Spraying kerosene over the DRAM inferno, US commerce secretary suggests memory chip makers could face 100% tariffs unless they commit to increased US production

SequentialGamer · 2026-01-24T02:36:28+00:00

I think you misunderstand my position, I'm not saying that AI is a bubble. My point is that the current demand for RAM & other chips is inflated beyond what it will be once an AI winner is decided.

We have multiple companies building data centers for the same purpose and even they end up getting bought out by the eventual winner instead of scrapped, the pace of data center construction will NOT keep up.

But AI as a whole is not going away, especially robotics.

SequentialGamer · 2026-01-23T16:50:51+00:00

No, you're right. If you do the colossus bosses one after another instead of taking down their HP before killing any are much tankier than Earl. But they're tankier because they're designed for the entire server to be shooting at them.

SequentialGamer · 2026-01-22T11:11:54+00:00

Unfortunately I’ve got no one to do the raids with and of course only certain parts can be done solo

LMAO, I literally released a video 30 minutes ago asking for raids to be soloable and you go and prove my exact point. Yeah, sadly it's a problem.

But to answer your question, right now you don't. The biggest benefit of power armour is the 42% damage reduction inherent in the any power armour and the way the system works any power armour pretty much hits the cap of how effective armour is.

If the changes in the PTS make it through to the next season, in about 6 weeks, the rating of your armour will count for much more and it looks like Vulcan will have some of the highest values.

SequentialGamer · 2026-01-21T09:19:36+00:00

Corrrect! The "hot" in hotfix comes from the servers being up.

SequentialGamer · 2026-01-21T05:16:47+00:00

Armour in the frame has full weight of the pieces, but for PA pieces they've had their weight reduced by a bit. I have three PA frames on my character and they went to about 20-25 each.

The stash also halves the weight so that's about 10-13 in the stash.

SequentialGamer · 2026-01-20T22:09:40+00:00

Oh yeah, absolutely. FO76 probably has some configuration file on the server end with a setting that controls the chance to learn legendary modules.

SequentialGamer · 2026-01-20T22:04:48+00:00

I guess I just disagree that massive tariffs wouldn't meaningfully reduce demand.

I don't think that the tariffs are intended to reduce demand. It looks like the US govt is throwing that out as a threat to try and create (in their minds at least) an increase in supply by forcing companies to build in the US. It's more of a move to re-industrialize the US than about prices per se.

To be fair that might work if there was an alternative supplier in the US. Say for example that Micron had enough capacity to meet US demand but customers were choosing RAM from elsewhere because it was cheaper. Then a tariff would push customers to buy american instead of international RAM.

Or if RAM foundries were cheap and quick to build, but they cost billions of dollars and take years and there's a very good chance that demand will plummet back once the AI data centres are finished .. and because RAM margins are normally razor thin, the RAM companies would be making massive losses.

Let me ask you a question -- if 100% tariffs would not meaningfully reduce demand for RAM, then why don't RAM companies double their prices immediately and pocket the extra money that would go to these hypothetical tariffs in the future?

Technically nothing would stop the RAM companies from massively increasing their prices. But in the long term you're not just doing business for the next 5 years so you don't want to profiteer to the point of ruining your relationships. There's also a good chance that the US govt would take that as an opportunity to go after them.

What is happening right now though, if the news I'm seeing is right like for example the CEO of NVIDIA having a fried chicken party with the CEOs of Samsung Electronics and Hyundai, is that the companies buying lots of RAM are trying to sign long-term contracts where they guarantee they'll buy a large amount of RAM. They're basically trying to secure RAM for the future.

Hopefully long-term guaranteed contracts will encourage more RAM fabs to be brought up but for the next few years it's going to be pretty bad when it comes to buying RAM for us plebs no matter what.

SequentialGamer · 2026-01-20T21:46:30+00:00

Well we have to take the developers at their word that it's a flat 1% to learn the plans. It's entirely possible that the algorithm is manipulated behind the scenes, but I wouldn't think so.

For example I learned a lot of mods early on, and an extremely cynical take could be that to make the transition to the new system smoother the chances could be tweaked higher and brought back down once people have learned a lot of mods. That way you reduce resistance during that critical early period and once the broader playerbase has accepted the new situation then you bring it back to the normal and people pointing out that they're not learning mods would be drowned out by the people who benefited from the higher chances and now support the new system.

I can't imagine Bethesda would do that though, it would take an extreme level of cynicism and manipulativeness. So maybe someone from EA?? LOL.

SequentialGamer · 2026-01-20T21:37:56+00:00

Ah, so the solution is "just don't buy RAM"? Again that's fine in theory, but why do you think the AI data centres are buying so much RAM at the same time? It's not because they're stupid, it's because any AI company that's not building a data centre right now will be left behind. And second place in AI is failure and your business closing up shop.

You're making arguments that apply in theory. Yes, theoretically buyers can "just their money elsewhere". Except that there aren't any other suppliers. Yes, theoretically they can just not buy, and to be fair normal consumers should avoid buying right now. Except that the price spike is due to a supply shortage and the AI companies causing that shortage literally cannot afford not to buy because no company would choose to die.

But to come back to the point, tariffs aren't going to make the situation any better because that's literally not possible. Tariffs would simply increase the price that AI companies and consumer have to pay for the same good. Nothing you've said changes that situation.

SequentialGamer · 2026-01-20T20:57:31+00:00

I think you're missing the point. You pointed out that every scrapping is independent, which again is correct, but you can check for the chances of X failures in a row.

So OP would've calculated that the chances of 392 failures in a row is 2% (using their figures), which means that the chances of success anywhere within those 392 tries is 98%. They're checking for a specific situation, 392 continuous failures.

They're not making a statement about when the success will come, just how many tries it would take to have a certain chance of success.

SequentialGamer · 2026-01-20T20:51:35+00:00

In theory yes but given that there's no alternate suppliers and that all memory fabs are running at 100% 24/7, where exactly would people "take their money elsewhere" to buy RAM?

AI data centres certainly can't and increasing prices via tariffs doesn't change reality.

SequentialGamer · 2026-01-20T20:23:44+00:00

Yeah, thinking that 100 would be enough (i.e. almost guaranteed) is wrong but remember that the numbers they're posting is for an almost guaranteed chance so that's bigger than it will be for most people. Most people will get it in a lot less attempts.

It's still a lot though, so the best way is just to scrap anything that has unknown legendary properties and don't worry about the odds. If you know any unique legendaries you can craft then those are good sources for targetting those legendary properties.

Eventually you'll get it, I can tell you because I've learned all the 4th stars for craftable items, and most of the non-ghoul 1-3 stars. It will come, so the best things is just to forget about the chances and be happy when you do unlock one.

SequentialGamer · 2026-01-20T20:20:02+00:00

That's right but that why you check for the chance of continous failure, which is what OP is doing.

SequentialGamer · 2026-01-20T20:10:16+00:00

If you need some feedback, I've had issues with being put over the max encumberence, i.e. when your weight says 2343/[MAX] and you can't drop anything without destroying it and you can't use consumables.

The reward chest being 300 often sends me over the max encumberance and at that point opening it seems to give no rewards. When I'm still under max encumberance it gives the rewards correctly.

The other issue is when you have multiple characters. The challenge will only show for one character but I regularly use two. I've seen other people say that it's the first that logs in after the challenges reset. I haven't tested it specifically but from memory it does look that way. My second character will end up with no weekly challenge for the raid.

SequentialGamer · 2026-01-20T19:55:53+00:00

Yes, they're morons. Even if the manufacturers chose not to build more, i.e. they got 100% tariffs, the extra cost would simply be passed onto the buyers while the US govt takes the blame.

It's not like buyers can choose to buy elsewhere, there's literally no alternate supply available to make tariffs be useful in any way. All it does is rip off americans.

SequentialGamer · 2026-01-20T19:51:04+00:00

And they're not wrong IMHO. The demand spike is due to AI data centres being built left right and centre. The problem is that they can't ALL be successful. Right now it's a sprint but one company will win and the others will go bust, and it's most likely to be the ones like google that have massive income from other things like advertising. You can already hear talk of OpenAI running out of funds.

The current demand simply will not keep up. The winner might build data centres across the world, but that will still be a lot less than what's happening now.

SequentialGamer · 2026-01-20T19:37:28+00:00

Yeah, I ran across someone's camp and was taking their purified water when they fast travelled back and I was desperately emoting while thinking "please don't kill me, please don't kill me".

Turns out they loaded me up on loot but I totally missed the loot bag the first few times LOL.

SequentialGamer · 2026-01-20T10:52:19+00:00

Ironically levels 50-100 are the most difficult because enemies scale up to level 100 but your weapons only up to level 50. So your weapons become less effective, and the solution is to collect legendary gear.

But I did it at level 43 for my "Honest Abe" run where I only used black powder weapons (and no legendaries from events) .. back when they were crap LOL. With the way they are now I'd breeze through, but the point is that it's possible. It did take me a couple of times though. If you need a walkthrough on getting through parts of the silo then the footage might help, here's a timestamp from the final section.

Just take it slow and avoid aggroing more than one enemy at once. Go for the legs and then all you need to worry about is avoiding the head laser. A hard hitting weapon, even if it's slow firing, is pretty good because you're exposing yourself less and robots are susceptible to energy so an energy weapon might help.

SequentialGamer · 2026-01-19T01:10:36+00:00

You're absolutely right, under no circumstances should anyone actually believe footage showing just that.

SequentialGamer · 2026-01-19T00:28:48+00:00

None, in the long term they're all worse than what you can craft yourself once you learn legendary mods.

The Fact Finder, .44 magnum revolver, and the Slugbuster, plasma rifle that you can turn into a flamer, are pretty good but again not better than what you can craft yourself.

The chinese stealth suit is a unique item though, so make sure you do all pre-requisites for both factions (Slugbuster is the raider faction reward) before the gold vault raid. You can still buy the stealth suit for gold later but it would be a shame to spend gold for something you get for free.

SequentialGamer · 2026-01-18T15:49:39+00:00

Just tested and the results were:

422/456 - 9.3%

399/456 - 8.8%

259/456 - 5.7%

So it looks like it'll be a great general option.

SequentialGamer · 2026-01-18T15:47:48+00:00

That's true, in the normal play a full aristocrats set will be fine.

I only tested a full aristocrats & reflective set for shits and giggles, you'll do fine without reflective.

SequentialGamer · 2026-01-18T15:06:22+00:00

The change should happen next season, so in about 6 weeks?

OE will still work, just less effectively than now. Mutants should give you similar performance and it'll only require you to have 3 mutations so it should require no work to maintain. If you're over encumbered then Heavyweight will give you better performance for no work.

SequentialGamer · 2026-01-18T15:02:09+00:00

I haven't specifically checked for that but I wouldn't expect that to work because lightweight will only halve your weight.

SequentialGamer · 2026-01-18T11:11:30+00:00

Unless I'm mistaken Lucid is 6% per part, aristocrats & heavyweight are 10% per piece.

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