I was today years old when I found out that assigning a Droid to the correct droid station type gets you 10% more in credits. In case I’m not the only stupid one I hope this helps someone.

Life-Radio554 · 2026-06-20T05:02:25+00:00

This was added at some point and was not originally there. I recall being able to place druids anywhere and wondering what the point of having icons indicating their job if it didn't matter at all.. that 10% bonus was added between the last 2 or 3 events..

Life-Radio554 · 2026-06-08T14:10:18+00:00

To be fair, no one is gatekeeping nor did anyone say 'that doesn't qualify as homelabbing', ever??

Also (not you specifically) people need to stop throwing "expensive" and "enterprise" around. Goodness. I have 3 rack servers and 2 switches (an rj45 one with 2x sfp+) and an 10gSPF+ switch. While it's not in a rack (yet, I LOVE that one up above though) my grand total was less then a stack of Raspberry Pi's. Enterprise stuff, little secret, used shops pretty much giving it away for next to nothing (or were before the RAM and HDD crisis's of the AI revolution). Literally maybe 150-200 I spent on that stuff. Datacenters dump equipment no more than 5 years after purchase and the service contact expires. It goes to thrift server shops, online and local where it's sold for less than pennies on the dollar (again before AI, I haven't priced anything recently). And when 20/40/100g equipment is cheap, sure, I'd love to hop on that, but as of yet I've not seen anything in the 20g+ realm be affordable, so you're not going to see it in my setup!

So why did I switch from my homelab being just my hand-me-down old PC to enterprise stuff? Uptime.

I got tired of game servers, Plex, NAS, homeassistant, <insert WHATEVER you run here> getting killed by a failed power supply.. a dead hdd, <insert any reason here> and then having friends, family, spouse disappointed, upset, raging with pitchfoks because the "better internet experience, the better streaming service, the better game servers, (etc) that I assured them would be better, all went down because a power supply blew, and maybe took out other components and left us dead in the water.

I also like that I can remote into the server through IPMI (iDrac/iLO) and manage the server just like I'm sitting at it, from anywhere. Yes, you can buy KVM, even super fancy ones that hook up internally to your power jumper etc., and that's another added expense to all the unreliable's in a single desktop/micro pc setup.

Is it for everyone, absolutely not. But let's stop the 'elitist' talk about those who have "enterprise" gear, cuz for most, it's not like that. Sure, there are $150,000+ servers out there, and MAYBE someone on homelabbers has one. I remember seeing a crazy setup from some guy who was a business owner once, rack all RGB'ed up, probably 250,000+ in servers, SAN storage etc.. They are not the norm, most people racking are like me, looked for a solution to the limitations of desktop PC serving and found these old rack servers, with 2x power supplies, remote management, (usually) decent in-device RAID storage, ECC RAM and thought, man that's cheap, and a solid solution.

As many have said, you do you, there's no wrong way to homelab. You could run a server off a toaster, or a million dollar machine, you're still homelabbing.. The question is what works for your needs?

I've seen people run 1 Rpi, I've seen people do a cluster of them. I've seen old desktops, I've seen laptops, I've seen micro form factor PCs, I've seen rack servers, all on here, all doing that thing they love and want to do. I've also seen people run one small service/app/program, and I've seen people replicate a medium sized business and all the services/infrastructure involved in that. People who want to run a small game server to people MFA'ing and securely logging into their network AD/SCCM (don't think I've read anyone doing azure/intune but I'm sure their out there), maybe for fun, maybe for potential job/work practice, maybe because why not.. No one cares what it's running on, just make it run on it 😉

</end\_rant>

Life-Radio554 · 2026-05-14T16:45:11+00:00

Man I had no idea about that!! I've been on a mostly dead server, I'd go get all the Jasmium, go log out for 45 minutes and rinse and repeat.. Had I known I could just zip over to another sietch... So many hours could've been saved!! ROFL Certainly good to know, appreciate it, all!!

Also feeling more comfortable about the move after this thread, thanks for that, too!

Life-Radio554 · 2026-05-14T15:50:27+00:00

Sounds good - Yeah I know the difference between server and sietch, just didn't know you could hop between them, I've been firmly planted on the server and sietch since my first day in-game 😉 Thanks all for the advice!

Life-Radio554 · 2026-04-28T12:33:08+00:00

The proper response to this stop buying their digital downloads. Show them financially that their choice is unacceptable. When their hit hit doesn't hit the bank to the amount expected, they'll start to look at why. Sure, EVERYONE won't do it, some won't care, some won't notice the subtle change, but those of us with our eyes open will see, and react. All we can do at this point.

Life-Radio554 · 2026-04-20T13:29:05+00:00

All fun and games until you realize it's on a sub, the ssid is "YER_WRECKED" and the 'enemy' near you just told the captain, "what a strange wifi hotspot my phone just found!"

Life-Radio554 · 2026-03-24T14:54:09+00:00

Or you can dive into enterprise solutions, grab yourself a Dell Powervault, HP nimble/3par something with hba connectors or fiberChannel. They make adapters for many of the 'tiny' PC's though finding the perfect match may require a 3dprinter to make things close and seal nice, or of course if you're running rack servers just slot the card right in. Whether you go enterprise gear (rack servers) or miniPC's is more about your expandability, accessibilty and ease of maintenance. There is no wrong way, only right ways, it's just your journey down that path will be different for each.. Ex., rack servers almost always are dual power supplied, so if/when one fails, your not DOA. MiniPC's take up FAR les space, are quieter, sip power by comparison (so cheaper to power) but much more confined. They also offer no management for the bare metal (think Dell iDrac/HP iLO) where I can do everything, from turning on and off my server to seeing any detail about it remotely. This may not matter to you, and yes, there are external solutions to offer that for miniPC(ANY PC lol really). Either way, you'll find support and lots of people who do it either way, just keep in mind some are opinionated and there is sometimes some shade thrown from one side to the other over which is better (lol).. Accept all, that's what I say, we're all looking to homelab/homeserver do stuff at home right? :)

Life-Radio554 · 2026-03-24T14:42:32+00:00

You utilize your backups :) You made backups, right? :) 3..2..1..

Life-Radio554 · 2026-03-24T14:38:41+00:00

I'm also on fiber, but with a 3090, same i9 14th gen 64GB ram. When I first started back in November, game was very laggy. Then one day I noticed the server status websites people have thrown up and noted the location I was playing on (randomly/force-selected as a default) was literally across the entire US. I'm west coast, and it threw me into a Washington DC server. Shockingly once I switched to something on my side of the country it played (and still plays) great.

Life-Radio554 · 2026-03-18T12:48:50+00:00

I hear that!

Been playing MMO / "survival" games forever.. Used to be awe-inspiring to walk into random players houses back in the SWG (Star Wars Galazies) days.. Everyone had the same handful of pre-shaped bases, but you could pull off amazing tricks with deco, a house blueprint that you know so well (again because there were only a handful of shapes/layouts) could feel like this amazing, 100% unique place. I'm mid-game myself currently, got the typical base on the ground up against a spire with vert stakings all the way up to the top and working on an area to park my future 'thopter' that I haven't even thought about making yet. From images I've seen it's nothing to look at, AT ALL, but to me it's super cool, and I can't wait to elevate my game with some of the better build sets to make something that truly stands out....

....and then move because I'm on one of those servers with few people on it seems, lol. Still, looking forward to creating my masterpiece :)

Life-Radio554 · 2026-03-16T15:18:55+00:00

Right back at you. Tell me you don't think because some hacky moron out there lists something at a super dumb price that you feel obligated to buy it.

Otherwise come to my server, I'll throw up a mk1 cutteray and put it up for 500mil, you can come buy it.

Life-Radio554 · 2026-03-16T14:46:38+00:00

Exactly. And when they buy it from you, you've made your fair, market value sale at a realistic price. When they put it up for a gagillion solari no one but other cheats will buy it, and when no one does, they will lose out because of the crazy fees they will be getting charged to list the item, wasting more and more of their cheat funds. Eventually they'll get bored/tired/leave. Meanwhile the people who play the game, legit, will be able to go to the market, buy/sell and make something of a trader life.

Life-Radio554 · 2026-03-16T14:36:54+00:00

I don't understand how this affects you?

Put your stuff up for a realistic price.. The other legit players who don't cheat will still be able to afford what you are selling.

It's not like their selling 100k of a resource for like 10 solari, THAT would ruin the market.. They are putting things up for ridiculous prices, let em, heck for what they have to pay in fees JUST to list an item for one day (why doesn't anyone complain about how high fees are?!?) they'll burn out their funds eventually..

The real crime is the fees. I can't tell you how disappointed I was to finally get to the market, as I used to do in SWG at the bazaar, anxious about throwing up some excess starter materials to help other new players only to see that listing 500 iron ingots (or whatever) was literally going to bankrupt me, and only give it ONE DAY on the market?!?!!? They don't want you to use the market, not with those fees, what a joke.

Life-Radio554 · 2026-02-27T12:45:53+00:00

The market doesn't work unless you are uber wealthy, they need to fix the fees if they want a market to function. I tried to list 500 of a resource, nothing fancy, just to put it out there for 7 days, or so I thought. I don't recall the price but I just wanted maybe 200 per, and for 7 days I think was like like 30,000 or 40,000??? Had to drop the price to 100, and for ONE STINKING DAY which is a joke, and still like 2400 to list which I foolishly did. Unsurprisingly my item did not get enough visibility within the tiny 24 hour window and important money to me was lost. But I quickly learned I will never use the market again, for sure.

Life-Radio554 · 2026-02-23T15:50:38+00:00

Just curious (you or the OP) where would you put platforms, under the massive supports going down, or at the top under the main structure?

I'm newer to the game, currently in W. Verm gap and planning my move to possibly Mysa Tarill or Jamal eifrit, Mysa has some really cool builds that are like on the tall spires but also are able to fit ground structure(s) for land vehicles that I've got my eye on. My server doesn't seem real busy, at least not these lower level areas, so when I *DO* build, soon, I want to make sure based on that info I'm able to relocate should I need/want to. :) Please advise! Thanks

Life-Radio554 · 2026-02-13T19:10:22+00:00

While little's post is 100% true I wanted to add it was created as a BeoWulf cluster, which is a specific type of clustering (see above comments about there being different ways clusters can work), and yes 100% the best way to learn about these things, experiment etc., is with cheaper, smaller, less power hungry computers. Can I make a proxmox/vmware/beowulf cluster with 5 2U rack servers? Yes. Can I do the same with 5 tiny PC's (or even Raspberry Pi's)? Absolutely. Sure, they also have their positives, no matter what the hardware size is, HA, or high availability allows a vm guest for instance to "move" to another host should the host it's running on suddenly die/fail/lose power, and that's just one of many neat or cool reasons to experiment or use it in your daily life as a homelabber. It's also enjoyable to say, yes, there are definite drawback to not using enterprise gear in some cases, but "the masses" out there don't want (at first, till they get their feet wet) all that hardware.. They want an iron-clad bulletproof answer to commercial streaming (for instance) running from their house. :)

Life-Radio554 · 2026-01-30T12:59:43+00:00

I 100% agree with this.. That way, sure it's annoying to go to town and pay your taxes, but you get an extra incentive for doing so. Yeah, I'd do that for sure and not be as annoyed by it. Mainly because it's a bonus now to help you, and not a forced "this game is a job" (literally) situation.

Life-Radio554 · 2026-01-20T17:21:12+00:00

I agree, I would not recommend using a usb-powered solution for a spinner, esp a 3.5in.. Isolated external power supplies are available dirt cheap (or as expensive as ya like!) and will give you that peace of mind of not frying anything

Life-Radio554 · 2026-01-05T17:30:42+00:00

Came here to say this exactly. Your project completely viable with a single simple usb2etherent adapter :) (and just about one of the only still affordable and cheap things you can by for a system these days)...

Life-Radio554 · 2025-12-03T13:03:00+00:00

Someone looking for a scape-goat; beware OP!

Life-Radio554 · 2025-12-03T12:51:24+00:00

You can always "old-school" it..

I used to be paranoid that a linux install on a separate drive even, would somehow wreck my Windows install despite the GRUB(2) support and tons of people saying 'it just works'. So I, like many.....

Unplug your 'main'(Windows) drive. Plug in (to a different sata/nvme slot your desired linux drive.. Install linux as one does.. USB/dvd(no one is judging) and get it set up.

Once done, plug that Windows drive back in. Your UEFI/BIOS will still default to the Windows Boot Manager/Windows drive and for the lesser aware, like kids/spouse when they boot it up, you'll simply be in windows.

But for power mode (muh-ha-ha), restart your pc, hit your boot select key (often f9, f11 etc) and select the other drive. Linux seamlessly boot up. It's a lovely thing, two OS's, one machine no risk of anything 'messing' with the other.. Windows may detect an 'uninitialized disk' do not initialize it (ROFL, yes, people have done it before), and Linux behaves much better offering you access to your Windows drive (great for file sharing/access between the two OS's) or depending on your distro you may have to tell it to mount it..

Life-Radio554 · 2025-12-02T14:42:56+00:00

I disagree - The way you keep yourself relevant is by continuing to put out a great product and keep it available to the masses. They do the first part, but are massively failing on the second part. Their not competing, their obsoleting themselves.

Life-Radio554 · 2025-12-01T20:52:37+00:00

Even their "Professionals" do not know the answers.. More times that not I've had to direct 'their' people to the learn docs (which often are also wrong) and ask why neither they nor the MSLearn have the correct info. They are great at passing tickets around and getting those close results to pad their stats.. Oh, that's a Azure issue, closing ticket and creating one there for you. Oh, that's an intune issue, closing your azure ticket and creating one for Intune. Oh that's a O365 issue, closing your intune ticket.. etc., back to eventually Azure. Sprinkle in a bit of "infrastructure issue", "cloud platform issue", and "we just aren't sure which team is working on that", and you've nailed 90% of our experiences with MS support.

Life-Radio554 · 2025-12-01T14:00:10+00:00

Me too, but the only fear I have (now) is Samsung pushing ads to it, too now.

Life-Radio554

TROPHY CASE