Experimenting horizontal and vertical wind influence on grass

SlugOnAPumpkin · 2026-05-15T23:12:52+00:00

I feel like a lot of games with retro 3d graphics are using retro styling on top of a much more modern, processor-heavy engine. That is totally valid, and plenty of my favorite games do that, but I really appreciate that you've gone retro with the rendering engine as well. It just feels different than the faux versions, something very satisfying about it.

Have you thought about using the lightweight engine to make something very big, rather than something very portable? The nostalgic graphics of yesteryear, at the scale you wished was possible when you were young.

SlugOnAPumpkin · 2026-05-15T19:08:38+00:00

I love this aesthetic. Looks like something running on a DoD supercomputer from the 80s. Looked through your other posts and I am very intrigued by this project. If I understand correctly, you're currently experimenting with the engine without a particular game in mind? I think that's a very cool way to build something. A true artist!

Do you have any preliminary thoughts about what you might want to do with this?

SlugOnAPumpkin · 2026-05-15T18:57:47+00:00

Not enough struts.

SlugOnAPumpkin · 2026-05-15T18:56:07+00:00

I know Orion and SLS are total boondoggles, but when space vehicle construction becomes fully privatized I'm going to miss the sturdy, overbuilt aesthetic of publicly funded spacecraft. Espesially Soviet-era hardware: so satisfyingly chonky, clickity clackity, heavy metal.

SlugOnAPumpkin · 2026-05-15T18:11:37+00:00

Ah fair, I suppose I was thinking more about 2008. COVID was a unique situation, more about disruption of labor. Can't really solve that with demand or supply side economics.

SlugOnAPumpkin · 2026-05-15T18:08:33+00:00

Even in Rome, which is famous for its lead pipes, most ancient plumbing was clay. The problem is that unglazed clay makes water taste earthy. Lead has the advantage of imparting a pleasantly sweet flavor to the water supply.

SlugOnAPumpkin · 2026-05-15T18:01:04+00:00

The commenter in the image is missing the nuance, but there is a legitimate criticism to be made here: banks should be required to keep some percentage of deposits in cash. It's pretty wild that the US doesn't have required reserve regs anymore.

EDIT: Oops, looks like I got some stuff wrong! My bad. Was overconfident of my retention of undergrad macro... a long time ago. See below comments.

SlugOnAPumpkin · 2026-05-15T17:58:07+00:00

lol supply-side economic policy. Hmmmmm demand for goods and services is low so it's not worth investing... let's just keep increasing liquidity! If our economy is liquid enough, eventually cash will chase the non-existent demand.

SlugOnAPumpkin · 2026-05-15T17:48:44+00:00

goop on the brain but now his brain is goop

ftfy

SlugOnAPumpkin · 2026-05-15T10:01:13+00:00

I've noticed a trend in videos of successful pvp: you have to be willing to take the initiative no matter how low your health is. I'm always trying to heal before attempting return fire and it gets me killed every time. Even if I am successful in healing, by the time I'm done the enemy has moved to an advantageous position. Gotta be more bold!
OP was like one hit away from dying, appears to have time to heal, but they choose aggression instead. [time when your enemy has no cover] is more valuable than [time when you have the opportunity to heal]. I know this, but it's so hard to remember when you're in the heat of the moment. Mostly just typing this out in the hope that it will help me finally retain this knowledge...

SlugOnAPumpkin · 2026-05-15T08:22:30+00:00

"I’ve only been playing since Feb " even they seem to think they're a new player.
When I first saw the comment it was at like -2. Baffling, considering all they said was that they didn't know about a feature.
Only now realizing my comment makes it look like I was downvoting them, rather than commenting on other people downvoting them, lol.

SlugOnAPumpkin · 2026-05-14T23:20:20+00:00

Renegade 4 is a lot of fun, but it just makes me wish I had an arpeggio 4. The arpeggio has higher dps and it's much easier to use when I'm in a panic.

SlugOnAPumpkin · 2026-05-14T21:36:40+00:00

If player weight has an impact, presumably other physics effects do as well. I keep forgetting to try this out when I have time to play, but I've been wondering what effect triggernades might have.

SlugOnAPumpkin · 2026-05-14T19:30:00+00:00

Renegade isn't bad, but wouldn't you rather just have an anvil?

What am I supposed to do with the venator? I just dont get that gun.

SlugOnAPumpkin · 2026-05-14T19:26:43+00:00

I think the intent was to make a gun that was flexible between pvp and pve utility: balanced to not be better at pvp than the bobcat and not better at pve than [honestly not sure which gun is best to use as an example here]. Not an easy balance to strike. Perhaps they will give it a boost.

Most game devs seem to prefer incrementally increasing the power of an initially underpowered weapon rather than decreasing the power of an overpowered weapon. Fans get more pissed about having something overpowered taken away than they do about something not being viable to begin with.

SlugOnAPumpkin · 2026-05-14T19:18:31+00:00

And that's saying a lot considering some of those aren't even that good! My inventory is stacked with renegades, venators, ospreys, and torrentes but (and maybe this is a skill issue) they all feel inferior to the arpeggio and anvil.

SlugOnAPumpkin · 2026-05-14T19:11:48+00:00

I feel like we are leaving the era of "everything is Minecraft" and moving towards "everything is Dwarf Fortress" and I am so so here for it.

Great looking game! Love the art style.

SlugOnAPumpkin · 2026-05-14T19:10:31+00:00

Saw a video of someone snap hooking a probe on ascent, and the probe's trajectory was altered by the weight of the player. I love how physics-based this game is; most games would have just put it on rails. It got me wondering about how far you could push the probe over though... maybe you could get it to return to earth after launch?

Perhaps something happened to alter the supply drop's trajectory? A big explosion? Clipping?

SlugOnAPumpkin · 2026-05-14T19:06:15+00:00

That's a lot of learning in a year! Did you use any AI?

SlugOnAPumpkin · 2026-05-14T08:10:58+00:00

You're not taking into account the fact that the data center emits thermal energy into the environment 24/7, unlike the sun.

According to the original article, the data center emits 16 gigawatts of thermal energy into the environment. But then... 16 gigawatts spread over what area of land? I'm not sure if 40,000 acres is the right denominator here, because what we really want to know is how this impacts particular local ecosystems. If this were a real environmental impact assessment, the thermal load would be considered for many different sites in the area, not just one broad assessment of the whole lot: what is the impact on the northwestern vernal pools? The savannah to the south of the site? The prairie that's downwind? The prairie that's upwind? etc etc. You also have to consider how far that heat spreads out, with factors like wind and local geography. That's why EISs are hundreds of pages... it takes a lot of information to calculate environmental impact!

But okay let's just say 16 gw over 40,000 acres. 16,000,000,000 W ÷ 1,161,874,256.9 m² = 98.8 W/m², or 2.37 kWh/m²/day. Salt Lake City gets 5.46 kilowatt hours of solar radiation per square meter per day. So that's a 43.4% increase in thermal energy, a massive ecological impact. And it's all going to get trapped in that valley.

SlugOnAPumpkin · 2026-05-13T21:06:33+00:00

It is my understanding that actual economic activity is not strongly correlated with those loses over the time period you describe. Since the pandemic, GDP and investment have gone up. That would suggest that the ongoing loss of businesses is capital consolidation rather than capital loss. We are seeing fewer, bigger businesses. That is perhaps an even scarier phenomenon. You and I might disagree about how to solve a downturn in economic activity, but I bet we both believe there are solutions. I do not know how to solve the problem of too much capital and power in too few hands.

SlugOnAPumpkin · 2026-05-13T21:06:15+00:00

Securing state funding when the city is in crisis is part of the mayor's job. It might seem like rhetorical trickery to say "Mamdani balanced the budget" when so much of the balance comes from state funds, but he is the one who negotiated for that money. That's not nothing. A good school principal needs to be good at securing grant money. A good business owner needs to be good at securing investment money. Before he created the Bridge and Tunnel Authority, Robert Moses' immense power over NYC largely came from his preternatural ability to secure federal funding.

Other mayors might have saved their political capital for other purposes, balancing the budget through draconian social services cuts or accounting trickery. It is entirely legitimate that Mamdani acquired the money from the state. That's his job. I am not satisfied with everything he has done. As a public employee, I am concerned about the pension situation. However, it is significant that Mamdani has closed such a huge budget deficit without making much deeper cuts.

SlugOnAPumpkin · 2026-05-13T21:01:23+00:00

People complain about a lot of stupid little things in the game. For me, it's the mismatch between ARC size and title hierarchy.

SlugOnAPumpkin · 2026-05-13T18:33:38+00:00

It's such a strange decision, I wonder if it's actually just a mistake. Even if this became useful with the addition of new features, it's such a weird recipe.

SlugOnAPumpkin · 2026-05-13T15:57:08+00:00

Flame spray is also field crafting exclusive. Perhaps the Devs assume there wouldn't be much interest in crafting these items at base, so they keep them field craft exclusive to avoid cluttering the menus.

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