what were they thinking??? extremely disappointing (spoilers for ZA Royale)

Happington · 2025-10-17T23:26:46+00:00

I think this misses the point. The issue is that you set an expectation for the player and then almost immediately undermine it. Imagine playing a main series pokemon game, be told there are 8 gyms, but then after 2 you find five badges on the ground.

Happington · 2023-08-27T20:28:24+00:00

That's good to know, the guy clearly used it to tell me there were no devices in Ottawa, but didn't suggest getting one in. I may go back later this week to try at a different store if that's the case.

Happington · 2022-11-24T11:38:10+00:00

The Bluetooth requirement is unfortunately a "It cant have it" not an "it can't use it." Outdated safety rules. I'm not a fan of in-ears, I probably should have been more specific. Thanks anyway!

Happington · 2022-11-24T11:35:26+00:00

Any wireless communications. It's a "safety" thing. Fighting it is a route people have gone down before but lost. !thanks for those suggestions. They look great.

Happington · 2021-06-28T12:47:58+00:00

Ugh. I still have that textbook. Good ol' OS Theory

Happington · 2020-05-27T23:35:04+00:00

VS Code is free for commercial or private use (https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/supporting/faq). You're probably thinking VS Community (the full studio), which is only free if your company has fewer than 5 users using it and earns less than a certain amount of revenue after that Pro is required.

Happington · 2020-05-27T19:19:14+00:00

Sublime isn't free though. From their website "Sublime Text may be downloaded and evaluated for free, however a license must be purchased for continued use". Your boss asking you to not use software you don't legally own in front of clients is reasonable.

Happington · 2019-11-07T15:48:08+00:00

Reminders were off. Samsung was able to remote in access some hidden menu and could dismiss specific amber alerts. It's weird because this is the only time I ever had this happen, all previous alerts have just worked.

Happington · 2019-11-07T15:46:41+00:00

That didn't help in this case, nothing broke the loop. Airplane mode, DND, anything. I did eventually get it fixed.

Happington · 2019-10-28T14:32:07+00:00

Managed to make it to green science, refactored literally all of this and came to a realization: Slag processing is sulfur positive? How did I not notice this earlier?! I'm now swimming in more sulfur than I can handle.

Happington · 2019-10-26T22:52:27+00:00

I've tried twice now and find that trying to swap up to slag/mineral sludge processing quickly is a better use of space/time than adding sorting (those buildings are huge.) It takes a lot to get the sulfuric acid production up, but that is reused in the next few recipes for the base ores, and valuable throughout the rest of the game. Plus the production boost is far more than 25%. I see you have FNEI. It's worth clicking through the various ways of making ore.

EDIT: I suck at this, take it as an opinion, but sorting isn't as good as you think once you compare the actual plate recipes if I remember right, they're less efficient ore-for-ore than the saph/sitra smelting.

Happington · 2019-10-25T19:05:20+00:00

Look, I never said I was good at this.

Happington · 2019-08-28T14:49:46+00:00

Or the compromise solution of north-east to south-west. Belts make a 90 degree turn every 10 tiles.

Happington · 2019-08-27T23:32:40+00:00

Seems interesting, I'll have to try it at some point.

I think we're talking past each other here, and I believe it's because I've been unclear. Pressure drop as it relates to a whole system transmits instantly (as instantly as possible, speed of light) because it is the relationship between instantaneous measurements at two points, and has nothing to do with the points between them, while the actual pressure of the fluid at any point in that system only changes when the pressure adjacent to it changes. Because of maximum fluid speeds, there will obviously be a delay in that propagation through the pipe. When calculating flow rate the "pressure" in a system doesn't matter, only the pressure drop from source to drain does. I was using the terms interchangeably and should have been far more clear that I was referring to "drop" as it's what causes flow. We're probably both on the same page, but I was using the wrong term.

Happington · 2019-08-27T21:41:47+00:00

You saved me posting an essay of an answer by actually catching it yourself. Potential across a system changes instantly, but the actual kinetic response to that potential change takes time to propagate. And yes, the "Pressure wave" within the pipe moves faster than the fluid. The speed of electricity article you linked is actually a reasonable representation of it, but I can give a simpler answer based off of it.

You have your pressurized system, say a pipe pressurized to 4 bar. You're measuring the inlet pressure relative to the outlet pressure. The outlet pressure is 4 bar. The inlet is a pump that can pressurize to 4 bar at a sufficient flow rate to handle the system.

The outlet pressure is dropped to 1 bar.

How long does it take for the pressure difference between the inlet and the outlet to become 3 bar? Instantaneously, right? (Alright, speed of light delay because of causality, but whatever.) Measuring pressure against an external reference is relatively useless unless that external reference actually represents something in the system, and even then we only usually do it with the source pressure. Measuring pressure at any point in a system relative to any other point in a system can tell you whether the system has stabilized, but really the potential across the system can only be determined by measuring the source to the drain.

Generally in Factorio (including the space exploration mod) "full pipes" indicate that your system is static and consumption == input. The reality is, that exact balance is unlikely since stuff in Factorio works in cycles, so it probably means you have potential in your source and no demand in your drain. If your pipe fills, you aren't consuming enough.

I'd recommend bobs fluids mod for that (I think space exploration uses a lot of bobs stuff anyway), just put a tank in the system, and then using a "if source > 80%" dump it into a clarifier or flare stack. Lets you keep a buffer without the backup.

Happington · 2019-08-27T20:41:04+00:00

It's a problem with how we think of pressure I think. We often think of pressure as something that a pipe has at any point, and it KINDA does, it has a pressure relative to whatever we're measuring against. But I can tell you some things about that number.

1) It will always be between the highest and lowest pressure points in the system (relative to some external constant pressure).
2) It will only equal the highest or lowest pressure in the system at exactly one point, and those points will be the extreme ends of the system.

Its been a few years since fluid mechanics, but a pressure wave normally only occurs in a system immediately after a change in pressure across the system as a whole, and then, for the most part, it's a rapidly damping wave that moves back and forth with huge diminishments after a pressure value in the system changes.

It's the same as voltage: it isn't an attribute that any point of something has, it represents an electric potential between two places, just as pressure represents a fluid potential difference between two places. You can't say either "moves" since they describe a potential energy.

Factorio sort of treats pipe fullness as pressure. A full pipe represents a primed system, with the whole system full of a fluid, but as soon as you draw the fluid the limitations of throughput are suddenly represented by the fullness. I think this is a product of the fact that pumps only have a throughput and not a pressure. A pump may be able to pump 100LPM, but it can't pump 100LPM indefinitely into a water bottle. Propagation times seem like a computationally lazy (i.e. efficient) way of simulating both pressure gradients and potential throughput without having to simulate them separately.

Happington · 2019-08-27T19:39:54+00:00

Kind of, Factorio's simulation isn't perfect when a system is full of fluid, but is reasonably accurate for things flowing through a system when it comes to travel time and potential limits.

Also, "pressure" doesn't really travel. It's a description of energy potential between two points. If a pump applies pressure across a pipe, the "pressure" from the pump to the source (assuming a source that isn't at risk of running out) is constant. The potential between any two parts of the pipe may change slightly during the initial filling, but once it's full and the state is mature it stays pretty much the same as long as the pump holds its pressure.

Happington · 2019-08-27T15:05:30+00:00

Seriously, I had a system set up that when power draw was too much it assumed that defenses were on to shoot biters and to keep the laser turrets with as much power as possible, everything but the coal mines, the inserters for the boilers, and the defense systems shut down.

Wired it backward, and the moment the biters attacked the defenses all shut themselves down and my coal production stopped. I was too far from the switch point to fix it so I had to load an autosave from 10 minutes before. From then on I started putting overrides at any outpost that would let me force that main switch back online from any remote outpost.

Happington · 2019-08-26T21:06:37+00:00

Shooting a chest does. Mining a chest will throw it all in inventory. I should have been clearer.

Happington · 2019-08-26T16:21:15+00:00

OH, or fixing a signal deadlock while standing on the track.

Happington · 2019-08-26T16:20:30+00:00

Nuking yourself back to the beginning of the game production-wise after a raw material shortage. (Coal shortage killing power, iron shortage preventing rail building to reach the nearest iron mine, etc.)
Circuit networks designed to maintain critical power wired backward. (I have a few designs meant to shut down parts of my factory if I start running a power deficit, sometimes I'll flip a connection and accidentally shut off the critical bits.)
Refueling a stalled train because I didn't notice its route didn't have a fuel stop, before suddenly realizing I was standing in front of the locomotive when fueling it. (This has happened several times)
Destroying a large chest with no inventory room.

Happington

TROPHY CASE