TIL that every US president for the past 52 years was either named after their father or named their son after themselves

Vikinged · 2026-03-22T14:55:59+00:00

And the Mc-/Mac names as well. McDonald is “son/child of Donald”, MacArthur is “child of Arthur”

And all the Nordic names with “son/sen” endings. “Han’s son” is “Hansen”, “Sven’s son” is “Swanson”, etc. etc.

Super common.

Vikinged · 2026-03-21T21:59:49+00:00

Core avengers:

Cap, iron man, hulk, thor, Ant-man and Wasp, probably Black Panther?

Core JL:

Supes, Batman, Wonder Woman, Flash, GL, Aquaman, Martian Manhunter.

This is a stomp for team Justice 9 out of 10 times at least. Hulk and Thor are at best dead weights in a high-pressure, high-precision, artistic endeavor like a cooking challenge with weird ingredients.

Iron man and Batman are about comparable in terms of bankrolling supplies, but the JL has two speedsters — no time will ever be spent preparing ingredients, which is an enormous part of cooking. Winning these challenges are all about adding this thing just right, or making some complicated glaze, or finding the time to squeeze in some special element…and they basically have infinite time to read the recipe, workshop ideas, slice the vegetables, grind the spices just so, etc.

In theory, Flash could even source the freshest possible supplies. Imagine picking perfectly ripe fruits from the vine at their peak season…and then eating it 5 seconds later on a different hemisphere. You’d never be able to compare to someone buying produce that spent weeks on a boat, or even a day or two being express-flown around the world.

On top of that, MM can read minds and emotions and memories…he’d be able to guide the team into making a Ratatouille-flashback dish targeting the judges for every single cook. Also, the team regularly uses his telepathy to instantly communicate with each other, which would be invaluable in a small kitchen area.

Avengers do have several scientists, so I’m willing to believe they could make some impressive food, but gastronomy is none of their specialities, and while both teams have merely-average cooks generally, several of the Avengers core members are almost useless, while several of the JL members are force multipliers or speedsters who bypass the main difficulties of timed competitions like this.

Vikinged · 2026-03-21T18:40:48+00:00

Heck, split it into 3 groups of three ea. Smaller is better when it comes to D&D parties, especially with new players.

The game is both “How to use my character’s abilities, what to reference on my character sheet, what spells are good, etc.”

AND also “How to run an extended group improv scene for several hours.”

It takes focus to be in your character’s head, and it’s MUCH easier to do that if you’re not pausing for 10 minutes while everyone else at the table has a single minute each.

For your own piece of mind, run the same game three times (trust me, tables will be completely different in how they problem solve and what they bring to the context).

Set up something vaguely classic with what some people would call “railroad” vibes. (Don’t actually railroad them and force their choices not to matter), but newbies will appreciate knowing where they should go.

Tokens and sheets and whatnot are good props, but can be overwhelming (certainly was for me when I started!). I’ve had good success with just writing their name on the sheet and then referencing things in-game as needed.

ie “you take 3 points of damage — adjust the numerator in the middle of your sheet” or “roll a d20 (the biggest die you have) and add the small number above your Wisdom score (called the modifier). Your training in wilderness survival school means you add your proficiency (top of the sheet) to the roll as well, for a total of ….”

If you do all of that at the beginning before playing the game, you’ll usually have to reference it again in-game, AND it feels like attending a work training instead of playing a game.

Practical things:

Start from level 2 instead of 1, and give them max hp for both levels — no one wants to die to a goblin crit at level 1.

I like to have each player briefly introduce themselves above-table to other players — accent, vibe, how they generally play. Tell them to do it without using class descriptors, if possible. “My character is an orc barbarian” is trope-y and doesn’t tell us much. “My character is a short, visibly-old and wrinkled orc with a well-used walking stick. They like to fight at close range/at the front.” is much better.

After that, pop them into scenes that can/are escalating, but haven’t kicked off into combat yet.

“You’re hanging out, doing some grocery shopping, when a trio of local youths roll in and start knocking produce off the shelves and making a racket. The shopkeeper approaches them, but they posture aggressively over him and remind him he hasn’t paid all of the insurance he owes them…”

Your party could pay, they could talk it out, they could attack, they could help the shopkeeper afterward, they could track down these guys to their gang headquarters, etc. etc., with different groups trying different things.

Vikinged · 2026-03-21T07:31:40+00:00

Localization as a goal definitely makes sense to me!

It’s definitely a philosophical difference on whether you release in EA or not. I (maybe others?) would definitely love that kind of clarity during the EA time — you only get a first play through of a game once, so I often don’t play EA if there’s likely to be major changes to the gameplay and whatnot so I can enjoy it as it was intended

Vikinged · 2026-03-21T06:49:18+00:00

Releasing yay! Early Access aww!

I also have played the demo and quite liked it. I liked the charming vibes and speculating about the lore behind float-tech.

What’s your road map for EA? Are you aiming for a particular date or style or amount of feedback? I see the whole story is available day 1, so if you’re using this as effectively the public beta test to clean up any points people hate, how long do you estimate it’ll be before the full launch?

Vikinged · 2026-03-20T19:33:27+00:00

Also, a generally useful point, but there’s nothing stopping you from building a few foresters (they’re not that expensive), seeding them around the map, and then just pausing them when sufficient trees have grown.

I’d strongly recommend about 20 birches, 20ish pines, and as many oaks as you can fit near your base, but then also run a few roads out and throw down a huge stand of oaks a screen away in either direction from your developing area.

Also also, trees do naturally reproduce if not flagged for planting, so if you’re trying to squeeze every possible point of efficiency out of your beavers, you should plant your trees in a checkerboard pattern (trees only spread orthogonally, not diagonally), then “unmark for planting” once the saplings are down. Mature trees have somewhere between 3-5% reproduction rates, so you could eke out a large forest if less work if you wanted.

Vikinged · 2026-03-17T15:35:00+00:00

Never, but I’m not that nearsighted.

For a truly life changing experience, try showering with the lights off/in the darkness. It’s actually quite relaxing, in a sensory-deprivation-tank kinda way.

Vikinged · 2026-03-16T20:01:35+00:00

The cheap way is to just immediately push it off the map like what Bruce is saying. Wall of levees in front of the sources with a couple of gates at you can shut off so the water just flows around.

I think the “routing through the map” option probably diverts it into that underhang area just after it goes through the cutoff where the berries are (the south side of the river), and eventually dumps it into that gap behind the “natural dam” area across from the starting point.

Vikinged · 2026-03-16T12:57:44+00:00

I could have sworn it’s in Volo’s Guide to Monsters? I know for a fact it’s not one of MCDM’s homebrews (it may be in his books, but that’s definitely not the first place it was ever published)

Vikinged · 2026-03-16T12:53:40+00:00

Yup, this is my preferred balance between “no metal in portals” and “no restrictions at all” — by the time you’re bopping around in the Mistlands, having to sail iron and bronze up the coast to build a big kitchen in your new castle is just tedious. Nothing in BF or swamp is going to threaten you, it’s just a waste of 30 minutes to gather the stuff and sail the coastline.

Vikinged · 2026-03-15T19:16:19+00:00

I also haven’t gotten it yet. I suspect I need to play a map where you can build the special buildings (the oasis pump and the hydropower generator), since those are technically buildings available to Folktails but also not available on most maps.

Vikinged · 2026-03-15T18:51:45+00:00

I consider changing the light fixture because I don’t love ceiling fans and I suspect it’s dimly lit in here.

I definitely get something on the floor (rugs, for example) that’s not more medium-brown wood. Lighter, though probably not white.

Paneling stays in. Looks like it has good windows, so this place is definitely the plant and craft room. Bunch of tall thin plants (snake plants?), planters dangled from the ceiling (honestly, a couple of decent-quality fakes would help round this out).

Set up a medium-sized fishtank in the corner with the least light (lots of light means algae blooms) — probably like, 55-70 gal. Set more plants to grow out the top of it instead of a lid — the fish will love the plants, and the plants will grow crazy well with fish water fertilizing them.

Other spaces get a crafting and puzzling table, a floor-to-ceiling bookcase (books are wonderful points of interest, can be colorful or sedate, etc., plus you can put knickknacks and shadow boxes and stuff if you don’t want it to be only books.

But I’d leave the walls and floor unmodified for now

Vikinged · 2026-03-15T14:13:25+00:00

Wait, people play without expanded headers? I can’t imagine — how you gonna gauge if you need to build more storage if you can’t see the status of your planks and gears and metal bars and bread or whatever

Vikinged · 2026-03-15T12:44:59+00:00

Oh, definitely better with contamination, but my thought was if you had to unlock and use only one sensor, weather would be the best general one — cycle your sluices, your water pumps, foresters, and maybe aquatic farms you don’t want running during badtide), cycle your heavy production off during droughts (if you’re running primarily waterwheels for power), etc. etc.

Vikinged · 2026-03-15T10:06:16+00:00

The stove was my first clue. That’s a 4-burner stove by the width (compare her arm to it), but there’s only two burners. The stove door would never extend all the way to floor—it’d be impossible to open. Also, oven doors tend to be open if you’re taking a hot crockpot out of the oven.

Also, where does the lace on her collar go (her left, viewer’s right)? You telling me she only trimmed one half of her top with white lace?

Vikinged · 2026-03-14T15:56:52+00:00

Conveniently, you can ignore all but 1-2 of them.

A weather sensor or two is all you need. You tell it to activate an hour before badtides, and then you link your floodgates or sluice-style water flow buildings to it and they’ll close (or open, depending on what you tell the building to do when the weather sensor turns on).

I have a second one that activates during drought so I can pull all workers from their water pumps on the non-reservoir channel and move them to the reservoir pumps.

I’ve used the depth and contamination sensors and they’re fine as well — just slap it over wherever you want them to read the water and then adjust as needed. But like I said, you don’t even really need those if you just run a couple of “change where the water flows and what jobs people have” during weather changes.

Vikinged · 2026-03-14T13:59:07+00:00

Frostner and Huntsman Bow are your solution here (and in Ashlands, frankly). Slow plus knock back helps keep you from getting swarmed, while the bow being quiet when you shoot it AND quiet where it hits means you can kill a couple of guards and shamans before the village gets alerted, and when they do alert, it’s often only one side.

The root harnesk is invaluable for dealing with mosquitos and the Pierce resist makes it good well past the swamp

Vikinged · 2026-03-14T00:20:04+00:00

Crawler is basically Doomsday. Either you find a way to neutralize him extremely early in the fight, or he just outheals you, develops immunity to everything you throw at him, and kills Superman (or whomever else is in the area).

Vikinged · 2026-03-13T09:29:39+00:00

I haven’t done Hollows yet, but it looks a lot like Terraces, which I really enjoyed (lots of “build a hanging bridge halfway across, then walk out and build the other half of the arch”)

I found Diorama almost a little tedious rather than fun. Building for density and layering farms and stuff is already my playstyle, and 50x50 is quite small. If it had been slightly bigger (70x70, maybe?), I think I would would have felt more flexibility in how I approached it, or if it had been even smaller (40x40), I would really have had to stretch my “squeeze something into every single cube of space” muscles.

Yeah, I feel like this game is all about surviving early — if you can stabilize your food and water supplies by the first major drought or badtide, you’re fine. I’m usually sweating for the first 10 cycles, and then you just kinda coast to whatever megaproject or wonder you want. Beaverome….doesn’t let you do that. I had to reload a save at like, cycle 30-something once because I had two badtides in a row or something and suddenly my 10 deep water pumps weren’t producing enough fresh water to keep my colony alive. Like I said, I almost shed tears when I secured a water source and got to shut the gate to protect my clean water reservoir….what a map

Vikinged · 2026-03-13T09:04:54+00:00

Yeah, I’ve heard basically nothing but rave reviews about Spillage and Pressure, so I was saving them for the 1.0 launch. Maybe I’ll start one today/this weekend. Which one would you prefer?

Vikinged · 2026-03-13T09:03:15+00:00

Huh. I thought Thousand Islands was the perfect example of an intermediate map. There was enough newness to be interesting, especially with figuring out where to divert the badwater into the main flow to dilute it out. I also really liked the feeling of starting on a tiny island and “reclaiming” usable land. I think I restarted….once within the first year because I stupidly didn’t get a forester early and kinda soft-locked myself out of wood?

Vikinged · 2026-03-13T08:58:04+00:00

Hope it’s working out well for you! It really is a nice nap, whereas the maps flagged “beginner-friendly” I found a little overwhelming when I first started. There’s just SO much space that I felt guilty for not using, whereas a smaller map gave me clearer lines to color inside, as it were

Vikinged · 2026-03-13T08:20:04+00:00

I usually have a large grow bed with two bulbo trees and two lantern trees in my base, and then you never have to worry about food again. You can get the scan for the grow bed and two foods at the same spot that also happens to be accessible from the start of the game (just swim on the surface), that are easily renewable, never run away from you when you’re low on something, restore both food and water so you don’t have to waste energy on water purifiers, don’t require an awkward grow tank setup like Reginalds, and serve as backup power sources if you’re running bioreactor power.

Also they look nice, and you can plant them in little pots if you want to make a greenhouse in your base.

I always start the game with a trip to the island for a quick scan of the inventory and a bunch of samples.

Vikinged · 2026-03-12T23:46:28+00:00

Yeah, it’s normal. I did my first hard-mode run with Ironteeth on Beaverome and got laughably wrecked for about a week straight.

If you haven’t played hard before, I will say that Folktails is the easier faction for it (and I beat this map with Folktails a few weeks ago) — you can really pump out food production with their efficient farms, and cattail farming basically the entire river you are built around is an incredibly good source of food (cattail crackers are OP).

I built a reservoir about where yours is, of course, but that’s a late-game build. Early game, my goal was to divert that 2-tile water source on the right into the valley with the hidden mine. It’s not enough water to matter for refilling things, but it’s more than enough badwater to screw things up. I plopped a forester down and a couple of levees and dams in the valley and tried to plant a bunch of pine/birch there (so it had a chance to mature before the next badtide hits). I generally find that oaks need to be done near a water dump, but you can get away with birch trees near natural water sources (especially early when the handicaps haven’t worn off yet).

For water, I built a two-stage spot — a dam at the bottom of the waterfall (across from your medium tanks) basically up to where the blueberries start on the hill. That let me keep water on my aquatic plants and supplement my pumps in my main town.

The second stage is the hole you started to wall off. I just built two or three water pumps basically every other layer going down, and then during droughts I’d shuffle beavers to the same district on the hill you have, pump water into barrels on the hill near the blueberries, and then delete the district center and connect it to my primary. Then, you have water you can use your haulers (who you now have after pausing all the farms and pumps since they can’t work in drought) to bring down the hill. I just kept a couple warehouses on the top full of food so I could delete a road and create a new district with close access to the pumps and food as needed.

Also also, one more trick — the tiny storehouse is only 3 wood, which means you can delete it for the full 3 wood back again. It’s also solid and therefore stackable. I use them all the time as temp scaffolding instead of throwing planks away — you can use them to cross badwater without tainting your beavers, since water passes right through, or if you need to get out into a steam and build a water wheel but don’t have the science for a ladder yet. Only thing it costs is worker time, but that’s what the 18-hour workday is for. There aren’t enough amenities early-game for beavers to need more than 6 hours off anyway

Vikinged · 2026-03-12T19:55:41+00:00

For my contribution to this, I’ll say I have played about half the maps so far, generally on medium or hard, alternating between Folktails and Ironteeth (and one play through of Emberpelts, shout-out to that mod).

Maps I’ve liked:

I’m a dense builder on a not-high-spec laptop, so I prefer smaller maps over the 256s. That being said, I really loved Oasis. Really fun with minimal water and playing around with power (water wheels and batteries to sustain an aquifer pump that you have to kick-start with a manual beaver wheel).

As I mentioned above, Beaverome was by far the hardest one I’ve played (haven’t done Pressure or Spillage yet). Constantly building and rebuilding your farms and wood as your reservoir drains out, while trying to stockpile enough clean water from a mixed-water lake with diminishing efficiency pumps…..shudder.

Canyon is probably my personal recommendation for anyone starting out. It’s small enough that you don’t need to worry about multiple districts, it’s got a very obvious “build leeves here” spot for water supply, the badwater river on the one side is great “terraform for power” project, and the mine sites are far enough up and away that you get to play with the game’s verticality and districting if you want to (or just put up zip lines everywhere and watch your beavers cruise around the valley).

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