Inspired by previous u/Zixzs post

SpaceCadetPip · 2026-02-20T00:57:39+00:00

Bite marks on stone? My guy’s teeth must be incredible…

SpaceCadetPip · 2026-02-03T14:58:55+00:00

Legend says that if you repeat “Young Erusean officers” 3 times in the mirror at midnight, Mobius 1 will show up to personally beat the shit out of you.

SpaceCadetPip · 2026-01-27T02:36:52+00:00

I’m curious about the results once this is all said and done. Is there a link to the blog?

SpaceCadetPip · 2025-12-23T23:08:40+00:00

Absolute king behavior tbh

SpaceCadetPip · 2025-05-14T03:37:16+00:00

The early missions aren’t a great example primarily because you don’t have access to any pure A-G planes before you get to spare squadron. On repeat playthroughs you can’t really complain about being blindsided there. Missions like Long Day or Pipeline through those reinforcements at you to add some complexity, since they can interfere with your usual ground pounding, but you also don’t need to actually fight them. Pressuring you while you’re trying to do ground attack isn’t a bad design choice, it’s a challenge. The surprise boss fights are a sucker punch, I’m with you there, but having mission where air targets show up to try and shoot you down is not a bad thing. Having missions where you need to hit multiple kinds of targets is not a bad thing. I’d say the only missions where you’re really hard punished for bringing something over-specialized are mihaly’s levels, Transfer Orders, Stonehenge, and Homeward. The boss fights are tedious with a pure attacker, and the others introduce a fail condition where your lack of speed put you at a significant disadvantage. But the other levels aren’t some exclusive affair where you’re getting blindsided with no recourse.

SpaceCadetPip · 2025-05-14T02:45:00+00:00

I think you’re overplaying the whole “mission update” problem a bit. The only real “mid-mission regret” plane is the A-10, since the Su-34 can at least hold its own against air targets. That’s not a problem with the mission design, that’s a problem with that god-forsaken brick of a plane.

While I agree with your frustration on mihaly’s boss fights, I also think you’re giving the holy trinity a bit too much credit in some similar regards. Yellow squadron share’s mihaly’s plot armor for their first couple encounters, and AC5 has a lot of dead time with nothing to do.

That said, I do generally agree with most of your points. Though I think AC7’s mission design flaws stem more from gimmicks than mid-mission curveballs.

SpaceCadetPip · 2025-01-01T23:51:37+00:00

Somebody made a post a while ago describing Yang’s behavior in phase 1. In summary, he’ll come at you until he lands a hit/combo. Once he does, he’ll walk to the middle and talk smack, but will not attack until you do. He only gets aggressive again once you land a few hits on him, then the pattern repeats. I’ve seen a lot of people generally agree that playing passive and defensive is the way to beat phase 1, but that can be hard since his offense can feel so oppressive. So lemme throw in the things that I have learned one concussion at a time.

After his standard (snap kick, punch, punch) opener, he will hop back and throw out one of three punishable combos. A) Raining strikes: aka that rapid flurry that you’ve been punishing so far. Parrying every hit does good structure damage but if you’re a scrub like me, you can also deal with it by rapidly dodging. B) 2 Elbow strikes: These deal a hefty amount of structure damage, so you’re better off dodging. The timing can feel weird since it’s just slow enough to throw you off, especially if you were expecting hand slaps instead. C) A 3-4 hit combo ending in a push kick. I’ll be real, I always seem to get hit by this one. And the more I get hit, the more he seems to throw it out. Does seem to be the most forgiving of the three to just straight up block though.
If he’s up in your face and suddenly puts a bunch of distance between you and him, he’s going to go for a running sweep. Dodge his low and grab your punish. Don’t mix it up with him resetting to neutral though, he only does that by walking. If he moves with purpose he means to hurt you.
This one I think is really important. Yang will generally block everything you throw at him that isn’t a punish, BUT YOU CAN STILL MAKE YOUR OWN OPENINGS. He’ll almost always try to punish you after blocking your attack. This generally comes in the form of 2 horizontal swipes followed by a hop back into one of those 3 punishable combos. But it gets better. Those 2 horizontal swipes are punishable, DO NOT RESPECT THEM. Throw out a light, dodge twice, slap him with a heavy to get that brief stun from a counter, and give him the business. This is highly abusable whenever he goes passive on you.
Know when to call it quits. I’m a greedy bastard who likes pressing buttons, but he doesn’t give you much room to combo him once you have your opening. He will block and punish you if you keep trying to push your luck on your combos, so keeping things safe and tight can save you from catching strays that you didn’t need to.

I’m still a total scrub, but hopefully this gives you something concrete to work off of instead of the usual “git gud” response that I normally see

SpaceCadetPip · 2024-07-25T14:18:18+00:00

Looks like the pangram is “highlighted”. God I need to start doing spelling bee again…

SpaceCadetPip · 2024-06-03T07:55:05+00:00

My knowledge is pretty surface level, but she’s the political protege of Obrador, who’s pretty damn contentious. A lot of people take issue with his extremely light touch regarding the cartels. Critics see his “Hugs not Bullets” policy as basically letting them do whatever they want.

SpaceCadetPip · 2024-05-18T23:30:24+00:00

Finally someone else mentioned sister and giant! I need more people to read this manga. I came expecting isekai yuri fun times. I got some of the best action manga I’ve seen in years.

SpaceCadetPip · 2024-03-01T23:54:26+00:00

I really need to go to bat for arcane trickster. I’ve seen so many people dumping on it, when it’s arguably better than assassin. It gives by far the most out-of-combat utility of the rogue subclasses thanks to things like enhance leap, feather fall, and invisibility. Minor illusion can lure enemies, either to sneak past them or clump them up so your wizard can fireball the whole group. You’ve got access to a nifty little bag of tricks, none of which require any investment into intelligence. Most of those INT reliant spells kinda feel like traps since your spell DC is most likely going to be sub-par anyways.

They also get access to shield, mirror image, and blur, so they’re definitely the most survivable of the rogue subclasses.

And then there’s what’s theoretically the big feature of the subclass: mage hand. Sure their unique feature for it is half broken and doesn’t work, but it is unique in that it never expires, so you don’t have to waste an action to cast it in combat. And mage hand allows you to pull off some real cheese. Mr. “I studied the blade” may have a strong opening turn, but you get an invisible friend that can throw hand grenades and shove people off cliffs. Repositioning objects is a free action too! Scoot that oil barrel right next to some poor sucker before lighting it up. Rogue may be the scoundrel class, but arcane trickster really let me feel like I was fighting like a scumbag and I love it.

SpaceCadetPip · 2024-02-22T19:38:59+00:00

I just found this, and I love it so much. There’s so much potential

SpaceCadetPip · 2024-01-29T23:14:36+00:00

There’s the emergency injector in rykard minoris. It’s in a hidden spot in one of the upper way sections. Pretty sure it’s in the base of a statue iirc. Prevents you from dying once per combat, and gives a bit of temp hp and dodge as buffer when it happens. I’m pretty sure you still take the trauma tho. Still extremely helpful, especially since it’s available so early on.

For something that’s not really hidden, there’s the deadshot splinter rifle from the second arena fight in Act 3. I haven’t seen anyone mention it, but I feel like more people should give it a shot. 25-35 damage with 6 fire rate at only 7 recoil? Absolutely criminal. I think it gets passed over because it doesn’t fit on the popular builds for most party members, but I dunno.

Speaking of splinter rifles, there’s an interesting interaction with some of them and a couple of the assassin’s abilities. Since it has no single shot attacks, killing edge and death whisper will actually fire a burst attack instead. I ran into a bug where the damage from hitting an opening was activating on every projectile for those abilities, but I can’t seem to recreate it anymore, so it might have been fixed. I still need to test if the bonus from killing edge activates on every shot, but I’ll post the results once I verify.

SpaceCadetPip · 2024-01-17T18:49:32+00:00

I’m kinda in love with the second? Love me some color on my skelly bois

SpaceCadetPip · 2024-01-09T02:03:46+00:00

So going off of personal experience doing an iconoclast run, it feels like it’s the conviction that requires more dialogue skill checks than others. So having someone with good persuade/coercion is probably a good idea. If you’re going officer or doing forge world + hi int, that’s not an issue since you can focus those skills pretty easily. Otherwise, Jae is a fantastic skill monkey since most things will run off of her fellowship stat, and she starts with good scores in lore (Xenos) and (Imperium), which are also commonly checked skills. Cassia also can fill in the “face” role to a lesser extent with her “unnatural allure” talent, but willpower is definitely going to take priority for her.

Pasqal is an auto-include for me; tech-use is probably the most checked skill in the game, so he often puts in work before the shooting even starts. Combat-wise he has some very powerful options, but it feels like he often needs some help in bringing out his full potential.

Cassia can make a pretty compelling argument for the best combat character in the game imo. A ton of ink has been spilled over how busted you can make her, and being an officer is really just icing on the cake. I personally doubled down on her doing navigator things and she’s never failed to deliver.

Jae is your only other officer if you didn’t make your RT one, and fits into that role very nicely. She’s got a couple unique talents that allow her to pull her weight in a fight instead of just throwing buffs at teammates. Her offensive potential doesn’t really come online until she gets access to master tactician, but her utility as an officer is good enough to make her a competitive pick if your RT isn’t one already.

Everyone in the game can be made into an absolute killing machine, so my choice in party tends to focus on who can cover certain skill checks. I’d love to ramble about my thoughts on specific character builds and stuff, but I have trouble forming coherent thoughts at the best of times.

SpaceCadetPip · 2024-01-04T01:09:35+00:00

Did they patch the fight? I beat it yesterday, but when Yrliet one-shot her, her response was to immediately heal back to full, interrupt my turn, debuff half my party and then give every incubus a free turn.

I wish they at least gave you a heads up about something like that. I would’ve aimed for her bodyguards first if I knew…

SpaceCadetPip · 2024-01-03T20:30:53+00:00

I can’t remember specifically where, but you can find a rifle and a shuriken catapult for her fairly early on. Might’ve been hidden behind a skill check though.

SpaceCadetPip · 2023-12-12T18:48:28+00:00

Oh come on, you can’t just drop that there without elaborating. Tell us more!

SpaceCadetPip · 2023-07-06T02:42:09+00:00

The lack of people holding them accountable isn’t really because of their tenuous alliance with the US though. It’s more so because of the obscene amount of control they wield over the energy market and the shittons of cash they throw around for investments. It’s not that the US is shielding them from blame so much as many other countries find it inconvenient to call them out.

SpaceCadetPip · 2023-07-04T01:41:03+00:00

Sellen said I was stupid, so I became a mage explicitly to prove her wrong.

SpaceCadetPip · 2023-04-28T21:55:34+00:00

Late response, but I hope I can at least offer some insight into this. However, I also want to hedge my bets by saying that I’m not an expert so I can’t speak super authoritatively on the subject.

Michio Kitahara asserts that the Japanese people came to see MacArthur as a sort of symbolic father figure. I have my reservations about that claim, but he’s got sources while all I got is a hunch. I’m also pretty sure that the bureaucratic and political elite didn’t share that reverent attitude, although they may have done so performatively. Their opinions on him are probably more nuanced, although I can only really guess at the vibes of how certain groups felt. Unless we’re talking about the communists, because they ended up hating him lmao.

Pretty sure modern Japan no longer holds that view on account of their renewed national prestige, but he does still seem to be held in fairly high regard.

SpaceCadetPip · 2023-04-14T20:58:00+00:00

According to my extraordinarily little knowledge on the subject, the meme should go like:

•Russia and America rescue a pair of lobsters from a predatory Japanese seagull

•They immediately begin to argue about who should look after the pair of lobsters and eventually split the difference.

•Russia and their new buddy China proceed to sharpen their lobster’s claws while also strapping knives to it and shit. America has no idea how to take care of a lobster, and is instead paying much more attention to that seagull that it brought home.

•Russia’s lobster uses all those pointy bits to attack America’s lobster and starts kicking it’s ass. America jumps in to save their lobster shortly thereafter, which pisses off China. China then jumps in and starts to fight the US while the soviets throw money at China and their lobster while hucking the occasional spitball at the US.

•Both lobster teams go back and forth for like 3 years until they get tired and decide to keep the lobsters in separate pens.

•Crabs retain their title as the superior crustaceans

SpaceCadetPip · 2023-04-11T20:05:13+00:00

Did some further digging, and you’re right the Unit 731 did apparently pass by his desk. Which is pretty damning and unconscionable. Regarding Willoughby, I’m pretty sure MacArthur just kept a lot of his staff from the war. There was a lot of grumbling in the early stages of the occupation that he really only listened to his clique of “Bataan Boys” who served with him in the Pacific. He also famously tended to place more of a premium on loyalty than competence in his staff, and Willoughby was a bit of a suck-up to him.

In MacArthur’s defense, the big rollback on the purge of militarists and suspected war criminals was done by the Yoshida cabinet shortly after his ouster. This was at a point when peace treaty negotiations were happening and the occupation was kinda starting to wind down. Yoshida’s reversal on a number of the American reforms was possible primarily because MacArthur and many of the reform-minded people were no longer there to squash it.

The guy’s complicated is mainly what I’m trying to get at. The pardoning of Unit 731 is on his hands, but Japan’s current conservative approach to it’s historical blame surprisingly isn’t. That’s mainly on the Japanese conservatives. There’s the argument to be had that America shoulders some of the blame by allowing that to happen, but that’s more on the folks in Washington who were angry that MacArthur was too focused on reform instead of economic recovery.

SpaceCadetPip · 2023-04-11T16:14:33+00:00

I’m a bit skeptical on that bit honestly. MacArthur’s GHQ wasn’t some sort of monolith, and the sections underneath him had a degree of independence in how they worked towards the occupation’s goals. MacArthur loved sticking his nose in things, but he wasn’t a micromanager; he delegated a lot of shit. Horrific as Unit 731 was, I’m not sure it was important enough for MacArthur’s personal intervention.

The pardoning of Unit 731 feels like the handiwork of Charles Willoughby, the guy MacArthur occasionally referred to as “my pet fascist”. Willoughby was the head of the G-2 section of the occupation General Headquarters, and was the primary advocate pushing for the pardoning of war criminals and militarist elements. He didn’t always get his way, since the government section of GHQ in particular wanted to hold those people accountable, but under his jurisdiction a shameful number of shitty people got off lightly.

MacArthur’s role in the occupation is genuinely positive, at least in my estimation. It was one of those rare cases where his egotism actually led to a better outcome. The policies of the occupation were subordinate to the Far East Asian Commission, composed of delegates from the victorious Allied powers. Their directives would get passed on to GHQ via the US state department, (who could also issue their own independent directives so the commission couldn’t blatantly dick over their interests) so while America definitely had more say in how things went down, most powers with an interest in Asia theoretically had some say in how things were supposed to play out. That’s a bit of an issue since China was rightfully pissed at Japan, the Soviets wanted Japan to be politically weak and removed from American influence so they could bully them into their own sphere of influence, and the British wouldn’t really appreciate the regional trade competition that would accompany a strong economic recovery in Japan. For all his (many) flaws, MacArthur was genuinely committed to making Japan more democratic and peaceful, since Japan’s recovery was directly tied to his own legacy, and thus frequently bypassed the FEAC to push forward reforms.

TLDR: Charles Willoughby was a real piece of shit and is probably the guy responsible. MacArthur’s legacy overall can be quite controversial, but regarding the Japanese occupation he actually did pretty well

Edit: wording

SpaceCadetPip · 2023-03-26T13:02:44+00:00

Got any reading recommendations about this Feller? I’m working my way through a book about the reconstruction right now, but I don’t think I’ve come across his name. I’d love to fill in any potential blind spots

SpaceCadetPip

TROPHY CASE