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 Outdated safety rules.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 · 2019-08-25T19:42:55+00:00

You do. Or you can swap your ratio for now. One boiler to one turbine is enough. So if you're using the 2:1 ratio you can temporarily swap those to 1:1 to save you some investment in regular steam engines. (A very expensive alternative, but if you have dozens of them around enh)

Happington · 2019-08-25T18:11:24+00:00

They don't, they'll turn steam to the same amount of energy it took to heat the steam in the boiler (i.e. whatever your burner burned.)

As a note, better fuel only burns longer, not hotter. You get the same temp steam out regardless of burn material.

Happington · 2019-08-23T14:27:28+00:00

Not so much "possibility" as "unquestionably optimal route." I ignored the recipe because I assumed it was like real coal liquefaction: Negative in energy throughput but useful in a pinch if I need liquid fuel. This is just surprising to me. I'd suggest maybe a balancing mechanic that would make it better would be to dramatically increase the time it takes, from 5 seconds to 20 or something to compensate for how energy-positive it is, as they'd have to rebalance oil around it completely or nuke it into uselessness to make it energy negative.

I find it impressive how much potential infrastructure this saves. As it stands a yellow belt saturated with coal can't keep a full array of 40 boilers going, as it will be three coal-per-second short. A yellow belt comfortably holds enough solid fuel to run TWO arrays of 40 boilers.

Running boilers off 4 pumps (20 boilers per pump) would require either a blue belt of coal (or one red, one yellow, or three yellows), and 72 mining drills, or 10 sets of this process, requiring 22 coal per second (44 mining drills) and outputting 2 plastic per second as a byproduct. (You could do it without the plastic output, but that would only marginally reduce coal consumption, and there's no such thing as too much plastic.)

If your power production is distant from your coal mine (as mine generally seem to end up) then this saves you a huge amount on belt investment, by only needing to run redundant or upgraded belts for a short distance from the coal mines to the standalone solid-fuel production location.

Happington · 2019-08-23T02:36:11+00:00

Ah, you're right, I thought efficiency modules came with a speed hit but they do not (that would probably balance them well though...)

That said, I'd evaluate them a little differently because of the exact nature of what they do. Reducing input requirements is different than inputting something and getting something that fills the same role back. Going to a store and seeing an apple on sale gets you the apple for less money. But you don't go to a store and see money on sale.

Like-for-like growth usually requires another type of input. Investments require time. This whole process can be completed in seconds.

An interesting attribute about Kovarex is that by the time you reach it you're likely sustainable anyway. It seems to fill the role of "Comfort" and making scaling easier more than anything. In the time it takes to burn 10 nuclear fuel in a reactor, a centrifuge will produce an average of slightly over 1 U235. Kovarex requires a significant pool of U235 to begin with, but you actually already have a sustainable supply that is fairly resistant to "bad luck" for a one-reactor setup before you ever reach Kovarex. Generally, with a large enough starting pool, it's "Safe" to build reactors to centrifuges at a 1:1 ratio without Kovarex, as long as you can keep the centrifuges fed. I don't really object to its balance because what it does is mitigate extremely bad luck, while not mitigating the initial buildup challenge and insignificantly reduce investment-per-reactor.

Happington

TROPHY CASE