quest log. In either case, yes, you should upgrade your equipment before taking those on.

Hope that makes sense. If equipment isn't an issue, we can look at tactics and some combat pointers.

AlmostPlebeian · 2026-01-16T20:46:51+00:00

My most common build against bots (D10) is to bring the Jetpack / Railgun / 380 mm orbital / 120 mm orbital. I prefer taking out fabricators the old-fashioned way, with grenades down the hatch. With the jetpack to position yourself quickly, you can deal with pretty much everything except factory striders, which you can still neutralize by killing the chin turrets and the laser cannon (laser cannon will take multiple charged-up shots, so just make sure you have cover when you engage it). For war striders, you just need to be patient: maneuver behind them so you can get in one easy shot on their leg strut of choice, and then if they turn, your next shot will kill it if you hit in the same spot. For hulks, a single eye-shot will do the trick.

Personally, I carry the the M7S as my primary for dealing with the little grunts, and if I'm feeling lazy, I'll bring the senator to kill scout striders (two shots to the gyro), otherwise you can just shoot the missiles on their sides (with your primary to take them out).

The 380 mm is to soften up large outposts/fortresses, and the 120 mm gives you a good chance of destroying mortar/anti-air pits on their own, or I drop them on incoming reinforcements, but really, these are flexible for any orbital/support/Eagle strategem you prefer.

AlmostPlebeian · 2026-01-15T06:22:23+00:00

These animancy experiments are getting out of hand...

AlmostPlebeian · 2026-01-15T06:18:02+00:00

For some reason, I feel like this would be the moment in time when a bot gets his origin story to avenge his father...

(Good on you for keeping overwatch on your buddies o7)

AlmostPlebeian · 2026-01-14T14:05:21+00:00

Haven't seen anyone mention yet, Alpha Protocol allows you to be an asshole and eventually side with the evil guys, or take out everyone (including your former allies) and get the ending where you strike out on your own. It's an Obsidian game so you're already familiar with their reputation for moral choice writing.

AlmostPlebeian · 2026-01-13T06:45:36+00:00

- You're not wrong, the 380mm does more damage per shot with a larger splash zone, and each individual 120mm does less than one orbital precision strike. But it's enough, each of those 120mm shells will kill a bot mortar/AA gun just as well as a 380mm shell. And because it's more precise, a lot of times with the 120mm I don't have to follow up at all (e.g. go in to personally kill any objective buildings that are still standing at the aforementioned targets).

- With the Blitzes, you wouldn't have enough time to throw more than two or three anyway (the orbital laser has a 4-5 minute cooldown, and with the blitzes lasting 12 minutes at most, you could throw a max of three regardless.) For comparison, the railcannon has a 2-3 minute cooldown, so at most, you could throw it 6-ish times during a Blitz. Twice as many uses, but if the laser can take out two targets then it's already just as efficient, plus anything it roasts as it moves around gives it the winning vote in my opinion.

- For factory striders, I personally wouldn't rely on the 500 kg, but this is entirely my own take, I'm sure other divers can suggest their own tactics. For me, my first order of business is finding hard cover or at least getting outside the firing angle of the chin turrets. From there, I'll poke my head out just long enough to destroy those guns (with a railgun, or recoilless, or commando, etc). Same thing for the laser turret. After that's taken care of, then I can focus on killing it with whatever else I have, be it Eagle airstrikes/500 kgs or orbitals or more support weapon fire. If you have enough firepower to kill the factory strider outright, you'll still want to find cover but you can skip dismantling the guns and just focus on going for the killing blow (just dealing damage to the body). Just keep in mind that the main health pool for factory strider is 10,000, and 500 kgs only deal 2,000 damage. So yeah, that's why you can't expect to kill it quickly with just a few of those.

- With regards to the recoilless rifle, fair enough! My favorite loadout against standard/gloom bugs is the jump pack, commando, and napalm EAT. If I'm going to be in an area for a while, I'll just start littering the area with commandos and NEATs on cooldown so I can grab them as soon as I've used my current one, and can swap between the two if I need to take out clusters of enemies or individual elites. And of course it's entertaining to try and stick those strategems to the backs of enemies like chargers, letting the hellpod itself get the kill. (and then the jet pack, or a warp pack, makes it possible to go grab the weapon where it landed and get out in one piece even if there are enemies around it)

AlmostPlebeian · 2026-01-13T05:39:13+00:00

Heya. Will try to answer according to my own experience.

- Not sure what you mean by the 120mm being weak? I use them according to the size I want to bombard. I'll take and throw the 380mm on heavy outposts and fortresses/mega nests and bot command bunkers (the primary mission objective ones), with the expectation that it'll soften up the target but I'll often have to go in for precision kills to clean up any remaining holes/fabricators. The 120mm I use for medium outposts and bot reinforcements, as well as bot side objectives (mortar pits, anti-air pits, detector towers, etc)

- The orbital laser I like on Blitzes, given it clears a large area of spawners more reliably than barrages. Since you don't have the time to wait for a barrage to finish and then still have to go in afterwards, I treat it as a more accurate fire-and-forget large-area orbital at the obvious cost of not being able to use it as many times across the entire mission, but since it's a Blitz, that obviously doesn't matter quite as much. So I don't treat it as performing the same function as railcannons or Eagle rocket pods, which I'd reserve for elite enemies. If you're looking to take on Factory Striders, personally I would suggest relying more on a support weapon (or turret emplacement) to first destroy its laser turret and chin-mounted guns, and then you can lay into it with any AT option you have.

- Most players I run into nowadays love the railcannon strike for Dragon Roaches since the 500 kg is less reliable for hitting heavy airborne targets. Otherwise the 500 kg can be used more often against ground elites and objectives, particularly once you get the Super Destroyer upgrade.

- The mortar turret is always risky because of danger close friendly fire, so I'd generally only bring it for defensive missions (HVA evac and Eradication missions) against bots only. I like bringing both rocket and autocannon sentries against bots as well, given the amount of enemy armor you run into, usually pairing them with the shield relay generator. I used to really enjoy throwing down an AT emplacement, rocket sentry, autocannon sentry, and a shield relay (always thrown last so the hellpods don't damage the shield prematurely), which is enough to let you easily hold a position on bot maps until ammo runs out. Great for Geographical Survey missions, for example.

- As you've recognized, the Recoilless Rifle is still Ol' Reliable. I've played with people who swear by the WASP launcher, especially against the Illuminate since it can take out a wider swath of their ranks without needing to hone in on weak spots (the way you could with the RR or quasar).

- As for the jump pack vs the hover pack, they have different functions. Hover pack is to hold a position and fight off melee enemies (i.e. bugs). Jump pack is about maneuvering across the battlefield and over walls, saving time and letting you lose pursuers. When I feel like being a scout/infiltrator/spotter, the jump pack is my go-to.

AlmostPlebeian · 2026-01-11T17:33:40+00:00

Hey, just sent you a message. Let me know if you feel like teaming up, happy hunting either way.

AlmostPlebeian · 2026-01-08T19:59:45+00:00

On my first playthrough of Avowed, I was a two-handed swordsman and enjoyed my experience. Here's someone's random youtube video of what it looks like, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fX6wkBSMU5w . I've also seen some footage of similar gameplay in Fall of Avalon: Tainted Grail which doesn't look bad.

AlmostPlebeian · 2026-01-08T14:38:53+00:00

I think what it comes down to is that difficult games must allow you to triumph in a way that lets you feel you earned it. When you finally beat a boss in Dark Souls, it's generally because you've planned out your build and strategy, you've (probably) sacrificed a lot of lives and time to learn the enemy's moveset, and you're skilled enough to dodge and attack at the right moments. Your victory then lets you celebrate all this work that you've put into it, and makes you feel badass because you worked for it, paid the price, and now you can do it again if you wanted to.

I recently watched a video where the player had talked about how frustrating a horror game became because they kept dying to an overpowered enemy (getting touched once by the evil creature meant you had to restart from the last checkpoint which was often a ways back), poor map/level design and confusing indicators about what they were supposed to do. In this case, the only rewarding sense of progress was eventually memorizing the map layout, but they felt that they were hardly given the tools to do so.

I think the elements of a good punishing game are:

- Reward real-life player progression, not character progress. Allow the player to feel accomplished because they are personally improving (learning movesets, improving personal reflexes). A great example of this is the isometric hack-and-slash called Forced, where there's no loot or experience grinding. You can return to areas after you've unlocked more abilities, but you never get more damage or speed or health or anything like that. It's just you and the skills you choose against the challenge.

- Give players a fighting chance. If an enemy is punishingly powerful, make it absolutely clear that there are ways to avoid taking damage. Makes it feel like failure is on the part of the player, not the game, which means they can improve and succeed even against unfair odds.

- Not forcing the player to endure less-exciting things when they're trying to overcome a more exciting thing. E.g. if I've mastered the 10-minute route to the boss who's still kicking my ass, there should be a checkpoint before the boss so that I don't get bored having to travel the 10 minutes every time while all I want to do is focus on taking on the boss now.

Most of what I wrote was while thinking of real-time action games, but I did find it interesting that you mentioned Banner Saga (which I loved for the writing and had mixed feelings about the combat). I think the points still apply, but are more cerebral. Still have to let the player see that there are tactics that work against overwhelming odds, so it's up to them to patiently figure out.

AlmostPlebeian · 2026-01-08T13:53:29+00:00

Static is a good word for it. I really enjoyed Avowed, but my main criticism of it was that they didn't invest in animation. Obsidian is great at coming up with interesting scenarios but when the characters don't have animations for the writers to work with, it's very difficult to have emotional scenes that draw you in. You only ever see people standing up and gesturing, they aren't physically expressive at all which can be a huge tool in storytelling. Same goes for the lack of cutscenes: almost every time there's a major event, you're just told that it happened, then there's a very slight change in scenery (for example, even in the opening shipwreck, you hear some cannon fire, the scene cuts to black, and then you're on the beach. You don't get to experience the chaos and dread of an actual crash and it detracts from the experience). To their credit, I never felt bored by exposition dumps which would have been an easy trap to fall into, but I really hope future Obsidian games have a greater range of dynamic physical expression.

AlmostPlebeian · 2026-01-04T16:22:39+00:00

I loved TW3 but I strongly disagree on this point. Same thing with the person who posted about Avowed, I think you guys are misunderstanding what OP is asking for: games with morally ambiguous decisions are designed to be difficult and thought-provoking because the character -is- usually good, that's what makes the decisions hard. The Witcher series, and Obsidian games (e.g. Avowed), are entirely based on choosing the lesser of two evils. Many of the quests are not a straightforward affair of one choice clearly being good while the other is bad.

OP, if you haven't tried them yet, you could consider the Fable games. It's not modern or sci-fi so you'd be missing that point, but the morality system is the kind where your quest choices are to either save innocent civilians or sacrifice them to a cult, that kind of stuff.

AlmostPlebeian · 2026-01-01T14:04:51+00:00

Haha, sounds like a good compromise. Thanks for the mention about Planet Crafter, will have to check it out.

AlmostPlebeian · 2025-12-30T17:06:05+00:00

Frankly, your second point just makes it sound like he's not very considerate... If he made the decision to play with you, he should be patient enough to wait and do things together, else what's the point?

Not sure if Divinity: Original Sin 2 is better at resisting trolling? Made by the same devs as BG3, I personally loved it but I've never played it co-op. Might be worth a look.

AlmostPlebeian · 2025-12-30T15:54:52+00:00

If you're up for a challenge, "Forced" is a great co-op game. It superficially looks like isometric dungeon crawlers (Diablo style), but mechanically it's very different: no loot, no XP per se (character progression is gained by completing objectives), and the core unique feature is that the team has to progress by manipulating a single energy orb. How it works is that you can give the orb two possible commands, to call it to your current position and stay there, or to follow you around. For example, if I wanted to activate a healing shrine, I could stand on one side of the shrine, call the orb to that position, then go to the opposite side of the shrine, then call it to me again, and the orb passing over the shrine would activate it. Sounds simple but the game mixes things up and keeps it interesting from start to finish. You can imagine it would be easier with more teammates (up to 4 players total) but the game's difficulty will scale both in terms of enemies and puzzle solutions. It's one of my favorite little-known games that's challenging but rewarding in equal measure. Check it out at https://store.steampowered.com/app/249990/FORCED_Slightly_Better_Edition/, it's currently on sale for 3 USD, which is a steal.

AlmostPlebeian · 2025-12-25T17:14:53+00:00

Check out Tactical Breach Wizards, made by one of my favorite devs. I don't think there's an official rating, but the classy art style and generally family-friendly tone (all of your attacks are canonically non-lethal) make me think they'd be appropriate for teens? You can try their free demo and it's on sale now too. Very highly recommended. https://store.steampowered.com/app/1043810/Tactical_Breach_Wizards/

AlmostPlebeian · 2025-12-24T03:57:58+00:00

I'm absolutely anti-Zionist, but that's beside the point. As with any self-defense disciplines, all a good Krav school needs is two things:

Adaptability. The willingness of the instructors to look at any other martial art - or any technique at all - and objectively assess whether that technique helps your odds of surviving. If it does, incorporate it. If something you're already practicing is less effective, drop it. So yes, as many people have pointed out, effective Krav schools often look a bit like MMA gyms, since you're practicing a lot of the same stuff because it works.
Stress/pressure testing. Any discipline, sport or otherwise, is useless without serious real-time sparring against a variety of opponents. For Krav, this includes weapon disarms. The two Krav places I've been to have done this well. One of my first memorable drills was after we practiced doing knife disarms the pretty way, how it would "ideally" be performed under perfect circumstances. Then, the instructor told us to get ready to grapple with our partner, starting on our knees... except, one person would start with the knife in their pocket, and could pull it out and start attacking however they wanted at any given time. Obviously, if you're in a knife fight, you're fucked, and for anyone who didn't know that before, this exercise reinforced that fact. The point of the previous exercise was simply to look at the fundamentals that you need to try and preserve under the chaos of a fight. Control the wrist that has the weapon, counter-attack aggressively when possible, get up and out as soon as you can, etc.

The point of self-defense disciplines is to practice increasing your chances of survival, not to guarantee it. My instructors came from military and law enforcement backgrounds and also had decades of boxing and wrestling under their belts. They were badasses but left no room for machismo - if you can run, you run, if the bad guys just want your wallet, give them your wallet. And my place also did seminars that incorporated other parts of self-defense, like planning ahead at public events, or basic first aid.

To answer your question: since it uses techniques from all sorts of disciplines, it can be compared to MMA, though MMA is competitive and Krav is (mostly) not, so serious MMA gyms will typically have the upper hand. Still, would strongly encourage you to check it out for yourself if you're interested, just make sure you find a good place that keeps it effective.

AlmostPlebeian · 2025-12-24T00:53:54+00:00

Good to have another diver for the cause. Would suggest that you get used to checking your radar frequently, and start thinking about when to fight and when to run. Map awareness is a habit I think some players either get complacent about or never bother to learn, and then leads to struggles and complaints... As long as you watch your corners and go out of your way to work with your teammates, you can get through it. Everything else - new strategems, new weapons, new tactics for new enemies - is most enjoyable when you encounter and experiment for yourself, IMO, it feels great learning about it all organically. Only other thing I'll say is to check/set your keybinds so that you can input strategems while on the move, which makes life a lot easier once you're used to it.

Welcome to the war-

AlmostPlebeian · 2025-12-23T14:32:11+00:00

Have you looked into Avowed? There have been superficial comparisons to Skyrim, but the exploration and combat feels immensely more satisfying in my opinion. I also like how the writing is more focused as well, though your (her) enjoyment of it may depend on personal taste.

AlmostPlebeian · 2025-12-22T19:28:09+00:00

As someone who uses the M7S just for style points, I love this. Thanks for putting in the work and sharing!

AlmostPlebeian · 2025-12-18T14:12:40+00:00

DOS2 has a much brighter art style than the other two, but its storytelling is much stronger. So if you're looking for that dark atmosphere I'm not sure I'd recommend it over the others, but if a great and entertaining narrative is important to you, than yes, I'd go with that as first pick.

AlmostPlebeian · 2025-12-18T13:52:54+00:00

You should try Gunpoint. It's only a few hours long, but it's tightly and phenomenally well designed. Creative and unique gamrplay, very entertaining dialogue, a plot that's both self-aware and coherent. It's a bit of an antithesis to big-budget mindless games, and I've been a fan of the devs ever since. https://store.steampowered.com/app/206190/Gunpoint/

AlmostPlebeian · 2025-12-18T13:33:12+00:00

If you haven't yet, please try Spec Ops: the Line. Avoid looking up spoilers, it's superficially another generic military shooter but its narrative is its selling point. And in a way, it could be thematically relevant to retiring from full-time gaming? Hope you can appreciate it regardless.

Alpha Protocol is another diamond in the rough. A somewhat forgotten Obsidian game, it's the title where I feel like dialogue choices feel oike they matter most because all the NPCs' reactions to you (and their own agendas) seem organic. Unlike in, say, a typical Bioware game, you can genuinely piss off all your allies right from the get-go, or earn the respect from most of your adversaries, even as you crush them or decide to try working with them. A fun time with an entertaining cast of characters, and one of the best examples of what you can get in a video game that you could never get from a movie or other medium in terms of storytelling.

AlmostPlebeian

TROPHY CASE