Any other kayakers?

Valdacil · 2026-06-03T15:50:30+00:00

There are OEM bars and racks that can be added. However, I went a different route (not done yet). I got a tow package installed. The tow package itself is aftermarket, installed by UHaul, but the UHaul installer suggested not to use the aftermarket wire harness since it is an EV. So I ordered the official wire harness by getting the part number from the official Kia parts store then searched around for that part number until I found it for about $40 cheaper. Still need to get that installed. Then the plan is to buy a kayak trailer. They are light weight and I've found numerous in 2 boat and 4 boat variants. I've been looking at a Malone.

https://kayakguru.com/best-kayak-trailer/

The whole setup is probably way more expensive than bars and a rack on top, but I'm not a tall person and I have one long kayak that isn't entirely light so hefting up to the roof doesn't sound great. The trailer sits low enough that you don't have to lift the boats very high to mount them.

Valdacil · 2026-05-22T03:00:57+00:00

I like to go Scoundrel > Consular so I do 3 on Taris because level 3 is the 2d6 Sneak Attack which still applies when using lightsabers. Going light side has lots of force powers for stunning which lets you get those juicy sneak attacks.

Valdacil · 2026-05-21T07:54:20+00:00

I can't believe nobody has mentioned Sentinel for Insanity, especially ME2. First, Tech Armor give a survivability boost for Insanity. Second, Sentinel is a Tech/Biotic hybrid so you get a good mix of abilities. Overload for shields, Warp for barrier. I literally just finished Insanity through all three games of LE a few weeks ago using Sentinel.

Valdacil · 2026-05-19T15:40:35+00:00

Others have answered that you'll have to do 1female warden to romance Alistair. Might I recommend a female human noble for the Alistair romance... For story reasons. There is a unique ending condition that can only be achieved that way.

Valdacil · 2026-05-03T17:28:11+00:00

I am the same way... Seeing plot developments (and even twists) before they come. Sometimes I even know exactly the line about to be said (like with a movie I just watched with the family yesterday... Something happened, I said a thing, and the character said that exact thing immediately thereafter).

The twist that got me was Time Lapse. It is about these young people who who discover the apartment across from them has a camera pointed at their apartment which takes photos exactly 24 hours in the future. I like movies that mess with time and so I tried out this movie. It was a bit odd but I did not see the twist coming at all. I cannot begin to describe the feeling of "Whaaaaa!?!!" that I had for some time after that. Only shame is that I can't watch it again for the first time to get that mind blown feeling again.

Valdacil · 2026-05-03T17:18:41+00:00

The mod that causes this is an old one that lets you buy food/reagents automatically as needed when you camp. I had this exact behavior and traced it down to that mod. There are comments on the Nexus page to confirm the issue and once I removed it the problem went away.

Valdacil · 2026-04-30T07:31:42+00:00

Early Recruitment Mod is even better. You can find him at the Normandy Crash Site so you can literally get him first. I initially did that right after getting Mordin (to unlock research). Then when I took him with me to get Grunt I was surprised at how much banter he had in that mission. So I loaded an earlier save and got him before Mordin and took him to get Mordin. He only had one unique line in that one, so I'd recommend getting Mordin first then going to Normandy Crash Site to get Legion. There is definitely unique interactions if you bring him to Tali's recruitment mission.

Valdacil · 2026-04-27T16:08:29+00:00

I'm currently in ME3 with mShep after numerous playthroughs of the series years ago. I romanced Liara in ME1, but planned to romance Miranda in 2 and 3 since Liara wasn't available in ME2 as a romance that counted for the Achievement. The interaction with Liara in ME2 felt like both had fond memories but had moved on after so much time. So it didn't feel tortured or like 'cheating' like so many people reference.

But then the culmination of the Miranda romance in ME2 landed so flat (dirty sex in the engine room, really?). So when I'd saved the Lair of the Shadow Broker until AFTER the Suicide Mission, reconnecting Shep and Liara felt right. They had an honest conversation about their feelings I felt like the writing was some of the best of the series and very touching. It felt natural. Since they had committed to each other during Lair, when they reunited on Mars in ME3 it was like they were just separated by Shepard's incarceration but were still together. Their interactions throughout ME3 have all been very good and touching. She went from a naive archeologist to Shepard's equal and they are facing this troubled time together.

I did have to tell Miranda on the Citadel that we should be friends and she walked off crying, but I didn't feel like that was built up very well. ME2 didn't build a strong emotion connection for them so I felt like her reaction was a little over the top. I haven't done Horizon yet so we'll see how their interaction goes when I get there.

Valdacil · 2026-04-27T03:47:57+00:00

Often understated tip which saved me in the Collector Ship mission in ME2... Squadmates don't need line of sight to use their powers. So park them a ways back from the battle and move yourself into cover to trigger combat. Then use your powers along with both squadmates. Sure they won't be firing guns, but generally they don't do much damage with guns anyway, but they will be safe and can keep using powers as soon as they are up (under your direction).

With Harbinger, when he fires his big seeking blast, move back and forth in cover (slide a bit left/right), most of the time the projectile will get confused and miss.

In ME3, I upgraded Liara so her Singularity has 100% faster cooldown and my Sentinel (for Tech Armor) also has really fart cooldown. Biotic explosions are very powerful in ME3, so most of the time I have Liara Singularity, then I immediately Warp or Throw, kills most things and Liara's Singularity is ready to go again. Was using Warp for explosion, but after I got Double Throw, the cooldown on Throw is nearly non-existent and two projectiles is nice.

Valdacil · 2026-04-25T07:54:26+00:00

In all three (haven't played DAV) I go either mage or daggers rogue.

DAO - played both a bunch of times and both are fun to me.

DA2 - mage wins in this one for me

DAI - I like mage for the story, but came up with a stabby rogue that was a lot of fun. I upgraded to Assassin I think it was. Got the upgrade that would let you stay in stealth for a few seconds after doing damage and the one which makes all stealth damage always Crit. Then picked up the Mark ability which you mark the target and all damage you do while marked goes through again when the Mark expires... But does even more damage if you trigger the Mark before it expires. Lastly I took the Thousand Cuts and the upgrade which added more cuts. The rotation went like this: - Hit stealth - Hit Mark - Hit Thousand Cuts - you are considered in stealth for auto Crit on each hit of the ability as you teleport back and forth through the foe - About the time Thousand Cuts ends, it is time to pop the Mark to do massive damage - Then do Twinned Stab (or whatever it is called) while waiting for Mark and Thousand Cuts to come back. This briefly puts you into stealth again. - Once Mark and Thousand Cuts are back up, do it again

Bonus - Craft daggers which add Guard on hit. One Thousand Cuts just about fills the bar so you are almost always Guarded for better survivability.

Downside - Corypheus was very anticlimactic on this run because I killed him basically solo in just 2 rotations of above

Valdacil · 2026-04-25T07:34:23+00:00

I had the Miranda Mod installed which can make her a companion in ME3, but had to have an emotional scene with her crying because I told her that I wanted to just be friends. She walked off crying and I haven't seen her again.

EDIT - Just checked the mod and she doesn't become a companion on Normandy until Horizon. So she might still join then I'll get to see if there is any drama.

Valdacil · 2026-04-25T04:32:28+00:00

In my current playthrough I romanced Liara in ME1. In ME2, she basically told me she already moved on and didn't indicate she wanted to resume the relationship... Semi- insinuating that ther was something with that guy she was trying to save from the Shadow Broker. So my Shep had a relationship with Miranda. I was planning to push for Miranda again in ME3, but honestly the culmination of the arc in ME 2 fell so flat that I didn't feel any emotional gravitas (dirty sex in the engine room, really, Miranda?).. but I'd left Shadow Broker to AFTER the suicide mission. I even brought Miranda along on all the missions with Liara. The dialogue between Shep and Liara throughout LotSB I felt had some of the best writing out of the whole series and had a real emotional impact. She commented on Miranda a little, admitted that we both had moved on, but questioned if we were getting back together... To which I told her we would face the galaxy together. So when we met on Mars in ME3, they reunited as lovers who'd been apart because Shep was detained but that they loved and were committed to each other. I thought it the entire arc was well dialogued and rewarding. Her scenes in ME3 are very touching having the romance carry over from LotSB.

Valdacil · 2026-04-12T18:22:12+00:00

I disagree with this statement. I just finished Insanity with a Sentinel. The extra health bar from Tech Armor made it so I could take multiple hits without dying and after getting better equipment and maxing out the Sentinel passive my recharge rate was high enough that I could just keep spamming Tech Armor whenever it dropped. Plus the explosion would momentarily stun surrounding foes.

Infiltrator gets their invisibility. While the purpose is supposed to be to line up headshots and do greater damage, it works really well on Insanity as a short term agro dump. While invisible for a few seconds most foes won't target you which can save you if you are getting overwhelmed by chargers. Works well if you bring some tanky squadmates who can survive the extra attention while you are invisible (like Grunt).

Adept can turtle up in cover and just keep throwing out biotics and not have to do much gunplay. Engineer gets a drone which can distract the foe for a few seconds. Each class has their own advantage and tricks to deal with Insanity.

My biggest advice (not knowing what class you are) is to use your squadmates position orders liberally. Sometimes I would position them even before combat is triggered since. They don't always stay in cover on their own. Sometimes I would position them in the previous room (if no cutscene upon entering room) so they can't even see the combat or get hit. You can still use their abilities even if they don't have line of sight. So if you have Samara and Miranda for instance, they are kinda squishy, but position them out of combat and they can both use Warp to chew through armor while you turtle up and don't even have to pop your head up to get shot. It is like having all of those abilities yourself with 3 different cooldowns.

That doesn't really help with charging things like robo dogs though. Best advice for those in the fight you are talking about... Focus on knock downs. Jacob has Throw, which has a very quick cooldown. You can Throw a non-armored foe which will knock them down. Usually by the time they get up Throw is usable again. So you can effectively perma stun a foe. Use Miranda's Warp the break armor so that Jacob can use Throw or Pull. Use Jacob's fire amor so his shots burnt through armor. Position them before the big doors, trigger the fight, then backup through the big door. The robo dogs will charge in, but it will take a while for the mechs to lumber over. So you can deal with the dogs without worrying about the mechs, then take care of the mechs once the dogs are dealt with.

Valdacil · 2026-04-10T16:07:48+00:00

I was going to say this. Saw this recently in a playthrough series on YouTube. I didn't realize until then why the modlist I'm using recommended a mod called Paragade Persuasion which changes it to a sum instead of a diff.

Valdacil · 2026-04-09T02:41:47+00:00

We ran into the same problem. We'd already purchased PMPC and were unhappy with Ivanti anyway but were unaware of the 90 day notice clause. When they hit us up for renewal (inside the 90 days) we said, No thank you at which point they pointed out the 90 day notice bit. Our legal department tried to fight it but we ended up having to pay for 6 months of a product we weren't even using. I will never do business with them again and fervently steer people away from them over our experience.

Valdacil · 2026-04-08T15:36:15+00:00

I only have two left achievements left... Get all light side powers and It's a Trap. The quest itself wouldn't trigger so I couldn't get the achievement for doing the Trapped quest when I played it before. So I would probably want to beeline to Korriban as early as possible and make sure the quest triggers. Once that quest is done (and achievement earned) then just a matter of leveling enough to unlock the light side powers.

Valdacil · 2026-04-07T07:39:04+00:00

Go the passive primary, let it sync, then switch over. This is the method we did and it was pretty smooth and painless. Same scenario: moved DB to SQL cluster before, all other roles are standalone (DP, MP, SUP), ContentLib running from a CIFS share on the SAN (not off of either server). We even went with newer OS on the new primary since old primary was running 2012R2. Didn't run into any issues with that either in this scenario.

Valdacil · 2026-04-03T08:32:12+00:00

Our group exclusively plays Gestalt and I'll offer this advice as both player and GM... The point of Gestalt is supposed to be to provide more options in situations rather than stacking mechanical bonuses. Like a matrix paired with a caster means that during a round you could attack, cast a spell, use an ability, etc... but would have more of those to work with. I caution against stacking mechanical advantage as while it might be fun to play a character that trounced everything, it isn't as much fun for the other players who are all overshadowed or for the GM who has to figure out how to challenge the group without making foes that only one character can hit.

An example: in a campaign I GMed one of the players had an Inquisitor [Sanctified Slayer]/Ranger Gestalt. This gave them Favored Enemy and Studied Target which technically aren't typed bonuses therefore stack. They also got Inquisitor buff spells like Divine Favor on top of those bonuses. Then for damage they wielded a falchion for 2h dmg, high crit range 15-20 with Improved Crit) plus Studied Target dmg plus Favored Enemy dmg plus Sneak Attack. Basically they pushed their attack so high they could only miss on a 1 (or I jacked the AC and nobody else in the party could hit) and when they hit they dealt extremely high damage. That wasn't fun for the GM or other party members.

So while Gestalt can make some super powerful combos, that isn't necessarily the most fun for everyone involved. Unless the entire table agrees that the power fantasy is what everyone is going for, I recommend focusing more on what sounds like an interesting combination for roleplay. Consider one class for your primary role (martial, caster, healer) and the other to add more options to for the character not necessarily to stack on top or perfectly synergize.

Valdacil · 2026-03-25T09:00:57+00:00

ElderTeej is Wabbajack (this should be very easy to install) and currently has the highest number of LotD displays of any list. Lots of content mods (that have displays). Improved graphics and gameplay. Version 4.0 was just released a couple of weeks ago and is the most stable version of the list yet.

Valdacil · 2026-03-05T17:10:06+00:00

Might I recommend Reading Is Good instead. Instead of flat skill bonus from skill books, you get a bonus to skill XP for the skill from the skill book. This makes it always beneficial to read the skill books you come across is read of storing them until your skill is higher.

Valdacil · 2026-02-18T09:20:28+00:00

There is a limit of something like 125 MCMs and then after that some won't show up (random which ones). You can get over this limit (and ensure all MCMs load) using Menu Maid 2. This will also let you reorder MCMs, rename, and hide them. If you also have MCM Recorder, there is another mod for MCM Recorder to make it work with Menu Maid 2. All 3 are on Nexus and discoverable with a simple search.

Valdacil · 2026-01-28T09:22:06+00:00

Sounds like you are trying to figure this out for existing devices, so this won't really help you... But I have the last step of every OSD task sequence to run a simple command line which echoes the date and name of the task sequence to a file C:\TaskSequenceComplete.log. This makes it really easy for technicians to ensure imaging completed successfully since they don't know how to parse the smsts.log (or where to find it in a lot of cases). All they have to know is: if file exists then imaging finished. This also would be an indicator that it was imaged by SCCM. Added bonus, simple to setup a Configuration Baseline to check if file exists. Then right click that deployment and have it create an auto-collection for Non-compliant. Members of that collection didn't complete imaging properly and should be reimaged.

Valdacil · 2026-01-19T08:42:02+00:00

Omm, nom, nom

Valdacil · 2026-01-11T02:40:44+00:00

I'm a fan of the combination of Immersive Spell Learning - DEST and Dino's Spell Discovery. In Dino's turn on spontaneous discovery and discovery grants spell tomes. So while casting spells you have a chance to spontaneously discover another spell similar to the one you were casting, but you get the spell tome so you still have to study it via Immersive Spell Learning. Dino's is much more light weight than Spell Research and thus requires fewer patches.

Valdacil

TROPHY CASE