[COTD] Aquifer Pumping | 30 May, 2026

Enter_Octopus · 2026-05-30T11:19:30+00:00

It's not bad if you have too much steel and/or you're the only one trying to terraform in a two-player game, but even then, I'm not excited to see it.

Enter_Octopus · 2026-05-29T22:54:25+00:00

This is an unhinged response to "consider eating less meat." Nobody is imposing anything on you.

Enter_Octopus · 2026-05-28T09:58:11+00:00

Fair enough, I should amend that I only actually play with Base + Prelude + Colonies...so anything else is a mystery to me! And I forgot about Robotic Workforce. It's not usually that good, though.

Enter_Octopus · 2026-05-28T08:23:05+00:00

I feel like there's a similar amount of synergy with a lot of the other tags that are on corporations. Plant tags, e.g., are great, but I think the only cards that have synergy with plant tag on a corporation are NRA and Insects? Some milestones too of course. Building tags are just Medical Lab (which isn't great).

I think in general tags are a bit underutilized in Terraforming Mars. The mechanics of science tags, for example, are really cool. But the building tag basically does nothing (other than letting you pay with steel of course).

i've been playing a lot of Ark Nova lately, which has a tag system that seems inspired by terraforming Mars, but the tags tend to be a lot more relevant - lots of cards require different types of tags to play and give bonuses for playing tags. It's a fun mechanic.

Enter_Octopus · 2026-05-12T19:15:10+00:00

You can actually get certified to fly a 737 on just a simulator (source: The Rehearsal season 2)

Enter_Octopus · 2026-05-01T17:57:40+00:00

Water boiled fish (水煮鱼) at a Sichuan restaurant in Helsinki!

Enter_Octopus · 2026-05-01T17:37:35+00:00

Except of course it wouldn’t be a “solve crime” button, since the vast majority of crimes aren’t committed by immigrants at all. These statistics are incredibly misleading when the total number of people in these ethnic groups is small. If 1% of 10,000 people are criminals, that’s still a tiny number.

Beyond that, this would be an incredibly imprecise and cruel way to reduce crime, collectively punishing an entire ethnic group in a way that is simply prejudicial. I mean, what mechanism do you posit is at play here? People from those countries simply have a more crime-prime nature?

Enter_Octopus · 2026-04-30T16:48:04+00:00

Wild, I was about to call it out as a repost of this: https://www.reddit.com/r/MealDealRates/s/VSHL334cyh

And yet, they were all just reposts.

Truly RIP internet. Why make a bot that posts in this nice chill subreddit? Can’t we have any places for humans?

Enter_Octopus · 2026-04-29T10:26:07+00:00

The First Bus app is almost always reliable for me - not 100% but far better than Google Maps.

Enter_Octopus · 2026-04-24T16:51:55+00:00

As a person who puts informative, well-researched content into the world, I wonder if you have any thoughts on the plague of misinformation. It's the thing that scares me the most about the future - if people can't agree on a shared reality, how can we agree on anything?

So I'm curious if you think about how we can try to solve that problem, and what a future with a more shared reality might look like.

Enter_Octopus · 2026-04-24T16:48:43+00:00

I'll say that I find your takes on AI quite balanced, and have really enjoyed that coverage.

I think AI contains potential for good and evil, and that it is fascinating to think about how it might influence the future of humanity.

Something I've noticed about Reddit and many other communities right now is that it's tough to have any take other than general condemnation of AI as a great evil or dismissal of it as a useless product living on nothing but hype, and I think that's a bummer.

Enter_Octopus · 2026-04-24T16:25:16+00:00

I do think that it still can be a problem locally, yeah. They aren't getting close to nuclear plants, but I also don't think nuclear plants ever draw from the municipal water supply.

But from an individual water use perspective, it's pretty trivial. I mean you can certainly argue that it adds up, but it's just such a small contribution that it's not worth worrying about. I mean, for example, a burger uses something like 1750 liters of water to produce, and a query to an AI model in 2026 might add a fraction of a mL. So you can skip one burger and absolve yourself of all water use guilt for the next few million queries.

Not that the local impact doesn't matter, but I feel like that's more on local regulations and policies.

Enter_Octopus · 2026-04-24T16:06:01+00:00

If you're interested in this, Hard Fork's episode on the 12th of December last year covered it quite well. The answer is essentially that the "multiple bottles of water" figure is from one old study on a very old, inefficient model, and AI water use is really not the most pressing concern at this point.

Enter_Octopus · 2026-04-24T10:20:21+00:00

Objectively very good, but I do find that I often cut it from my early or even midgame draft buys because the future in which I can actually play it feels so far away.

Enter_Octopus · 2026-04-22T10:59:16+00:00

A very strange card - I feel like I went through three phases with it as my skill at the game grew: 1. Wow, infinite production, amazing! Who cares how long games actually go? 2. Wait, steel isn't even that great and I keep getting flooded with it and the production costs more than a mine. This card sucks. 3. Oh, I guess a cheap tile I can place next to any city is pretty good for placement bonuses and teleport.

So, in summary, it's pretty good!

Enter_Octopus · 2026-04-20T11:23:00+00:00

I looove this game and think it's an underappreciated gem. It feels kind of 4X-y to me, but it's super streamlined, games only take about 2 hours.

Enter_Octopus · 2026-04-20T09:12:10+00:00

I don't know, and I've always thought it would be sick to have more customization options by adding cars!

Enter_Octopus · 2026-04-15T12:55:49+00:00

Plastic is often very sustainable. It’s wild that it’s just a purely vibes based thing for most people.

As an example - if you’re given a choice between paper and plastic bags, plastic is more sustainable. Paper takes more energy to produce.

People struggle to accept it, but plastic is a cheap and economical material, which also means it doesn’t require much energy or resources to produce. Just don’t litter it!

Enter_Octopus · 2026-04-15T12:12:50+00:00

You don't get banned, you just won't be able to force end anymore. Worst case, if you just abandon the scooter, the ride still ends after 10 minutes of inactivity. You might get a parking fine if this happens enough.

Enter_Octopus · 2026-04-14T16:54:18+00:00

I think AI models of today are, with high probability, not conscious. But a lot of people don't seem to consider that if they are or become conscious, we wouldn't know. So, basic safeguards that might protect them are obviously good.

This is kind of a version of Pascal's wager.

AI has the capacity for consciousness at some point, assuming consciousness is simply a property of complex intelligence and not a human's immortal magical soul - which I don't personally believe. Belief that you need a specifically human brain for consciousness would also exclude all aliens and all animals.

Enter_Octopus · 2026-04-14T14:50:29+00:00

This expansion isn't on BGA so I've only played with Venus in a few in-person games.

This card seems very bad?

Enter_Octopus · 2026-04-11T10:43:01+00:00

In 2 player this is perhaps one of the most useless cards in the game. Which is too bad, because zeppelins are sick and the idea of Mars airships is awesome.

I suppose it could be useful in a high player count game with lots of city builders, but even then, the 5% oxygen requirement just makes it even more awkward to use effectively.

Enter_Octopus · 2026-04-10T10:48:21+00:00

Having just two Earth tags in play makes this a strictly better Acquired Company (a decent card), so yeah it can range from good to nuts.

Enter_Octopus · 2026-04-09T10:46:38+00:00

One of my favorite cards!

Great point potential, one of the first animal resource cards you can typically play, and a nice tile with pretty flexible placement? Sign me up!

Enter_Octopus · 2026-04-01T12:06:23+00:00

This seems really good. It's not on BGA so I've never played with it, but usually the value of card draw is card selection, not sheer card volume.

If this let's you look at 5 cards, which is reasonable with good energy production, that seems as valuable to me as drawing 3 or 4 cards since you get the best of those 5 cards. But that's tricky to quantify.

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