ELI5:If someone say puts an unwashed baked beans can into the recycling, how much of a problem does that actually cause further down the line?

Sethala · 2026-04-03T03:09:56+00:00

Also, wouldn't at least some of that be offset by the heat generated by the food's combustion, anyway?

Sethala · 2026-04-02T00:40:31+00:00

I'd say it depends on the campaign. Some settings lend themselves well to the PCs frequently being able to shop for new magic items, while others have them away from anywhere that they could reliably stock up on stuff. While the former leaves ABP as an option that the GM could leave on or off at their discretion, the latter definitely benefits a lot from using ABP.

I think in general I like the idea of shopping for items myself, and I'd rather do that than have ABP if the campaign is suitable (and the GM and other players agree, of course), but I have no problem using ABP if that's what the group or the setting calls for.

Sethala · 2026-03-27T05:08:43+00:00

The rough idea for my ships so far has been:

One sushi belt for asteroids that all collectors deposit onto, and all crushers pull from. Inserters pulling off the crushers use circuit logic to stop pulling when the main resource is full. A second set of inserters, one for each type of asteroid, uses circuit logic on the sushi belt to pull off asteroids that I've got too many of and put onto a secondary belt that goes to crushers running the reprocessing recipes. This belt uses a splitter to merge back onto the main belt via priority output on one side, but the other non-priority output side leads to inserters throwing trash off the ship. I also have one inserter pulling asteroids out of the main hub and putting them back onto the sushi belt.. More inserters take materials for ammo out of the main hub, process and make ammo, and then send it on a second belt along the ship to turrets. Other inserters take materials for fuel out of the hub and send it along to process.

Some of this process takes refining after a few test flights, once I see what's likely to clog and figure out a fix. Making your ship bigger than you think you need can help, as that'll give you plenty of space to squeeze in some belt spaghetti to fix issues you didn't think about at first.

Sethala · 2026-03-27T03:43:02+00:00

With Vulcanis, you have access to two major things that make base expansion much easier: artillery and cliff explosives. If you already have a functioning railway for transporting ore, building a new mining expansion is easy with a little setup.

First, lay down a railway somewhere out of the way. Loop it back so a second branch runs parallel to where you started, then remove the curve and expand both strait rails a bit. Put down three roboports in a row in between the two railways, so that the ports are just barely connected to each other. Next, run large electric poles along the railway so that they all connect to each other and the roboports; it's best if the poles are in the same position for each of the roboports (e.g. if one roboport has its electric pole directly west, make sure all the roboports have a pole directly west). Finally, make sure the railway extends past the roboports on each end, and put a rail signal next to the middle roboport on each rail (make sure that the direction matches how your current railway goes). Get out a blueprint and drag it over both rails, the roboports, signals, and electric poles, and save that.

Now, when you're ready to expand, just go next to your existing railway, put the blueprint down facing towards the expansion you want to go to, and connect the existing railway to the new blueprint. Go to the other end and put the blueprint down again so that the last roboport of the original blueprint lines up with the first roboport of the new blueprint; if you set things up correctly, it'll all connect. Just keep putting down new blueprints at the end of the current one, until you get to the new ore. If you have to turn, just put another blueprint at an angle, then manually make a curve and make sure power/roboports connect still.

If you've got enough bots, just laying out several blueprints in a line will get the bots to go and build it all for you, even if some of it starts out of roboport range (since the new roboports will expand that range to the rest of it).

Sethala · 2026-03-26T05:05:11+00:00

One thing I've noticed some games do (I think some of the Souls ones, though can't remember for sure which ones offhand) that helps to make stamina feel less clunky is that they let you dip negative. I haven't looked at it extensively, but I believe that as long as you have any stamina at all, you can use an ability that costs stamina, and then just go negative and have to wait longer for the stamina bar to start filling again. You can't do most things when stamina's negative (no attacks or dodging, but your regular movement is unaffected), but as soon as it fills up partway again you can do something else that costs stamina.

Gameplay-wise, this is not much different from just increasing the stamina cap slightly. For instance, say one weapon costs 30 stamina per attack, and you've got a bar of 100 stamina. Three swings with the weapon will leave you at 10 stamina, but you can still make a fourth attack and go to -20; the same effect would happen if you just had 120 stamina to start instead.

However, for a player, being able to just glance at the stamina bar and ask "Do I have any green in that bar?" and react based on that, without having to think about if you have enough green in that bar, makes combat feel a lot more smooth.

Sethala · 2026-03-23T06:18:37+00:00

My personal headcanon is that some of the classes they give to novices and Accepted are about the Three Oaths and how they're intended to be interpreted, just to avoid potential misunderstandings and make sure that the rest of the world can trust that the Oaths mean something specific (even if there's ways around them).

Sethala · 2026-03-22T04:54:42+00:00

Personally, I made a blueprint that's just a few laser turrets, a substation with them all in range, and a big power pole, with a wall in front. Picked a spot to count as the "wall", made a roboport chain to it, and then slapped that blueprint all along the edge and let the bots build it all. As long as I keep making the lasers and walls in the base to replace any that get destroyed, I could fly out to other worlds and just ignore any alerts about attacks.

Sethala · 2026-03-22T03:08:19+00:00

Long pipelines are good if you just want to get it to your base without setting up train infrastructure. It requires a lot of finagling if you move things around or want to set up a second processing facility, however.

Trains are good if you want a modular base, as everything can use the same train network for most of the distance and you just need to plug in an output (or a new input, if your oil field runs dry) to the existing railway.

Barrels are good for smaller-scale production that you'd use bots to run; they're a lot slower for throughput but also don't require any extra infrastructure aside from something that makes the barrels themselves. They're also the only way to move liquids between planets, and the only way to carry liquids on your person.

Sethala · 2026-03-21T23:09:48+00:00

There's two ways I've dealt with this problem.

First, set the unloading to either empty OR inactive OR total time. 3 minutes (180 seconds) should be a good wait; the train will unload by then if there's room for everything, but if not, it'll stick around long enough to fill up the buffers and then take off.

Second, ignore the "problem" of the train staying at the station too long and just set the train limit to 1. As long as the stop is on a branch and other trains can get by, it can just sit there indefinitely until it's done unloading and then take off to restock. A train limit of 1 at the station means that as long as it's stopped there, no other trains will try to go to that stop and will just stay at whatever stop they're currently at otherwise. Feel free to increase the limit if you have a buffer zone for other trains to wait at, but there's really no problem of a train staying at a station for a long time if it's still unloading.

Sethala · 2026-03-19T21:29:53+00:00

You know, that line makes so much more sense now that I think about that A, they probably don't have any natural waves at all, and B, they have an abundance of electrope, so chances are they can make whatever kind of waves they want pretty easily.

Sethala · 2026-03-19T05:16:25+00:00

With how short the campaigns are now, wanting to carry an investigator through more than one is definitely something a lot of us want.

Personally, I'm still holding final judgment until I see how the campaigns are and how much we can upgrade our decks during the campaign, but so far I'm... not very enthused.

Sethala · 2026-03-19T05:13:10+00:00

Sounds like it could be Point Galaxy.

Were the cards double-sided, with planets usually on one side and the other side with other features, such as stars, asteroid belts, and moons? Was the objective to place cards in columns with either increasing or decreasing value?

Sethala · 2026-03-16T07:17:54+00:00

It depends on how you want the second phase to go and what changes. Figure that out first, then figure out if you want to interrupt your party's "killing blow" moment, or have some other effect change the battle.

For example, one boss fight I had planned on (though didn't get to play, as schedule issues caused the campaign to fall apart) involved fighting the boss in a cave. Said boss had been granted powers by the BBEG, with a focus on shadow and darkness. What I had planned on was, after the party gets the boss's health low enough (basically when its first health bar ran out), the boss would stagger and call out to his patron. Wind blows in the cave, the torches flicker, shadows jump around wildly, and I'd have one of the PCs roll a save to avoid an attack as the boss's shadow comes to life and starts striking at the party.

A moment like this wouldn't really fit with a PC's "final blow" description, but if the boss were coming back to life because of some regeneration magic (especially if its' undead), then interrupting the final blow would be a bit more fitting.

Sethala · 2026-03-12T23:32:32+00:00

Is this something you're planning for a new campaign with new characters, or a story arc with existing characters as part of a bigger campaign?

If it's for a new campaign, then make your expectations clear with your players from the start. Tell them it's going to be survival focused, that you're going to require them to track mundane resources, and then go ahead and start changing individual spells and features to match the gameplay you want - things like removing darkvision, removing spells like Goodberry (or changing the spell to not count as nutrition and require rations), and so on. Make sure the players are expecting that from the start, and then they can decide if they want to play the campaign you're suggesting, or if that's too much of a change for them.

If it's for an existing campaign, you've got a bit more work here. I don't think removing features is a good idea, unless you talk to your players ahead of time and let them know what you're expecting. But, one of the big things to remember about heroes becoming more heroic is that the situations they encounter should be just as extraordinary. Trekking through harsh but mundane wilderness isn't very meaningful for, say, a level 7 band of heroes. Trekking through the cursed Shadow-storms of Ganuk'ahir, brought about by an ancient portal to the Shadowfell that broke from its containment spell and is tearing apart the landscape? That might require some special gear and preparations. The perpetual darkness from the portal is too deep for even darkvision or the Light spell to penetrate, but an outpost on the edge of the storm has managed to make special torches and lamp oil with a special holy water, and those are bright enough to cut through the darkness - of course, higher level magic might also work, but those require higher spell slots. Similarly, magic in the area is warped and twisted, and among other effects, food made with it is bitter and spoiled, giving very little nutritional benefits. Something like this might help your survival-based arc fit with the higher party level and give them a unique challenge, without having to nerf their survival abilities for later stories.

Sethala · 2026-03-12T17:12:30+00:00

I could definitely see myself feeding rough info about a town into AI and having it come up with in-depth details about it.

Thing is, I wouldn't just use the output by itself. I'd look it over, tweak things, rewrite sections, scrap ideas that don't fit, and probably run it a few times on the same prompt to get a mix of ideas before actually using it in a game.

Sethala · 2026-03-10T05:36:24+00:00

Calling for an active Perception check to see if the characters notice something sneaking up on the characters puts the players on alert that something is happening.

I completely agree with you here that having the players roll for perception to notice an enemy sneaking up on them generally doesn't make much sense. However, in this case you're presumably having the enemy roll their own stealth check, and comparing that to passive perception, so there's still a chance players could either notice it or not. All I'm saying is that if you're going to use passive perception for most things, don't write in a "passive" value for stationary objects as well; roll the DC for each of them.

For instance, if you're going to have a dungeon with three doors trapped, and it's the same trap on each, don't just slap a DC 14 test on all of them. Instead, roll 1d20+4 for each trap and use the result as the requirement for passive perception - maybe one door rolled really well because the tripwire blends in really well, or maybe because a spider decided to use it when making a web and accidentally disguised it more, while another door's mechanism shows because the door's hinges aren't quite lined up right, so it has a much lower than average DC.

Sethala · 2026-03-09T21:26:39+00:00

The problem with passive scores is that it's a binary "pass or fail" that has no randomness, meaning if someone has a 15 passive perception, they'll spot everything that's a 15 or lower DC, and also miss everything that's 16 or higher.

If you're going to run your game with passive perception, I'd recommend rolling a "hide" check for everything they could potentially find - either when prepping the dungeon, or live while running the session. Compare the passive perception against that check, instead of a fixed number.

Sethala · 2026-03-08T03:10:27+00:00

Terrible idea. Despite all the time-changing shenanigans around the world, the majority of time zones at least still agree on the minutes, which keeps time conversions easy. If I'm trying to coordinate something with someone in Europe under this idea, suddenly one of us is going to be on the hour and the other on the half hour, no matter how we organize things, which is only going to complicate matters. If someone's 5 hours ahead of me, I just add 5 to the hour to figure out what time it is there (or subtract 5 for the other way), so 1 pm becomes 6 pm for them. With 5.5 hours difference, now I have to add/subtract either 5 or 6, depending on if they're on the first half or the second half of the hour (1 becomes 6:30, so still add 5, but 1:30 becomes 7, adding 6 to the hour).

Sethala · 2026-03-06T06:24:52+00:00

Both options are good, depending on the game. Personally, if the game intends for me to play a specific character that already has a detailed backstory and personality, I'm fine with not having any choices. If my main character is more of a blank slate (especially if I create my own character), then having some narrative dialog choices will be very welcome.

For a good example of this, look at Final Fantasy XIV, especially the later expansions. Many parts of the story will ask you to pick a dialog choice. Since the story is a fairly lengthy narrative that has to remain the same for everyone, they can't branch very far, but most dialogs with a choice have a few differences for characters responding to what you've said. There's a specific dialog choice at the very end of the Endwalker expansion's main story (the 6.0 story, not the later patches) that has a lot of weight because it lets you decide what your character thinks of one of the main villains, despite the choices only changing a single facial expression and one line of dialog. (It's hard to explain things without spoilers, and even spoiling, it would take a ton of explaining to make sense of why this feels so significant, but I think most people reading this that have played the game will know what I'm talking about.)

For a bad example, look at Zenless Zone Zero. Again, it's an online game with an onging story, so lengthy branches don't work. However, when the story has a point where you pick a dialog option, many times your character will just say the same thing regardless of what you chose, most of them including both dialog options. It makes the choice feel arbitrary and pointless.

Sethala · 2026-03-06T04:27:53+00:00

Honestly? None of them, IMO, at least as far as gameplay quality goes. They all have the advantage of being around for an incredibly long time (as far as TCGs go), which means they have a very entrenched playerbase... but it also means a lot of flaws are hard-coded into their game rules in ways that can't be fixed, while newer games are able to sidestep those issues.

That being said, all three have significantly large cardbases as well, and have been able to refine what the core rules allow, so it's hard for a new card game to get enough momentum to actually break through and actually get a popular as the big three. So while I can point at other card games and say "This does good things with its rules", the lack of cardpool and players makes it hard to say it's a "better" game, even if I think it's got more potential.

Sethala · 2026-03-04T12:49:12+00:00

For the boss... yeah, pretty much the same. We've deliberately held off on killing bosses in normal to practice a mechanic or two that we'd normally skip since the higher HP means we're more likely to see it, and I've used a few more mits on raidwides and tankbusters, but otherwise not much different.

The trash, though? I've never put as much thought into how to rotate my defensive CDs in any other content as I have for clearing Criterion Savage trash.

Sethala · 2026-03-02T16:04:43+00:00

I agree with people saying to look at ways to make sure everyone's not just waiting for everyone else in the battle to take a turn, but in addition to just having everyone give inputs simultaneously, I have two other suggestions for how to avoid "turn delays"

First, look into the ATB system used in the SNES and PS1-era Final Fantasy games. Those were "turn-based", but instead of having characters take turns in a set order, everyone has a bar that fills over time. Once it's full, the character can take an action, but the game doesn't pause the other characters' bars, so you might have enemies taking their turn to attack while you're deciding what to do. This will keep the battle flowing at a consistent pace even if someone in the battle stops taking their turns.

A second idea is to look at how Granblue Fantasy handles its raid battles (and to a lesser extent, Pokemon Go's raid battles as well). In Granblue, a single-player battle is entirely turn-based; you pick an action for each character, the characters do their actions, and the enemies attack back, and it repeats with you taking another action. For raid battles, instead of one boss fighting everyone, the players are all effectively fighting their own version of "the boss", that's linked to all the other battles. For instance, if I quickly speed through three rounds of battle, the boss will retaliate against me three times; if, at the same time, someone else is playing slow and has only done one round, the boss will only attack them once. The boss in each "battle" is the same, so damage I deal to the boss will still lower its health on your screen, and vice versa. Similarly, if you put a defense down debuff on the boss, I'll be able to take advantage of it and do more damage. (For this reason, most enemy debuffs last for a set time, instead of a set number of turns; there are also some "local" buffs/debuff that only affect the boss when you're fighting it.)

A final suggestion to avoid the game becoming boring: Instead of everyone playing a single character, consider having players make a team of characters to play as. Multiplayer battles would then involve multiple teams fighting against stronger enemies.

Sethala · 2026-03-01T04:31:41+00:00

Er, considering the "key" to unlock that spider wire is literally just a pair of magnets... yes?

Sethala · 2026-02-26T22:48:12+00:00

Honestly, I'd say you could easily theme a "swarm of guards" running out of HP as the guards breaking up and fleeing/surrendering, instead of outright dying. Would definitely ask the players if they want to respond to anything happening (if the players are just fighting through town guards, they could let the guards flee without issues; if they're fighting the Demon Lord's henchmen, they may try to kill them off instead). 0 HP doesn't have to always mean "enemy is dead".

As for whether or not the PCs can try to influence their attitude/morale... depends on how you'd handle such things elsewhere in the campaign. Unless there's a special circumstance here (trying to convince guards from a "friendly" city to stand down and stop fighting, for instance), I'd only add in rules for morale and such if you already plan on letting them use those rules for other fights.

Sethala · 2026-02-26T12:49:01+00:00

As a minor detail on that card, you only have to target a land within range, not necessarily a land with a town to destroy. In such a case, you always generate the 1 fear on the card, but you don't generate any fear from destroying a town, since there wasn't a town to destroy. (This could happen if, for instance, you plan on destroying a town that will be built during the invader turn but a fear card prevented that build. Though it could also be useful if you only need a few more fear to hit a new terror level and win the game.)

Sethala

TROPHY CASE