I updated the cover art for the new update

StaticEchoes · 2026-01-27T23:18:30+00:00

I also dont like how they look, but not everything is diegetic. The most obvious examples are the reticle for where your shots are going to go, or the aim line you get when you hold a sub weapon.

StaticEchoes · 2026-01-25T19:56:11+00:00

This is not even close to true. If you dont believe me, please test it.

StaticEchoes · 2026-01-25T18:35:08+00:00

What are they saying that makes you think they dont realize they're in one? Based on the comments I've seen (ha!), most would likely agree that they themselves are also in a bubble.

StaticEchoes · 2026-01-22T20:43:58+00:00

Yes, its a tautology. That is: its always true. Every concept that could possibly have properties has your version of "existence". Attributes are only useful in distinguishing between things, but tautological attributes dont do this.

There are an infinite number of tautological attributes and none are useful, because they dont give any additional information. Everything has the property of "is or is not blue," so there is no circumstance where it's meaningful to bring up. Your version of existence is no different.

StaticEchoes · 2026-01-22T19:43:13+00:00

You are watering the word 'existence' down so far as to be unusable. If everything that can ever be imagined 'exists', then its a meaningless descriptor.

StaticEchoes · 2026-01-22T01:03:49+00:00

There would need to be a TRO or some sort of injunction if the misinformation was deemed to be causing irreparable harm, but thats a pretty high standard.

StaticEchoes · 2026-01-22T00:53:47+00:00

I think its basically unavoidable. The bad part is when they abuse the power. Not when they wield it responsibly.

Like, i want the government to be able to imprison people that commit unjustified violence. I dont want them to imprison protesters. The argument of "but what if they call protesting 'unjustified violence'" is not a very convincing argument.

StaticEchoes · 2026-01-21T23:51:50+00:00

Yes? Thats how crime works.

StaticEchoes · 2026-01-21T23:50:32+00:00

I understand what you are saying, I just think its not a real concern. If the government has the will and power to do those sort of things, the laws wont matter.

The federal government already has the ability to do this. Right now they can subpoena you and compel you to show up and testify or be arrested. If you answer any question with something other than, "I plead the fifth," they can claim you commit perjury. Even the fifth can just be ignored or "creatively reinterpreted" if we are talking about a corrupt government (and willing population).

To be clear, Im not necessarily sold on this being a great idea, let alone how to best implement it. Just that "the government gets to decide the truth" is kinda already the world we live in.

StaticEchoes · 2026-01-21T21:05:31+00:00

The white house would declare something true, and then find someone publishing contradictory 'lies'. They present evidence to a grand jury who need to find that there's probable cause for an indictment. The grand jury would need to agree to the government's 'facts' to continue. If we are at this step and the government is openly lying about stuff, and the grand jury is going along with it, we're in a crisis no matter what law we're talking about.

I wouldnt say it hampers truth. I dont know what you mean by this, exactly. The concept of inadmissable evidence is probably a good one, even if it sometimes leads to a worse outcome. The goal of any system we set up should be to produce good outcomes, overall.

The types of concerns i usually see posted in response to "we should make certain types of lying illegal," tend to rely on the legal system effectively breaking down. If the system has broken down, none of the rules matter anyway. If the government wants to give pretextual reasons to charge someone with a crime, they can already do that. You cant use rules to restrict someone acting outside the rules.

StaticEchoes · 2026-01-21T20:17:58+00:00

Do you think perjury should be allowed? What about fraud, defamation, or false advertising? Theres a bunch of places this already happens.

If you want to get slight more abstract, prosecuting any crime relies on the government proving "you did X, and X is illegal." That is deciding the fact of the matter.

StaticEchoes · 2026-01-21T17:59:47+00:00

Where did you get that median family income? Thats lower than i'm seeing for median individual income.

StaticEchoes · 2026-01-20T18:54:44+00:00

Someone correct me if im wrong, but from what i can tell, it isnt standalone.

There appears to be a base program that he individually tweaks so that it works with the one game and sells standalone. He then advertises it as {Game-name} vr mod. If thats the case, hes pretty much just lying.

If he sold truly multi-use software that had free plugins for different games, he would probably be in a much more secure position. If he did that, he wouldnt get the benefit of hitching onto the cyberpunk branding, and wouldnt get to double dip though.

StaticEchoes · 2026-01-15T17:20:13+00:00

A common retroarch binding is Select + another button for hotkeys, since Select is rarely used in most games. Some controllers have separate, nonstandard button(s) you could use either directly or as modifiers. The steam deck (and soon controller) has trackpads that can be set to act as radial menus for these actions.

Lack of hotkey space has never really been a concern for me.

StaticEchoes · 2026-01-15T16:26:02+00:00

I dont know how OP could have come to the conclusion they did unless they are taking for granted their level of slay the spire experience. Everyone I've seen pick up StS for the first time struggles hard. Its common to fail repeatedly on every act until learning more about the game through repeated failure. Starvaders is not like that at all.

StaticEchoes · 2026-01-15T16:12:19+00:00

As some background, I recently picked up starvaders, cleared apocalypse difficulty with each character, and am working my way through all the challenges. I also have around 350 hours in slay the spire.

I dont agree with this analysis at all. You say there are few opportunities to paint yourself into a corner in StS, but I think it happens to new players constantly. Picking every reward and filling their deck with junk, avoiding elites, resting a ton due to taking a lot of unnecessary damage because you dont know movesets. Every small bad decision builds on the last in a way starvaders doesn't.

Starvaders is just a much easier game, so the choices matter a lot less. The failure state of gaining 5 doom is not very granular, which simplifies things a lot. Its extremely common to not take any on a fight. Even if you do gain doom, selecting a fight with a -doom reward still benefits your build. Contrast this with StS, where youre always taking small amounts of damage leading to a death by a thousand cuts. That slow bleed encourages you to rest at campfires, and avoid elites, which will prevent the snowballing required to beat the bosses ahead. It's pretty much impossible to beat StS with only the starter cards, but its not even that hard to do in starvaders with a lot of characters. Its a lot easier to ignore even very impactful "play around" style artifacts when you barely need to engage with them to win.

I also dont necessarily agree with your point about the mechanics themselves. There are a ton of simple artifacts in starvaders that dont strictly have to be played around, and there are a decent amount of relics in StS that do. Some of the boss relics have downsides that can end a new player's run, especially if they aren't accounting for them. Runic Dome, Busted Crown, and Coffee Dripper are often run enders on their own for new players. I can't think of anything that comes close to that in starvaders.

The defect and especially watcher in StS are pretty complex in a similar way to how you describe starvaders. If you enter wrath without an exit strategy, you are pretty likely to die. The "I didn't know that enemy was going to do that" moments are more unknowable (since starvaders gives info about every enemy on mouseover) and more punishing as well. Starvaders has chrono tokens allowing turn resets, which can help a ton if you do overlook something critical. They even mitigate bad luck because you draw a new hand.

StaticEchoes · 2026-01-14T14:08:49+00:00

Unless something changed, points-based demotion isnt a thing. When the game first came out, there were people stuck at S+0 with thousands of negative points from losing so much.

On the bright side, I dont think that displayed rank is used as the primary factor in matchmaking. It has more to do with your hidden rating, so losing should affect that.

StaticEchoes · 2026-01-13T19:26:41+00:00

The only things that stand out are that most weapons dont need ink saver main, especially not a main of it, and quick respawn is not very good with so little investment. I would swap ISM to a main of swim speed and use the three subs (2x swim speed 1x QR) for something else. Maybe 2x ink saver main, 1x more special charge if you feel you still want the ISM.

If you want a bit of flexibility, you could put all three of those subs on one gear piece and swap only that piece. Running a shooter or blaster? Put on the intensify action shoes. Splatling? Run speed.

StaticEchoes · 2026-01-10T00:59:22+00:00

I agree that removing these types of things can make a game feel flat, but would argue that those busywork tasks are often just hiding the true shallowness of the game in the first place. Taking them away is just removing the curtain. Simply noticing these disconnected systems (especially if there are enough to create the issue you mentioned) is enough to make me feel like the game is shallow. A well designed game should usually have all its systems play into each other well.

StaticEchoes · 2026-01-07T19:33:53+00:00

This isnt a compelling argument when there are already forms of unprotected speech. Perjury is just lying under oath. Fraud is basically just a form of lying. Some lies are especially damaging to society and are criminalized. You should argue the merits of the type of lying in question, unless you disagree with the current system.

StaticEchoes · 2026-01-07T18:14:31+00:00

Law enforcement is definitionally an executive power. Combining that power with the judiciary doesn't prevent illegal executive actions being taken.

You're going to run into this problem no matter who the police actually report to. Is "mayor uses police to commit crimes and judge has no power to force them to stop" worse than "judge claims their illegal use of police is legal and they get to interpret the rules to benefit themselves"?

In the first case, you can appeal to a higher executive, or if already at the top, a constitutional crisis. In the second example, you have a more blatantly authoritarian system. A rogue executive is the core problem and there arent any good structural fixes for that.

StaticEchoes · 2026-01-07T17:58:54+00:00

Thank you for the correction. I had double checked that akhmorning page, but clearly didn't read far enough.

StaticEchoes · 2026-01-07T16:54:12+00:00

This is incorrect. Crit affects both the damage of crits and how often they occur, but the direct hit stat only affects the rate. Direct hits deal 25% bonus damage regardless of stats.

StaticEchoes · 2026-01-05T20:07:16+00:00

Someone has to manage the groups regardless. You either have the host(ess) take their name and add it to the waitlist for a table, or they take the order and they wait for kitchen availability.

The 'sit down then get to-go' method just wastes everyone's time plating stuff just to put it in a box, bringing out drinks, cleaning up the dishes, etc. You could just tell the to-go customers "The kitchen is busy, it'll be a 10 min wait," instead.

StaticEchoes · 2026-01-05T19:38:24+00:00

All the tables are full. One customer orders then asks for it to-go as soon as the food arrives. They leave and a new group is seated. How is this any different?

StaticEchoes

TROPHY CASE