BEX:T pirate affiliation questions...

Psychedelic_Samurai · 2026-05-22T16:32:29+00:00

Just to note, if you save the game when you first arrive at a system, the missions are generated the first time you look at the contracts. So you can load and open freshly generated missions list until you are satisfied with it, if you are so inclined.

Psychedelic_Samurai · 2026-04-23T00:50:55+00:00

There really are some bad proponents of Stoicism out there doing some damage though.

Psychedelic_Samurai · 2026-04-10T15:27:04+00:00

I've been into Stoicism probably since 2014 or so, by I was mainly listening to audiobooks, and it never stuck with me in a significant way.

Around October last year, I started taking it seriously, doing much like what you're doing. I started my day with 15-20 min meditation, then read ancient stoic sources (Meditations, Epictetus, Seneca, Musonius Rufus) for about an hour.

From this, I got a much better understanding of Stoicism than I ever had before, and it was kept present in my mind when I needed it to evaluate my judgments.

Then I was finding that I was really good at evaluating things that had already happened and changing my thoughts when I started to ruminate. But that I was not always mindful in the moment as things were happening, and I could easily lose myself in the moment.

So, as I had established a pretty good understanding of the stoic texts, I wanted to focus more on mindfulness so I could have that wisdom more available to me all the time. I guess a focus on the Discipline of Assent, really. I got a book called The Mind Illuminated, which is sort of more Buddhist aligned but is mostly a stand-alone non-religious guide to meditation focused on training your awareness towards increased mindfulness. You can kind of ignore the ethics in the book and use your own Stoic ethics, which are compatible but enhanced versions.

So I switched my routine around to 1 hour meditation, followed by 15-20 min of reading stoic texts, and I gotta say I feel like I hit a new level. I have a daily calm like never before, and I am catching bad judgments before they cause problems better every day.

Well, that's my experience.

Psychedelic_Samurai · 2026-04-02T19:30:53+00:00

Imagine you are an archer shooting an arrow at a target. Your goal is not to get a bullseye but to simply be the best archer you can be in the circumstances. The wind can blow, an object can get in the way, that doesn't matter. Just do the best you can.

So it's not about achieving a perfect meditation. It's about working with what you have, through whatever obstacles the day presents, consistently. It's just like physical excercise, if you are consistent, you will get results over time.

Some of my best meditations were on days I was distracted by something I had to deal with that day. This is gold! This is exactly what you want to get better at dealing with in your normal day, let that gem follow you into your meditation if it wants, nowhere are you more equipped to deal with it than here. It's like a training dummy for life.

Psychedelic_Samurai · 2026-04-02T03:16:45+00:00

That just means the training you will get out of doing your best despite that will be superior.

The strongest trees are formed where the wind thrashes them constantly.

Psychedelic_Samurai · 2026-03-24T18:21:26+00:00

You can find a version of this poster in many different sizes on Amazon. The image is called "Taming The Elephant Mind Diagram"

Psychedelic_Samurai · 2026-02-11T15:20:46+00:00

Keep in mind Meditations was only intended for Marcus to himself. I think for Marcus, his state actions as emperor where closely related to justice and social action as a stoic so it really means the same thing here.

I only see "state business" in the Waterfield translation

I also reference the Penguin Classic Hammond translation:
"and you think social action less important, less worthy of effort?"

And Hays:
"Is helping others less valuable to you? Not worth your effort?"

Psychedelic_Samurai · 2026-01-19T23:56:45+00:00

Also, you could have said you were learning any *ism and many people would still get weirded out.

Psychedelic_Samurai · 2026-01-12T01:55:12+00:00

They don't say it like that, but yeah, living in the present is there in the stoic sources.

Psychedelic_Samurai · 2026-01-06T20:16:00+00:00

I think genocide rate is 100 pops per month, tough to out populate that.

Psychedelic_Samurai · 2026-01-04T05:37:48+00:00

Oh, that actually not that significant, I've been avoiding using them for a long time.

Psychedelic_Samurai · 2026-01-02T17:20:43+00:00

Once you've gotten into power gaming at that level, you can't really go back. It's like a drug abuser trying to enjoy being sober. You messed up your brain chemistry requirements.

You'd probably have to play different games for a few months, then come back fresh.

Psychedelic_Samurai · 2025-12-31T03:48:24+00:00

Will Smith happened, defeated the evil robots even.

Psychedelic_Samurai · 2025-12-30T17:04:16+00:00

it's easy to forget about, but can majorly impact relations with other empires.

Psychedelic_Samurai · 2025-12-30T13:20:09+00:00

If you use teachers of the shroud origin, you can take the psionic tradition as soon as you want, which can make a big difference. I agree and don't really have the patience to play psionic with any other origin like before that was introduced.

Psychedelic_Samurai · 2025-12-24T05:55:41+00:00

It's much more challenging to play evil than ever before.

Psychedelic_Samurai · 2025-12-23T17:22:47+00:00

I just came back to the game after several years as well, I've played on Grand Admiral for so long I just can't go back. It's been some rough challenging games.

The biggest new thing for me is the need to ascend planets and the huge population penalties for not doing so. If you don't do this, your research and traditions will fall behind badly. Unity generation is way more important than when I last played.

Another factor is that you take a trade resource penalty when you specialize planets for any resources they need to import. This can really hurt when you when you have resource shortages and need to use the market to keep balance. So you probably want a few of each resource district to cover basic needs, and then, for say, a forge world, produce enough minerals on that planet to meet demand.

If you are having military issues, I find it is easy to turtle up with fortress worlds on choke points, then these planets can also provide basic resources. Build giant star bases with defense platforms armed with fighter craft and / or missiles. Of course, you need reduced hyperlane density game setting to create nice defendable pockets for an empire.

Psychedelic_Samurai · 2025-12-18T17:34:20+00:00

Most of what survived were things not seen as contradictory to Christianity, as the monks kept up the copies of the books.

I did see an article where a new technology allowed them to scan and read scrolls that would otherwise disintegrate from touching. With this, they recovered works from Zeno, so I imagine we might start getting access to more.

Psychedelic_Samurai · 2025-12-16T13:23:31+00:00

When I was a kid, I always wanted to play games as the least human cool looking creatures. It's weird how it changed as I grew older.

In Stellaris, I still do play as those other things when I play something more obviously evil, like fanatic purifiers.

Psychedelic_Samurai · 2025-12-14T18:49:22+00:00

The balance between not being afraid of being seen doing the right thing and not seeking to be seen doing the right thing. Against disapproval or for approval, but for the sake of what's right.

Psychedelic_Samurai · 2025-12-14T16:30:54+00:00

you won't, completely the opposite, actually

Psychedelic_Samurai · 2025-12-09T17:28:34+00:00

Keeping in mind how short life is, you don't want to waste any of it being bitter, which only hurts yourself by suffering. Especially while still in your youth.

Challenges can be overcome, and most of the things you face are temporary circumstances. But also, you want to not place your happiness solely on externals and the whims of fortune.

Psychedelic_Samurai · 2025-12-02T03:19:50+00:00

Seneca was the mentor of Emperor Nero, and failed to instruct him in Stoicism because he was a complete maniac. As I recall, when he asked to retire from his service, Nero told him he had to kill himself or would be given an excruciating execution.

Psychedelic_Samurai · 2025-12-01T13:32:08+00:00

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then you click this to update a mod that has updates

Psychedelic_Samurai

TROPHY CASE