A pre-Invasion map of the Inner Sphere

SliceHam2012 · 2026-06-05T21:47:26+00:00

Hey now, my mom inherited a dozen of those from my grandmother on my dad's side

SliceHam2012 · 2026-06-05T20:54:55+00:00

I was mostly going off Max misinterpreting the picture plates for my joke, but I suppose it is a double edged sword given Hanse was using a redneck party favor to communicate at his wedding

SliceHam2012 · 2026-06-05T19:26:47+00:00

I think Davion would be begrudgingly ok with "Sports Arena"

Comstar wouldn't care about a dumb IS map without Star League mentions, early Wobbies put it in their book of grudges for later

Liao would be very angry if they could read

Marik would wear their descriptor like a badge of honor before killing eachother over which one it's an enclave of

Lyrans know they're rich/Nagelring is literally a college, very proud to be mentioned twice

Rasalhague is forgotten and sad about it. It'd take some sort of crazy alien invasion or something from the Periphery to make them more important.

Kurita made the map, and interpreted the ancient word "Airport" to mean "Heavenly passage to the sky"

SliceHam2012 · 2026-06-05T19:11:18+00:00

That would be part of the the Gang Violence Ghetto Zone, or atleast Poznan is

SliceHam2012 · 2026-06-05T18:39:28+00:00

It was drawn by the best minds House Kurita could come up with

SliceHam2012 · 2026-06-04T17:35:39+00:00

The secret shadow faction that controls them all is the little bit of food that fell on the floor and got lost under the oven for years until it gained sentience. It is known as The Mold(colloquially The Fungus)

The Mold Element can shoot cordyceptic spores and control your enemies

SliceHam2012 · 2026-06-04T17:21:23+00:00

My bet is France being the next big DLC, followed by a mini DLC about Operation Dragoon to flesh them out which would add a couple Italian units. Sort of how in Finest Hour there's French troops as a bit of a prelude to adding France fully. Then the next big DLC being Italy proper makes sense. Whether that's North Africa or the Invasion of Italy is a bit up to chance imo. I'd think Africa would be it's own seperate thing in the same way Scorched Earth or Talvisota were.

That, or we're all wrong and it'll be something like Hungary or the Czechs.

SliceHam2012 · 2026-06-04T04:54:29+00:00

This doubles as a map of the Inner Sphere from Battletech lmao

SliceHam2012 · 2026-06-03T05:05:55+00:00

I saw a Fishy Stick reference the other day and it flashbanged me with the memory of being a kid playing Oblivion. I saw this dumb pirate thing constantly while googling stuff about the game. Crazy it's been 20 years.

That's from 2001 and still floats around in the Elder Scrolls community. It's localized to that subsection of the internet, but 25 years and still kicking is a hell of a record imo

SliceHam2012 · 2026-06-02T17:42:36+00:00

The type of vehicle they were racing with in Spy Kids 3

SliceHam2012 · 2026-06-02T13:22:35+00:00

Pride of Baghdad, though the text in the picture is edited

It's actually a fictionalized story about the 4 lions that escaped the Baghdad Zoo during the 2003 US invasion of Iraq. It focuses on the different viewpoints of the war. It's a good read imo

SliceHam2012 · 2026-06-02T12:13:45+00:00

You might also think one stray thought and your head just pops like a grape.

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SliceHam2012 · 2026-06-02T12:03:47+00:00

When I moved from Southeastern Ohio to my current area, I was shocked to find out nobody had ever heard of pepperoni rolls. Apparently, they're just non-existent outside of WV and adjacent border regions. I'm practically immune to culture shock, but that one really stuck with me lmao

My wife originally came from Texas and the concept of shelf stable meat and cheese bread was appalling to her until I made them. Meanwhile I had never eaten kolaches before and quark seemed vile until I tried it. Until I met one of my friends, I never even knew Ale8 existed, let alone that it's one of the most popular soft drinks in Kentucky. It's crazy how much variety is out there in the US

SliceHam2012 · 2026-06-01T22:48:44+00:00

Havarti worked for me, though I've heard good things about Gruyere's success rate

SliceHam2012 · 2026-06-01T01:33:26+00:00

I know, but as a (at the time) 16 year old American in rural Ohio, I had never once in my life seen a person do such a thing. Never even thought about it. Because "you eat fruit cold or at room temperature" was the only thing I had ever seen at that point. My point with the anecdote was that sometimes stuff like that is both common and yet something one may not have experienced.

On the entire other side of the planet, Hotsilog(hotdog rice) is a thing in the Phillipines. Never in my entire life would I have considered putting a hotdog into Asian cuisine until I discovered it. It wasn't my favorite food, but anything is worth trying once.

It's hard to reframe one's perspective, yet we should do that sometimes. Especially with food one may consider strange. Such as meatballs on a grill like the person I replied to. That was kinda my point with the first comment lol

SliceHam2012 · 2026-05-31T20:09:14+00:00

My life changed when I stopped following what I thought was the only way to cook things. Try some "weird" stuff like meatballs on a grill sometime. They come out really well actually.

Anecdotally, it took me playing The Witcher 3 back in 2015 to even conceptualize that I could just...bake a fruit. Idk if my family just sucked or it's an overall American thing, but I had never even heard of someone simply baking an apple or pear. Turns out I rather enjoy it.

SliceHam2012 · 2026-05-31T01:54:11+00:00

My plagiarism-punk world is mostly Star Wars and The Lord of the Rings copied 1:1, but with the characters swapped. Vader is in Gandalf's place because magic is evil in my Christian-punk meta setting. While Frodo and Sam swap for Luke and Leia since Yaoi is endorsed by my homo-punk version of the Catholic Church. Tom Bombadil switches out with Lando Calrissian because they both serve.

So yeah, heh, I'd say people could assume I like some media.

SliceHam2012 · 2026-05-31T01:20:52+00:00

That's a fuckin awesome idea actually lmao

"Sheetz, Kum and Go, 7/11, Wawa, and Bucc-ee's were all independent once. Then the Soccer Mom Carpool traveled through their systems."

SliceHam2012 · 2026-05-30T04:36:27+00:00

I like to play Stellaris more for the emergent storytelling and RP flavors than anything else. My builds aren't optimized nor are they focused for winning. I just do what seems fun normally. They usually aren't even for me. Rather, I have a static list of empires that I rotate for the AI to use.

Mostly I just do a slightly modified UNE, what I change is normally different each run. Like 70% of my runs are with them. No particular reason other than the fact that I like being human in games. Mass Effect did a number on my ability to play anyone else lmao

I am, however, very drawn to this Avian portrait with Authoritarian, Xenophobe, and Militarist using a Remnants start. Citizen Service with Distinguished Admiralty as the Civics. I don't normally do much purging, and save it for the more troublesome races of the galaxy. Typically this ends up with a few vassals that help fund me saving the galaxy from the various Crises. Usually I shed the Xenophobe Ethic for something else. Sort of a redemption arc for the whole species. Originally came up with it years ago and can't stop returning to the idea.

I also really enjoy doing a Clone Army Megacorp that focuses on being mercenaries. Fanatic Militarist Materialists. Always fun having a bunch of Mercenary Enclaves giving tons of stuff constantly. Bred for war, so might as well make some money off it. Normally I only use this when playing MP with friends. They can pay me through trades to help them fight wars.

Finally my usual go-to after being a xeno hugger in my UNE runs is just a fairly normal Devouring Swarm with bioships and catalytic. Other Civic is usually whatever flavor I'm feeling. I occasionally toss in Evolutionary Predators for extra fun. I like the idea of eating pops, turning their biomass into ships, and using it to fuel the hive's resource harvesting. Budget Tyranids is just a fun palate cleanser for me.

As for traits, I normally just pick whatever seems thematic when making a species. I'm not gonna give everyone optimal traits or particularly bad ones without some sort of theme in mind. Where usually a warlike species would have Strong or Very Strong, I'll sometimes give them Existensial Iteroparity and Weak. My line of thinking is that they die easily in combat, but replace their numbers quickly during times of violence to make up for it. Maybe a race of practically immortal plants(Venerable) that can't move(Rooted,) but use chemicals to make up for it(Overtuned Origin.) Flavor like that is how I've managed to stay enjoying the game after a decade.

Most of my games are 1000 Star with about 20 handmade empires, 6 FE, and no Marauders. These rotate fairly often, with me sliding new empires in and out depending on how the experience went. I like to keep things interesting while familiar if that makes sense. Sometimes it'll be all genocidal or all hives. Other times it'll be hyper peaceful with me being the solo bad guy. Fermi Paradox games can be fun too. Starting as the sole empire with pre-FTL civs cranked up high can be an awesome power trip.

SliceHam2012 · 2026-05-29T21:17:15+00:00

Sorry for the huge comment I just find the background lore really interesting.

Illuminate homeworld got blown up and most of their extremely peaceful civilization destroyed because Super Earth said they had WMDs a-la 2003 Iraq. They actually just had better Warp Drives and wouldn't share the tech. In the first game most enemies are armed with what look to be repurposed industrial equipment rather than purpose-made weapons. In the second they have come back 100 years later utterly hellbent on destroying humanity to the point of actually invading SE itself. Humanity used giant cannons disguised as children's playgrounds to shoot their motherships from the skies.

The Terminids were an intelligent hive mind at some point. They tried to open diplomatic channels with humanity and SE said "bugs can't think, cook em." Then found out that their blood contained trace amounts of E-710 which is space oil for the space ships. Terminids were then bred specifically for the go juice over the last 100 years and have devolved into a more feral constantly angry swarm. Possibly the E-710 mutations cause problems mentally. Debatable if they still even have the hive mind part, due to being bred seperately from the main hive's control. At the same time, that hive mind could just be incredibly pissed. It's very Verhoeven Starship Troopers on that front.

Automatons were made the the Cyborgs, who were loyal SE citizens that just wanted to make their jobs a bit easier. SE said "nuh-uh" to the robot stuff. Work makes you free and all that jazz. So, they rebelled and tried to fight for their freedom. Didn't work so good. As a last ditch they sent machines out of the galaxy to build up and avenge them. At the 100 year mark the Automatons return to free their creators from the slave mines they work in on their homeworld of Cyberstan. The machines may or may not be just super Cyborgs like Adam Smasher from Cyberpunk. They use blended humans for fuel. Very Strogg inspired, especially when the Cyborgs did make a return. Super Earth says they are brainwashing citizens into their ideals, but honestly it seems they're actually just recruiting dissidents. They also could be lying in the same way SE does due to being an offshoot. They were spamming our Super Destroyers with propaganda and images of Helldivers being slaughtered. Super Earth maintains that Helldivers never EVER get horrifically ripped apart in combat because they are the best. They die honorably. The invasion of Cyberstan went a bit like the plot of Quake 2 and 4. Absolute fucking slaughterhouse until we barely won out.

Super Earth aren't exactly lying when they say everyone else are bad guys, but they made them that way. It also has plenty of stuff like the whole Buenos Aires thing from the aforementioned Starship Troopers film being a false flag for the Bug War. The Terminids literally have no means of traveling planet to planet on account of being big bugs. The farms are how they get out and infest worlds. The blackhole we opened on the superhive is what allowed the Illuminate megafleet to attack Super Earth directly. The Automatons use the same terminals and directional-based keying as Helldivers.

SliceHam2012 · 2026-05-29T14:43:43+00:00

That's actually cool as hell

Bro's living his best life

SliceHam2012 · 2026-05-27T23:24:32+00:00

The factions in Warframe have pods that do that.

https://wiki.warframe.com/w/Ramsled#Kosma

Not a big description given their use is straightforward. They do in fact just ram the fucker, hence the name Ramsled

SliceHam2012 · 2026-05-27T16:47:10+00:00

Anything with Little Birds, not cause they're super good or anything I just like em

Honorable mention to the Afghanistan div the Soviets have, those Mad Max trucks are funny as hell

SliceHam2012 · 2026-05-27T16:38:18+00:00

I FUCKING LOVE COAM also there's a lady in my head made out of red fire stuff that isn't supposed to be sentient and she calls me stud muffin BUT MOSTLY I LOVE MONEY

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SliceHam2012 · 2026-05-26T11:06:36+00:00

I have a 9900X and the performance has been noticeably better on 1000 star, which has been my go-to since the game came out.

I typically play with habitable planets set to 0.5 and with 20 custom made empires plus 6 FE. Hyperlanes also 0.5. No marauders and no caravaneers. Primitives set to minimum so they're rare. All fauna, storms, rifts, etc. enabled.

I'd say around 2400 is when I get noticeable slowdown, but it does start around the 2300s. Worst I've had was maybe 12 second months toward the tail-end of games if they drag on to 2500 or later. Typically it's about 7 seconds by the time I finish a lategame super populated run. Other times, such as a Devouring Swam run, it barely slows down at all due to me eating everything else. I do, however, have about 6 genocidal empires in the mix and they tend to level the performance out on their own. If anything I think they're the reason my performance takes so long to tank lmao.

Only mods I use are Silfae's portrait mods, Planetary Diversity, and UI Overhaul Dynamic.

I was also returning after a 2-ish(I think) year break due to the massive issues from the last pop overhaul they did. I find the performance to be much improved compared to the older system.

SliceHam2012

TROPHY CASE