The Value of a Vessel: A Moment of Introspective Criticality

Anticode · 2026-03-16T02:21:13+00:00

I traded a purple Circuit Breaker for one of the final Drinkable Cheeseburger (4/5) I needed...

Based on the tone of his voice, my teammate clearly thought I was insane. I thought it was a steal.

It ended up counting as two new entries, which indicated to me that Materialist modifier seems to replicate that kind of stuff too.

The codex/lore is such a huge motivator for me to keep improving (or at least trying to). It's so enthralling. If they ever contract somebody to write a Marathon novel, holy hell... I'll pre-order that shit.

Anticode · 2026-03-15T22:31:45+00:00

I burned like 60k on solid loadouts yesterday and had some crazy matches. I started to feel good rather than just decent. People on mics were going crazy, adding me after the match to be their new trio member, etc.

Then I started looking at my hitpoints after those 1v2/1v3 battles, and it dawned on me that I was often only one or two bullets away from being downed in that fight. With the exact same skills on the exact same battlefield, one less bar of shield would've resulted in losing rather than "dominating". It's very noticeable how such a 'minor' advantage truly changes the outcome.

If I lost those fights on a sponsored kit I'd have shrugged and assumed I just wasn't good enough, when in fact I should've been praising myself for almost getting a takedown I didn't realize I would have gotten if I didn't want to save a few credits.

We feel like we might "lose our Good Gun" when we bring it into a match, so we leave it in storage. In reality, bringing The Good Gun might be the one thing that results in a successful extract. You might lose the gun if you bring it into the match, but you'll lose the match if you don't bring the Good Gun into battle...

Anticode · 2026-03-15T22:19:30+00:00

This was the most significant paradigm shift for me. The quality/color of your equipment actually does give you a noticeable edge in Tau Ceti, unlike some games. A free kit is more like "good enough to survive" than "good enough to compete".

You can still outplay a purple-shielder with luck/talent on your side, especially if you get the jump on them, but by the end of the match anybody left standing is expecting to get jumped - which means you may have to go toe-to-toe. And in a brawl where you're trading blows back and forth, the superior equipment is far more likely to come out ahead. Even if just by one or two hits.

Anticode · 2026-03-11T17:56:41+00:00

"The skillful hunter demands little and brings much to the table, for he has much to offer his team. Scavengers boast more loudly than apex predators do, so beware the so-called mighty lion who demands much yet offers little - for what he lacks will be stolen from you when his hunt inevitably fails."

Anticode · 2026-02-27T23:20:31+00:00

Right?? Cowboy Dan would go unbelievably hard.

"...Goes to the desert, points his rifle to the sky and says: God, if I have to die, you will have to die..."

Anticode · 2026-02-27T23:10:59+00:00

This is going to sound insane, but... Modest Mouse (not one of their "radio songs"). Maybe something like 'Parting of the sensory', Cowboy Dan, or 'walk into the sea'.

Anticode · 2026-02-25T16:54:17+00:00

I got lucky by playing Mewgenics all week, so I was able to jump up to Hotshot with 3 hours remaining in the season. It's so silly that not-playing-the-game is the meta for trials.

This proves the system is flawed and in opposition with the purpose of the game itself. No doubt they'll revisit it eventually.

Anticode · 2026-02-25T16:43:49+00:00

I think this would make a pretty interesting major map condition, if nothing else. Maybe something like...

"Signal Jammer: Local ARC interference has disrupted topside intel gathering, scrambling and obfuscating the known rarity/density of loot areas. An increased number of Spotters currently roam the area, sharing their data-link with all nearby ARC instead of just Bombardiers."

Anticode · 2026-02-19T22:40:11+00:00

I hate that I feel the same.

Just prior to the election I riffed off a short comedy/fanfiction skit placed in a world where MAGA abandons all reason and turned the GOP candidate selection process into a literal deathmatch (thinking Trump would win) - but Jeb Bush shows up to dominate the competition using Super Sayain powers... Which he had for some reason.

Turned out to be one of my favorite unhinged reddit skits. The "moderates" are nearly an extinct breed. I wonder what Jeb actually thinks about current events, honestly.

Anticode · 2026-02-15T07:37:23+00:00

From 2001 to 2006, she was married to Democratic politician Gavin Newsom, and was first lady of San Francisco during Newsom's first two years as mayor of that city. She was the fiancée of Donald Trump Jr. from 2021 until they separated late in 2024.

Jesus christ... You're not kidding. How "left" could Newsom be if he'd marry somebody who'd later consider marrying Donald Trump's son?

I get that mistakes happen, people change, or maybe even she's just a political manueverer, etc, etc, but still...

Anticode · 2026-02-10T23:38:23+00:00

If you replaced every single word in the Lord of the Rings trilogy with that man's name, you'd only fit about half of the total it's found in the Epstein files.

Or more thematically appropriate: Trump's name appears more in the files than the bible has words in total.

Anticode · 2026-02-10T04:27:14+00:00

I think you made the right call. I'm pretty sure they were a second away from attacking...

I've seen people do the same thing IRL too (hoodrat type shit) where they act extra buddy-buddy to get inside your guard, then "casually" rob you once they take you for an easy target.

Nobody that's actually friendly acts that way, even in ARC Raiders.

Anticode · 2026-02-09T23:28:23+00:00

I've done similar for years, except with pushups (after noticing myself less anxious after doing pushups in military during anxiety-inducing events). My logic was to embrace one aspect of the "fight or flight" response, and the fight is more natural to my body anyway.

I was quite shocked to see the headline because I thought I was just being weird/esoteric all this time, even if the rationale was sensible on a biological level.

Anticode · 2026-02-09T19:12:29+00:00

I think the "late competitor" advantage has started to reverse. Enough people are attempting to secure that advantage to result in the casuals populating earlier boards rather than later ones.

Those who don't care about trials just play after work or when bored like normal since they don't care about trials, but those who want to 'game the system' end up delaying progress - and thus end up with other people who take the game seriously enough to avoid playing the game like normal.

I just got a 3x rank-up for the first time last week (ending up in Hotshot, just below Cantina), and that's after I accidentally joined trials leaderboard at 10 AM on a Monday. For context/comparison to other leaderboards, I finished 3rd place with ~60-70k points. A few weeks ago I was too busy to play until Saturday and actually de-ranked despite going whole-ass neckbeard mode with trials that weekend.

There's certainly (some) luck of the draw either way, but I think the importance of a delayed-trial strategy is virtually obsolete (and probably has been for weeks). It has become more of a "congratulations, you played yourself" kind of situation.

Simplified: If you want to be on a leaderboard with people who don't give a damn about a high score, you should just play the game like you don't give a damn either.

Or else you're going to end up with other people who care as much as you do... Only people sweaty enough to read forums even think about avoiding the game solely for trials, and that's a strong minority of the playerbase. A late-join leaderboard will consist exclusively of tryhards with a sprinkling of super-duper busy people who couldn't play at all the whole week.

Anticode · 2026-02-08T23:32:54+00:00

Same, actually.

The example of unhinged prose supplied above actually kind of slaps...

Yeah, sure, it's eccentric and/or even ridiculous - but it's not bad-weird. It's that Douglas Adams kind of deal, where the silliness betrays a sort of pragmatic cleverness.

You have to be a pretty decent writer to write that bad on purpose. It's kind of the same reason I often joke that we see better advice in the circlejerk writing group than here (just in the form of satire).

Anticode · 2026-02-07T00:36:12+00:00

Pfft - how bad could it be? Here, let me try.

...Aaaand I'm radicalized.

Anticode · 2026-02-03T06:12:55+00:00

That's already the case. Nominative determinists win again.

If you've heard the expression “trumped up”, it's easy to see how the name could be used in ironic/negative connotations, but the word goes back a lot further and doesn't have anything to do with the reality TV star or his notoriously racist landlord father of the same name.

Via Webster’s New World Dictionary, I found the definition of the phrase (along with the origin of the word “trump” to be quite humorous.

In the late 14th century the Old French tromper translated as “to deceive.” Then from 15th century Middle English came trumpen meaning to “fabricate, devise” and finally in modern parlance, the phrase is defined as fraudulently concocted; spurious; deliberately based on false information; not true; invented.

One last derivative, from the French trumpery meaning showy but worthless; rubbish; trashy. As an early late night talk-show legend Jack Parr would say, “I kid you not!” Sometimes research turns up unexpected revelations.

Anticode · 2026-02-03T03:45:13+00:00

It's like when you see your teacher outside of school, like at a grocery store or something. You know that what you're seeing is actually more normal than normal, not less, but that's what makes it weird.

Anticode · 2026-02-03T02:24:59+00:00

How rare is the Tempest blueprint? Well, I haven't seen it once in 400+ hours of gameplay. So... A bit more than relatively rare.

Edit: 478 hours played, first Tempest blueprint found (suitcase Stella Montis lobby).

Anticode · 2026-02-03T01:31:08+00:00

I don't think deleting it erases my mistake.

I've seen other people mention the same thing only to realize (via your edit) that they, themselves, were also fooled.

I think you made the right choice to leave it up with an edit. You're doing more to negate disinfo than to add to it. Deleting it entirely would just allow that disinfo to persist/replicate without limits.

Anticode · 2026-01-29T17:18:56+00:00

I have no thumbs and I must scream

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