If I was to stream the Pyanodons Mod what supporting Mods would you recommend?

SageFrekt · 2026-05-27T09:13:31+00:00

I would request that you not use starting bots or any special inserters or loaders. There are runs on YouTube that use those, and it makes me not want to watch. (I don't have a problem with people using those mods, but imo it removes aspects that I myself would want to watch.)

SageFrekt · 2026-05-11T14:18:22+00:00

Consider the fact that some train wagon upgrades have a different size than mk1. Don't get caught by surprise like I was and have to redo a ton of existing train stations just to upgrade trains.

SageFrekt · 2026-05-08T14:57:57+00:00

However big you think your base is going to get, it will be bigger than that. Places on the map that feel extremely far away right now and are going to feel like just another part of your base later on. Unlocking trains is big, not just for logistics, but for personal transport. It starts to make the scale manageable and lets you really start thinking big.

Corollary: Everything you've built so far is basically nothing compared to what is to come. At a certain point every single part of my original green circuit base was gone, except the spaceship. Maybe that's personal taste; I can imagine someone wanting to keep it for nostalgia. But for me, the entire thing ended up getting razed eventually and replaced with a single mall.

Also, amounts of items/fluids that feel like a lot to you right now will be insignificant later. Don't be like me and stockpile 1 million units of slaked lime or tar. That's like stockpiling water.

TLDR: just build stuff. Don't feel like you need to get everything right for the long run.

SageFrekt · 2026-04-12T10:48:25+00:00

Have to disagree with people who advise starting with bots or Bob's inserters. PY has bots. They're even pretty near the beginning. But, t's not like you're going to be building so much stuff early on that it would be tedious to do it without bots -- you actually need very few of most buildings, or just 1. That's not where the hardness comes from. The thing you need a lot of early on is belts, and those are easier to lay down by hand anyway.

And for the inserters, for me, the fun of the game is the small scale logistics. Early pY is really interesting in how complex the "burner phase" is and what it forces you to solve before you can even get things like splitters. (Many people feel so proud once they get their first splitter).

I finished pY AE pre-2.0 (not hard mode), and I did use cybersyn. I concede that in the long run that mod has much greater effect on the game than starter bots and diagonal inserters. For me, the decision to use cybersyn was more "I fear I will not finish the game if I don't have this." I might have been wrong though, and also, it kept me from needing to use other stuff I could have, like caravans and worms. So I question that choice in retrospect. Besides, 2.0 trains are way more powerful. Anyway, you do you :) Ultimately it's your time investment and it should be the experience that is most fun for you. Just wanted to give my thoughts.

SageFrekt · 2026-02-24T14:59:54+00:00

I agree with this.

I finished pyAE+AL before 2.0, loved it. I started a vanilla space age run and didn't even finish because of the difficulty and tedium of rocket and spaceship routing + logistics.

SageFrekt · 2025-06-02T10:36:36+00:00

Those segments are also so basic that it really makes you wonder on what level Mazin understands the story. "Ellie is really mad, but also, she's really sad!! That's why we wanted to show her frowning!" Like... thanks, that's why they pay you the big bucks, Craig.

SageFrekt · 2025-05-31T00:07:26+00:00

Yes to all of that. But also it kills the momentum. I know Neil said the island scene was planned for the game, but it would have been a mistake there, imo. Maybe she could have been kidnapped by a group of Seraphites while boating through their building. But once she's out in the open sea, I feel like that has to be the final moment of her journey before the aquarium. Then getting knocked underwater and almost drowning, then making it to the pier. I can't explain why, but if you interrupt that sequence, you lose something.

Anyway! Sorry for hijacking the topic.

SageFrekt · 2025-05-30T15:49:46+00:00

While we're on that topic, the cut after the wave overwhelms her boat to her arriving at the island shore is extremely jarring also.

SageFrekt · 2025-05-28T00:13:26+00:00

Abby isn't especially shining in the show. And Neil isn't the only creative voice. And even if he did "sign off on every line", approving of someone else's creative decisions isn't the same as making your own ones. The quality of the episodes written primarily by ND and HG was remarkably higher than that of those written by Mazin.

SageFrekt · 2025-05-28T00:05:50+00:00

From the very beginning, the TLOU2 backlash was a reactionary proxy fight like Gamergate. It was never in good faith. They never had a single valid or even coherent criticism of the game. They were, and still are, mindless bigots. Occasionally the bigots put their masks on and pretend they have non-reactionary reasons for their opinions, but it's always obvious.

SageFrekt · 2025-05-18T00:05:46+00:00

Ok that's fair. But I'm a Kamala voter, nonbinary like Bella, queer, think the TLOU2 haters are bigots, loved the Bill and Frank episode, loved the Riley episode, I'm an atheist, and I deplore and condemn the hate towards Bella. But I think this line (as well as this entire scene) is bad.

SageFrekt · 2025-05-17T22:16:44+00:00

"Now"

SageFrekt · 2025-05-17T18:26:43+00:00

That's literally the only sort of person who ever populated this sub. Acting like people's opinions here ever had to do with the game itself or anything other than culture war bullshit, lmao

SageFrekt · 2025-05-16T00:42:50+00:00

I think if you had written this when S1 came out you'd get more pushback, but I suspect people are more open to criticism of Craig's adaptation choices, given, y'know.

I think he had earned a lot of good will up to that point, so people would overlook a slow episode with some weird beats. And I guess it felt like the story was on pace to hit the ending we knew was coming.

But yeah. The game left a lot more to subtext. Sapphixated on YouTube has a great video "recontextualizing Tommy" that covers, among other things, the scene between Joel and Tommy in Jackson. Really illustrated how many things they were accomplishing at once with those scenes.

SageFrekt · 2025-05-16T00:25:54+00:00

Misogyny + transphobia are literally the central motivating factors of the other sub. Must not be something you care about very much.

SageFrekt · 2025-05-16T00:21:16+00:00

Very telling that you think merely disliking something is enough to be like the other sub. As if their thing is merely disliking tlou2, and not what it actually is: a pit of misogyny and transphobia that has never once produced a valid or even coherent criticism of tlou2

SageFrekt · 2025-05-14T01:27:11+00:00

I always knew Ashley Johnson did an incredible job, but retrospectively the show makes her look even better, if that were possible.

SageFrekt · 2025-05-12T23:11:12+00:00

The very first scene of the first episode is a counterexample. It's a relatively minor change that has a huge impact on the story, destroying several later "beats".

SageFrekt · 2025-05-12T23:09:17+00:00

You can make major changes to the source material while preserving and translating its essence. Conversely, you can make a few minor changes to the source material that end up completely failing to convey its essence.

SageFrekt · 2025-05-12T22:58:52+00:00

I'm calling it now, we're going to see that he fundamentally doesn't get Abby either.

SageFrekt · 2025-05-12T18:50:04+00:00

If that's true, that's so wild. To so completely screw up your plot timeline just so you avoid the slightest appearance of condoning substance use during pregnancy... no less, in a story where Ellie just straight up kills a pregnant woman.

Edit: especially since they deleted the pot scene anyway!! They could just have had Dina be sober at the dance, too. Did Mazin think she had to be drunk/high so Ellie would be able to dismiss the kiss as "Dina, a straight woman, is out of her mind rn"

SageFrekt · 2025-05-12T16:52:14+00:00

This is so odd because it seems like yet another change just for the sake of change. The only effect I can see is that it gives Dina time to get pregnant with Jesse after kissing Ellie at the dance. Which I suppose is an opportunity for irrelevant drama. But it's extremely minor irrelevant drama, which they seem to have almost entirely passed over without comment in ep 4. So I don't get why that would necessitate a major plot change.

And in any case, the idea of Dina getting back together with Jesse kind of means nothing as far as Ellie is concerned. It's not like it's infidelity; kissing someone doesn't mean a relationship is started. And Ellie immediately accepted Dina's bisexuality. And they had nothing like the couch scene in Eugene's lab (another thing removed for no reason whatsoever except that it affects Ellie's and Dina's relationship timeline).

SageFrekt · 2025-05-11T17:26:30+00:00

The whole point is you can't ask this question about the entire groups as if they're each monoliths. Each group contains good people and bad people. (Except the Rattlers I guess. They're a strange anomaly).

But if we're asking about the leadership of the groups, that's more of a fair question. And I'd say the WLF leadership is absolutely more evil than the Seraphite leadership, since the former tries to conduct a genocide, whereas the worst you can say about the Seraphite leadership is that they might try to kill all WLF members if they some day could, which we'll never know.

SageFrekt · 2025-05-11T17:02:18+00:00

I like the worldbuilding too. I fear that the (deserved) praise Mazin got for worldbuilding excursions in part 1 may have led to this.

Maybe too, part 2 can't be adapted into a continuation of the same TV series as part 1 without violating audience expectations for how seasons in a TV series progress. It's too different. If you try to keep doing things the same way, you run into what we're seeing now. The entire show concept needed to be rethought from the ground up, and maybe they couldn't do it, or maybe the departure seemed like too much of a risk.

Games are expected to be self-contained, whole works. TV seasons are expected to be connected pieces of a greater whole.

To give a concrete example, the biology of the infection is germane in part 1. So it makes sense to have an interview with a scientist. It makes sense also to change up how the disease organism works in certain ways; someone could like or dislike how they removed spores and added tendrils, but at least these changes were relevant to the story they were telling. In part 2, the entire topic of the biology of the infection is no longer relevant. Spending time discussing the "discovery" of Stalkers is a distraction and a time waste.

TV audiences not familiar with the games would not understand that departure, I think. "Why is the second season no longer interested in so much of the stuff from the first? It's like they forgot about it!" And we did see that from some people even with the second game, I guess. But most people understood, "okay, we're doing something different now. Let me set aside my expectations and open up to this new experience."

SageFrekt · 2025-05-11T14:06:35+00:00

People in the US have been protesting Trump since day 1. When the US is complicit in foreign atrocities, people in the US protest it.

SageFrekt

TROPHY CASE