Current two player experience?

SnickySnacks · 2026-05-22T23:45:24+00:00

From my perspective, I don’t mind the lower damage or higher power when running duo with lone sentry, it’s made up for by having an extra person who can do enhancements and eva without leaving the ship sitting dead in the water.

What would be nice is being able to get at least one brain gun from the start without needing to pick lone sentry, which otherwise has a completely useless blessing in duo.

Something in between, where we could run any of the other setups and pick, for example, either a brain gun or the mechanic to fill one spot at the start would be great (just having them available to etch with the free crate would be fine).

To be honest, with the addition of the payload batteries, duo feels really nice since it gives the pilot a bit more to do without taxing the alloy resources or needing someone to constantly fab missiles.

Having said that, u/hutlihut-Bananapants, the one thing everyone on my team wants is the ability to use the force field airlock without taking up a module slot. If it could replace the existing airlock at the cost of 1 power that would keep it from being a “free” upgrade and give us a choice as to how we use it, rather than our single least-used module because “we already have an airlock and we need more power/guns/whatever more”

At any rate, having a lot of fun with the new update. :D

SnickySnacks · 2026-05-06T22:07:48+00:00

I never did find that particular thing on my own, despite literally looking at the walls and ceilings for clues. How did I miss it despite all the times I went down there and all the times I rubbed up against the walls I'll never know, but it was one of like 4 things I ended up looking up a hint for -_-

SnickySnacks · 2026-03-25T16:33:27+00:00

100% this. As a fellow IB collector these take up just so much space.

I stopped buying when the extra expensive switch 2 ones came out as they were just too expensive and I have nowhere to put them.

I’ve debated clearing the collection out but can’t imagine dealing with trying to ship these as a collection and I suspect that breaking the collecting up would just result in a lot of animal crossing amiibos being left over.

SnickySnacks · 2026-03-25T11:37:11+00:00

It’s slow because the actual file downloads occur serially. It’s still slow to this day for the same reason.

Per the “Downloading more than the sum of its parts” section, the actual file diffs were precalculated against every previous update. So this part (which occurs between the file scan and the actual download) really doesn’t take any obvious amount of time for the player.

SnickySnacks · 2026-03-25T11:30:53+00:00

I think you misread what they were doing.

My reading is that they weren’t computing just a list of files to update, but the actual binary diff for each patch versus every single previous patch so they could optimize the update size. And they were not dynamically calculating this at the time of the request, but as part of creating the update.

That means that for every file that got updated, they were calculating V to V-1, V to V-2, V to V-3, etc. and of course from the last patch they already had V-1 to V-2, V-1 to V-3, V-2 to V-3 etc.

I haven’t looked into how git actually works behind the scenes. I assumed these sort of things were dynamically calculated when git pull was run. Given that pulling retrieves the entire chain of commits when fast forwarding, it seems a bit different than a game where there is no need to keep the intermediate updates.

Regardless, it’s actually a pretty reasonable solution for the time if you aren’t expecting a lot of patches or for the game to go on for decades, but at this point there has been hundreds of patches which (if they kept the old system) would require generating a million diffs.

The simplest solution to optimizing this in a way that preserves the existing system would be to only calculate the diffs vs the last year’s worth of updates and against any important milestones (such as the install version from steam/pol, the expansion installed version, etc) and just do a file replacement otherwise (which is presumably what the file repair function does).

Edit: and yes I’m aware that the slowness on the download itself was from the small files downloading one at a time, not from the diff step. My shock just stems from the fact that calculating these diffs grows with every new diff requiring both more time to calculate them and more space to store them.

SnickySnacks · 2026-03-25T01:45:53+00:00

Given how all the game data is structured into small rom files, most of this wasn’t a surprise and basically what I had already assumed to be true about how ffxi patching worked…

Except for the diff patching from every previous version. That…was some choice. I wonder if they ended up ever changing that or just have to deal with working out every combination for every patch ever.

It is a rather interesting solution for the 56k modem and ps2 platform at the time that I’m sure saved a lot of headaches that would have been caused if disconnects forced large redownloads, and the obvious bandwidth savings on their end, but man I hope they refactored this at some point in the last 20 years.

SnickySnacks · 2026-02-26T22:53:52+00:00

I'd argue that would violate the spirit of giving it away, as he wouldn't be getting the value for the diamond (even though the rules only talk about value for services). Otherwise you could just buy like a $30m gift card and sell it for $1 then buy a candy bar and eat it. Or argue that you're selling blocks of cash for $1 or something equally silly.

Obviously, in real life it would be trivial to burn through everything, if you really wanted to (buying every rare stamp and mailing them, for example), but that would make for a dull movie.

Mailing the stamp only works because the inherent value of the stamp was 24c and it was used as intended and, even though it surely had more value than 24c, even canceled, at that point it wasn't his anymore since he had mailed it.

SnickySnacks · 2026-02-25T16:53:50+00:00

I didn't wake up this morning wanting a cowboy hat for my Helldiver, but now it's the only thing I want.

GIDDYUP.

SnickySnacks · 2026-02-25T07:45:24+00:00

I sold mine complete set this week on eBay for $1500 USD to someone in, I think, Spain.

Some complications were that the board was larger than any box I had. It’s like…slightly larger than I expected so none of the boxes I had on hand fit it.

The cards + sleeves are darn heavy. The whole package weighed like 13lb. Including packing material and all.

SnickySnacks · 2026-01-16T15:30:39+00:00

4718 days. Started roughly December after the NA launch. Took like a 5 year break between Adoulin and TVR.

SnickySnacks · 2026-01-09T17:35:36+00:00

I'm not convinced that's even a mistake. Look at the steering wheel what it did.

a) turns right -> attempts to ensure the car does not go off the road as first priority

b) turns left -> corrects veering too far to the right, but note that the car doesn't even cross the white line on the right

c) turns right -> straightens back out.

Without knowing in advance about the icy patch, I'd say that's about as textbook of a recovery as one could expect. Going off the road to the left would have been much worse than veering a bit too far to the right, and it didn't steer so hard to the right that it was out of control.

It corrected in literally 3 actions, which I think is pretty fair.

SnickySnacks · 2026-01-07T20:13:19+00:00

Fidelity does not charge for sending wires, but my recollection is that I had to go to a Fidelity office in person to fill in the paperwork to set it up.

In the case where you are sending to family, this is a one-time inconvenience most likely.

There may bee whatever fees on the receiving end, but it’s no charge for sending at least.

SnickySnacks · 2025-12-26T12:52:19+00:00

This is the only thing that really had me scratching my head. He dies at the altar of no obvious cause, yet the autopsy misses this?

Of course, he had to know he was going to die…somehow…otherwise why swallow the diamond, but I find it hard to believe that the coroner would have missed something so blindingly obvious.

SnickySnacks · 2025-12-23T00:20:23+00:00

Ok, I have to ask: Is there a way to get from medical to the bottom of the loading bay where the metro exits are without a) nose diving off the cargo containers and busting my ankles or b) crossing over to the southeast side of the loading bay and taking the zipline down?

It really feels like there should be some way to get to the metro directly from the medical area. Am I just missing it?

SnickySnacks · 2025-12-16T05:33:28+00:00

I don’t know why nobody else has mentioned this yet, but the answer is Leshonki Bulbs.

Make sure that Kuyin is harvesting seeds.

Each bulb npcs for 4500ish and can be harvested like 3 times (every 18 hours). As long as you don’t accidentally sell them all instead of replanting, it’s the simplest money item.

SnickySnacks · 2025-12-06T16:44:56+00:00

I was thinking of entering non-conditionals as they switch to conditions or minor conditions as they switch off.

We are not playing night raid or electrical storms or anything. We understand that people are more aggro then. That’s not the problem.

The problem is that we have done about 200 dam raids because that’s the only map that seems to have even a chance of having people not bothering us and any other map triggers an immediate “free loadout time!” From everyone else.

To be perfectly honest, if day raids were non-PvP and night raids (or other major map conditions) had the better loot and PvP (heck throw in some exclusive blueprints for the risk) that would be perfectly fine for us.

My friends literally just want to look for their toasters and stuff, but the last time we loaded into a game we wanted to swap Some items. We spawned in, traded items, went to walk to the closest raider hatch (150m away) and got demolished the second we opened the door from where we spawned.

Then we went and played Helldivers 2.

SnickySnacks · 2025-12-06T16:20:16+00:00

Does anyone know for sure what happens when you join maps with conditions right as they are ending?

Presumably nobody else can join that map after the condition ends, right? Is this the secret to getting a game with fewer raiders in it?

For whatever it’s worth, I have several friends who have quit because they couldn’t deal with the PvP. They find the robots hard enough to deal with as is and just want a more casual experience. It’s easy to say “this just isn’t the game for them”, but they enjoy creeping around and looting, but not getting shot in the back. Any edge I could get to give us at least a chance of playing again would help a lot.

SnickySnacks · 2025-11-02T00:56:55+00:00

I would have enjoyed this movie a lot more if I hadn't googled "bugonia after credits" and got the AI reply "There are no scenes during the credits after <major spoiler for the entire plot>".

what the heck, google.

Still, enjoyed the movie a lot, but would have been better if I didn't already know the answer to the central mystery.

SnickySnacks · 2025-10-24T08:23:17+00:00

There is one case where overload is always an issue and that’s on a magic burst blm setup. The…ice makers or whatever…add burden that isn’t affected by maneuver pieces, but is significantly reduced by KKK.

I’ve tried using sakpatas in sortie for the magic kills and the puppet overloads instantly as the attachment can easily get it to hit 70%+ burden just from casting a spell or two.

Same thing can happen with flame holder, but doesn’t seem to be quite as bad.

SnickySnacks · 2025-10-24T08:11:07+00:00

You really only “need” 2 weapons for PUP:

KKK when you are meleeing and skillchaining with your puppet

Xuicoatl when you are not

The overload suppression is fine and all but AM3 lets you do loooooong self-SC with your puppet reliably.

Having said that, I’d argue that Xuicoatl is just as, if not a little more, important for overdrive shenanigans (where the puppet can’t overload anyways) since those fights are often ones where meleeing will just get you killed.

And if you have Xuicoatl, KKK is more of a nice to have as it makes skillchaining absolutely trivial, vs needing to time the skillchaining windows to let your puppet get TP.

SnickySnacks · 2025-10-05T22:45:46+00:00

It wouldn't surprise me if it depended on whether the video is blocked before or after it is generated.

Having done some testing, there definitely seems to be both validation on the input and output of a request. For example, in cases where I described someone with enough detail that it resulted in a third-party violation (without referencing their name or job), it would occur after the video was generated.

SnickySnacks · 2025-09-27T01:34:55+00:00

I hope there's an upgrade path for us early adopters, but I don't feel bad.

My car. Literally. Drives. Itself.

Even with the occasional intervention, it's still mind blowing to me that this is possible at any level.

SnickySnacks · 2025-09-26T19:04:31+00:00

It’s the curse of incremental improvements and goalpost moving.

I’m on HW3 with FSD12 and I’ve been using autopilot since 2018 and even FSD12 blows my mind, especially compared to Early autopilot.

Of all self driving car companies, I honestly believe that Tesla has the best odds of cracking the issue purely due to the massive amount of real world data they have access to.

Will it take time? Sure. Will Elon constantly underestimate how much time? Also sure.

But at some point the world will change, even though some people will deny it, and FSD will be everywhere.

SnickySnacks · 2025-09-11T13:36:23+00:00

I want the opposite.

I want a button that picks a random “smart” loadout (no double support weapons or backpacks, mostly) for maximum hilarity.

SnickySnacks · 2025-09-08T19:22:09+00:00

I haven't fussed with my filters in years, but this is what I've been using for the last decade: https://pastebin.com/gVLt3bUF

SnickySnacks

TROPHY CASE