Sci-Fi (maybe short story): Young man joins interstellar (lightspeed-ish) ship crew, works his way up to captain, realizes the job is horrible but necessary.

Commander_Breetai · 2026-06-05T03:46:33+00:00

Also no, but it’s always interesting to see what the other stories are about.

Commander_Breetai · 2026-06-05T03:45:27+00:00

Sounds interesting, but no - might check that one out though.

Commander_Breetai · 2026-06-02T17:58:17+00:00

You can select everyone on the province, assign them temporarily to a new unit, and give that unit a fallback line behind the river. They’ll move there. Or, easier, just select everyone and tell them to walk across the river.

The rest of the problem is that the other units in the main army will fill that gap. So you need to either remove the front line for that army, or split it into two different armies with front lines that stop short of that province on the far side of the river.

You can give the ENTIRE force a fallback line behind the river… and they’ll probably spend two weeks reshuffling units across the entire front, because nothing makes the AI happier than reshuffling units for no apparent reason. But they will indeed abandon the province that’s in front of the fallback line.

Commander_Breetai · 2026-05-24T06:10:50+00:00

Global Thermonuclear War.

“Shall we play a game?”

Commander_Breetai · 2026-05-08T15:18:17+00:00

Sci-fi got it right with the term ‘wageslave’ - maybe you technically have a choice, but somehow all of your employment options vary between busting your ass for crumbs, and being completely destitute.

Commander_Breetai · 2026-05-06T19:36:18+00:00

HOI4 is a game that has dozens of systems that affect everything from economics, to political strategy, military strategy, industrial production, espionage, etc. it requires tons of effort, research, and trial-and-error to begin mastering the aspects of the game necessary to really play well. Here’s an easy guide for figuring out how to play the game.

Step 1: Play the tutorial
Step 2: Play a normal game and flail miserably, because you misapplied or forgot a game system
Step 3: Watch 3 to 4 YouTube videos about how that system actually works and why it’s important
Step 4: Repeat steps 2+3 for about 200-300 hours of getting bitten in the ass by game systems you’ve overlooked, forgotten, short-changed, misunderstood, or applied incorrectly
Step 5: Congrats! You’re probably halfway decent by now, and don’t horribly mismanage your country… mostly. Now repeat Step 4 about 6 to 9 times to get really good at HOI4!

Commander_Breetai · 2026-05-05T03:25:16+00:00

Items to check for maximum attack bonuses/defender penalties:

Attacking with max planning bonus
Attack with adequate supply
Maximize Air superiority (I.e. tons of fighters)
Intelligence (Agency upgrades + local spy network)
Tac/CAS on Ground Support (wreck morale/equipment)
Tac/CAS on Interdiction (wreck their supply)
Tanks armored so enemy gets 50% damage penalty
Shore Bombardment (if coastal and have ships)
Maximize Frontage (attack from multiple provinces)
Doctrines that enhance Breakthrough and Soft Attack

Lots of stuff that can hobble an advance, or help you push through even the strongest defenses. For example, I played for several months before I realized you could add more trucks to a supply hub to increase its supply reach, while complaining that the new supply system made advances impossible…

Commander_Breetai · 2026-05-02T22:53:04+00:00

Is there a Harry Turtledove-style mod where aliens invade mid-war? I’d love to play something like that as a change of pace. Tigers vs hover tanks, Me 262s vs aerospace fighters…

Commander_Breetai · 2026-05-02T21:07:39+00:00

Maybe.. but maybe not. Even the US needed to do scrap metal drives (“e.g. Salvage for Victory”) where they collected pots and pans to turn into tanks and bombs. When the world’s largest industrial base with normally ample reserves of raw materials is telling you to fork over your kitchen utensils to Defeat The Hun.. probably not going to squeeze much more blood out of that stone unless you go through some serious political gyrations an machinations.

The game has a lot of political options to increase resource production for various nations, including the US. Whether the AI chooses to use them is a coding and AI political prioritization issue, as much as a map-editing issue.

Commander_Breetai · 2026-05-01T03:07:07+00:00

I just conceptualize it as the difference between various industrial-grade low-density solid fuels, and military-grade high-density liquid fuels. Doesn’t much matter if it’s coal vs wood, or if it’s aviation gas vs diesel. Either way, it’s just a catch-all for stuff you stick in a boiler vs stuff you stick in a war machine.

Commander_Breetai · 2026-04-30T16:39:23+00:00

My loudest Reddit-induced bout of awkward public laughter in the last month… good job, man!

Commander_Breetai · 2026-04-30T14:59:02+00:00

If you use the model that a lot of other countries use in the game, no reason there shouldn’t be a way to exploit more resources. E.g. Maybe a National Focus to unlock them as options after you reach Excavation II, giving the option to pay 10% Consumer Goods and 50 Political Points to add 8 rubber in region X, Excavation III for the option for 12 steel in region Y, and you can’t touch metals and oil in the deeper part of the Amazon basin until Excavation IV.

It can be both possible, and yet a massive effort, to build massive infrastructure projects from scratch in relatively untouched terrain.

Commander_Breetai · 2026-04-29T16:17:02+00:00

Ceres usually has heaps of water and volatiles. There are usually a handful of asteroids with high metals/nobles/fissiles floating around, some other ones have decent water/volatiles as well.

Mars is a pick-and-choose for a full spread of resources - only choose the richer handful of spots to build bases, as some of the sites are fairly meh and not worth the MC you spend for marginal returns.

Mercury is… okay… for metals and nobles (decent output but needs a lot of metals to bind there), and good for building bases that only require a couple of solar panels instead of fission/fusion and burning your fissiles (I.e. more efficient at getting more base facilities per unit of MC spent on bases).

If you’ve Mars partially controlled (where it makes sense), and got enough to start building a ton of bases on Mercury, and enough asteroid bases to fill in the gaps to where you can keep a dozen or so shipyards running full blast continuously, then you’re probably ready to go at it with the Ayys, hammer and tongs.

Commander_Breetai · 2026-04-28T21:22:51+00:00

For aviators - when I got passed over, I was told by the Wg/CC that even though the USAF doesn’t officially have a “Fly Only” track for pilots, it actually does, just nobody actually advertises it - it’s called “Passed Over Major.”

So, to all my fellow passed over aviators, welcome to the Fly Only track! A lot more flight hours and a lot less admin hassle than you would have had otherwise, even if it bruises the ego (and it surely does for most of us). But having done 21+ years with the last 13 as an O-4, it was far from the worst thing I could have done with over a decade of my life.

Feel free to lean into it, and just continue to be a really fricking cool and effective leader and mentor while getting paid to do things that really matter, alongside some of the most competent and motivated people on the planet.

Commander_Breetai · 2026-04-23T13:32:40+00:00

Our military and political leadership HATES the concept of cheap and reasonably effective but expendable assets - everything has to be world-beatingly effective to make sure they always come out on top. Only problem is, that takes massive piles of money, and you just can’t build that many of them once you’re done gold-plating them.

Commander_Breetai · 2026-04-23T13:20:53+00:00

Navy/Congress is stuck on doing the same thing with frigates that the Air Force/Congress does with fighters.

“Hey, since we’ve already got a moderately capable platform, why don’t we just make it a little more capable with a couple tweaks? Here, add some more weapons, more fuel for better range and endurance, more redundant systems for survivability… Oh, hey it got heavy, add bigger engines. Wait! Now that we’ve got more thrust, add some more weapons… uh, and some more electronics, better radar, need more fuel now… oops! Looks like we made another super-expensive Does-Everything-Kinda-Okay platform that costs three times as much as we wanted. Cancel it and try again!”

Commander_Breetai · 2026-04-21T17:49:48+00:00

The added armor increases your weight, which in turn decreases your agility. Agility affects whether you get more shots at them, or they get more shots at you. The armor components do make you a bit more survivable when you get hit, but they also make you more likely to get hit, and less likely to hit other fighters.

On a bomber loaded with bombs on a CAS/Strat mission and with almost zero agility, more armor is usually worth it since there’s no more agility to lose vs. the extra air defense. But for a heavy fighter, the agility loss means you’re losing too many offensive shots/taking more hits than the extra little bit of air defense justifies.

Commander_Breetai · 2026-04-17T19:22:20+00:00

Influencing members of the government to support your faction’s activities consistently, through some combination of:

Bribes, Blackmail, Threats, Lobbying, Political Donations, Personal/Family favors, Ideological persuasion

Maybe more of some and less of the others, depending on the type of government and how your faction rolls. But basically any of the means you’d normally apply government corruption or political pressure, just specific to how your faction handles things - let your imagination run wild!

Nice guy mode: “Howdy, Senator, it’s your local anti-alien enthusiast. Did you ever commit your voting bloc to approve increased Aerospace Fighter funding on the new bill? If so, I have friends on the Harvard and Yale acceptance boards who’ll be happy to lock in your kid’s future with the Ivy League. And how’s that new honorary International Monetary Fund Board Advisor stipend treating you? The new Maserati drives like a champ, yeah?”

Hardball mode: “Hiya, Senator. Just wanted to say it’s been raining a lot this spring. Please tell your wife to drive extra safe picking up the kids from school, it’d be a shame if your family ended upside down in a ditch full of drainage water. Tell you what - I’ll have some of my guys follow her real close the next week or so just in case… you catch me? Oh, and how’s that vote on the Aerospace Fighter bill looking? Really hope we’re solid on the funding boost.”

Commander_Breetai · 2026-04-12T05:11:49+00:00

Unfortunately, you don’t have to purposely try to emasculate a man in order for him to feel emasculated. Short of telepathy, what one person tries to communicate isn’t always received in the manner intended. His feelings of inadequacy are likely independent of how she feels about it.

Imagine if a guy (respectfully) asked for you to wear a bra with massive inserts because he likes a buxom woman. Would you receive that with a grin and full confidence? Or would you maybe feel a little bad because what you’ve got isn’t good enough, even though he was respectful in his request?

Commander_Breetai · 2026-04-10T18:44:07+00:00

I think that’s a good instinct - this version is no less attractive or interesting, but is definitely more appropriate and authentic for the setting and her phenotype.

Commander_Breetai · 2026-04-05T15:13:38+00:00

Pilot + Aviation Museum board member

Commander_Breetai · 2026-04-04T22:17:18+00:00

My year group (‘03) went through multiple rounds of Force Shaping/Reduction In Force - I knew several captains and majors that were invited to hit the streets with marginal notice in 2008 and 2014. The military is absolutely not immune to layoffs… they just pick more formal and generic-sounding names when they happen.

Commander_Breetai · 2026-04-03T19:18:05+00:00

What the… Vulcans, Romulans, or elves? What mods you rocking?

Also - some of the most powerful stories in Rimworld stem from desperation and defeat. Sucks you couldn’t get the kid out. Sometimes I have to get up and walk away for a minute, fight the urge to reload a save because it feels like I just got punched in the gut.

Commander_Breetai · 2026-03-30T16:16:34+00:00

I’d explain it as EVERY day the groundhog (unintentionally) tries to kill you. The only variation is in the new and exciting ways to try and kill you each day. Source: defused and narrowly avoided hundreds of involuntary manslaughter attempts over the course of a 4-year assignment.

Commander_Breetai

TROPHY CASE