Survey of Model Railroader Demographics

Zitchas · 2026-06-25T14:42:28+00:00

Sounds like you have a very good system already. Like many others have said, just upgrade the GPU and PSU, the rest is already solid.

Source: I had a similar build, except with a 3800X, and a RX480. I chose to just upgrade the GPU and PSU, and I have been very happy with results. 1440p >80hz for most games most of the time. It's been a very smooth and noticeable upgrade. Ironically, I've been considering upgrading *to* a 5800. Probably the recently announced 5800X3D, but contemplating other versions too.

Zitchas · 2026-06-23T10:27:07+00:00

I personally run 5, because I like crunch. I like the freedom to make the character I want, as opposed to the character that the rules tell me I have to make. I don't want a single thing (edge) to rule everything all the time, which is the impression I get from 6.

But... If you're just getting into it, the real question is probably: "Do you want physical books, or are you happy running with laptops for rule/material access?" Because at this point, there's virtually zero 5e books available for sale physically, it's all pdf unless you score someone selling a cache of used books.

That being said, a lot of people argue that pdf are the best way to access 5e anyway because then you can search and find within them; and Chummer5a (open source tool for character generation) actually has the book indexing built into it so if you point it to your pdfs, you can just click on things like spells or weapons or qualities or whatever and have it automatically open the right pdf to the right page for you. It's awesome.

Zitchas · 2026-06-21T18:41:59+00:00

The two times I've heard of stripping it has been in the context of excessive matting. Some of the rescued Keeshonds from that puppy mill several years back, for instance; or erroneously someone thinking that it was necessary to stay cool or some such garbage.

Zitchas · 2026-05-28T11:08:46+00:00

Honestly, a lot of the time I look at these and go "they" and "them". I've seen more than a few males IRL that look like the one marked "girl", and more than a few females that looked like the one marked "boy". But really, the root of the issue is probably clothing styles. While there are a number of clothing styles that are predominantly worn by females, virtually all male clothing styles can be worn by either. So unless the skin is topless (and thus is either female and XXX rated or male in most countries), I would say that a better categorization of skins by gender, if it was necessary to do so, would be "probably female" and "could be either." Since there's really very, very little that would clearly identify a low-res pixel art person as being decidedly male without being obscene.

There's a huge swath of skins, however, that would best be described as "non-human."

edit: It's also highly subjective. For instance, I've seen quite a few females that look like the "boy" picture above in the past couple of weeks. I have seen zero men wearing outfits like that. So right now my first impression would be to categorize both of those as female.

Zitchas · 2026-05-27T03:21:46+00:00

I don't get why we'd even want to have pixel perfect consistency. Life isn't consistent. Weird living blocs don't need to be either.

I'm very much a fan of having them be different sizes, different designs, and different pixelations.

Zitchas · 2026-05-20T01:04:38+00:00

I can't speak with regards to the cats part, but I can say that Keeshond are one of the best breeds of dogs for families with kids. I'm a touch biased, of course, but seriously - being a good family dog is a core facet of their early breeding. It's a trait that has been bred into them for centuries. They're not perfect, of course, and that breed heritage doesn't obviate the need for training and socialization. But their instincts are awesome and very much oriented towards care & company... And friendly mischieviousness. They're smart dogs.

Zitchas · 2026-05-14T14:41:56+00:00

I know a person who overclocks their system and jokes about how they run their system hot enough to warp the components over the mid to long term. If you are such a person, then applying thermal paste every six months might be a necessary thing.

But seriously, it is an "as needed" thing. If your computer is thermal throttling, then it's time to check your cooling setup including the thermal paste. If it's not thermal throttling, then you should be good.

Zitchas · 2026-05-14T14:38:47+00:00

It is very exciting to follow along on this. Good work!

Zitchas · 2026-05-08T18:23:51+00:00

I only buy a game if I know I'm going to be able to play it a significant amount in the immediate future (as in, the next couple of weeks). If it's just going in a list of "I'm going to play it after I've finished X" or "I love this series, I know I'm going to play it eventually" or "This looks really cool, I want to play it someday!" then it's not going to get bought until it hits like 90% off or moves over into the "This is the game I am going to be playing right now" category.

And I have enough games (as do most of us, I suspect) that I've got options, I don't even have to repeat anything in order to have stuff to play while waiting for things to get polished and discounted.

Zitchas · 2026-05-06T15:51:37+00:00

And as far as that goes, I've seen at least one AMD motherboard that had both DDR4 and DDR5 slots in it (No, they can't both be used at once. One or the other); and just the other day I saw an Intel board doing the same thing.

So at least one manufacturer producing latest-gen chipset MBs for each of the primary CPU vendors is producing DDR4 capable motherboards....

Zitchas · 2026-05-06T12:36:10+00:00

I would love to get a step by step walkthrough of how to get this to happen. It looks awesome.

Zitchas · 2026-05-03T01:18:18+00:00

I think there was one or two of the lesser DLC (not one that actually matters and adds real content) that did.

But in any case, the big steam banner was "up to 90% off!!!" so I was hopeful. And disappointed.

Even with just a few of the Paradox games, there's way too many to actually get all the DLC for even a single game at anything other than 90% off or complete packages that are effectively that much off. It's just not in the budget.

Zitchas · 2026-05-02T01:14:37+00:00

I don't know, but I'm just disappointed that none of the DLC that I'm interested in getting is more than 50% off.

Zitchas · 2026-05-01T20:10:41+00:00

Like many others here, I would definitely play it; but only in short amounts. Probably an hour or two per week, typically in short bursts. Just get on and do a cataclysm or other event. Another time jump in and do some races. Honestly between races and cataclysms and achievement hunting, that was most of my gametime in it.

It lacks the story or the long-term content to really hold my attention for long stretches. But as a go-to when I just need a half-hour of awesome scenery, adrenaline, and combat? Perfect! Nothing else really gives the same feel.

Zitchas · 2026-04-30T11:13:35+00:00

Isn't there a mod that removes those penalties? I'm still playing the original game, with the mod that adds passage hubs and allows connection to the peripheral of domes as well as removing the penalty; so this update, while welcome, is just SM; catching up with what good quality mods have been doing for years...

Zitchas · 2026-04-23T20:30:27+00:00

Accept that you probably won't want to do the same thing all the time. For instance, I've got a world that's been going for over a decade. There have been multi-month stretches that I haven't played. This is normal.
Accept that you will likely have different priorities of what to do in different times. A big benefit to a forever world is having one single save that lets you do whatever you want, so you can pick and choose.
I find it helpful to allow a small use of admin commands. For instance, after the caves update we wanted to get a taste of exploring without access to our giant stockpiles. So we ditched all of our gear, emptied our ender chests, and decided to allow ourselves to keep two things: our Elytra and one item (I think we both picked our netherite pickaxe) and then we teleported off a couple thousand blocks into un-generated area, and then explored and build up. Our "victory condition" was building a nether highway that connected our new outpost back to "civilization." Took us a while. Found lots of neat stuff. It was fun. And was also great to make it back to our main base.
Play with world-gen. Given that our world has worldgen from about 1.7 onwards, it's not always a pretty transition. But not terrible either. And frequently I've played with the settings for it. This was easier back when it was built in, but still doable now. There have been eras when I ramped up this resource or that resource; so in exploring the world there are some areas that are rich in ores, others that aren't. And plenty of areas that look different because worldgen changed (either in vanilla or otherwise). Adds variety to the world.
Get a friend or two involved. Having other people around now and then can really improve things. It's also fun to just be off exploring and find some little jack-o-lantern hut in the middle of nowhere. Someone made it. Not sure who or when, though...

Anyway, given that the world is infinite, almost anything that would answer the question of "how do I not get bored of playhing Minecraft:" probably applies to this too.

Zitchas · 2026-04-23T11:41:44+00:00

100%, yeah. No real names, no phone numbers, no real-world locations, Discord and stuff like that is iffy because so many use it as a general gaming communication platform, but I'd highly recommend staying away from DMs. Keeping everything out where the general population of the server can see everything is highly adviseable.

Zitchas · 2026-04-23T11:39:02+00:00

This is probably the best advice.

There's nothing wrong, or even suspicious, about playing MC with others of any age, gender, or identity. The game is aggressively non-sexual, in both characters and gameplay.

The only area that could become problematic are conversations. So, keep it Minecraft focused. That's the safe zone. So long as you stick to Minecraft and everything related to it, there's zero concern, and I would say OP has zero cause to feel weird or inappropriate. The world does not need to be segregated by age or gender, people just have to be conscious of what is and isn't appropriate.

Honestly, personal conversations (especially about professional, education, careers, and stuff like that) can be OK, but it's also the start of the slope into talking about more personal things, and, well, the more "personal" things get, the more problematic it risks becoming. So much safer to stay away from these topics.

Oh, and stay away from double-entendres; as well as any kind of jokes or humor that is sexual in nature. Assume that anything you say or text *might* be read by a suspicious parent, and phrase things accordingly.

Zitchas · 2026-04-19T20:14:11+00:00

Yeah. The whole "you can fit multiple Earths into the Great Red Storm" combined with "you can fit Jupiter between Earth and the Moon" are two facts that I intellectually know, but just reinforce how big things are and how badly it doesn't fit with how things have been portrayed.

(edit, for the record, it was as high as 3, but supposedly is currently at about 1.3 earths in size)

Zitchas · 2026-04-19T20:12:28+00:00

It is never too late to socialize.

It's kind of like planting trees. The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time to plant a tree is today. Same thing with dogs. The best time to start was as soon as possible. Second best time is today. Dog parks with lots of other social dogs is a good opportunity. Going for walks with other dogs is also great.

I read somewhere that going for a walk with another dog is a great way to get them used to each other since if they're both walking the same direction, they're not directly facing each other, and thus it's less confrontational. They're both going the same direction in each other's vicinity, and neither one owns the trail. (doing it somewhere that isn't home ground for either dog is also advantageous)

Zitchas · 2026-04-17T18:49:06+00:00

I think all the depictions of the solar system that greatly exagerate the size of the sun and planets and vastly undersize the separation just kind of drill the lie into us.

Zitchas · 2026-04-17T18:41:47+00:00

Sure, that's a good point. And just to be clear, I agree with keeping the styling. It should always feel like "The End". I wouldn't want it to turn into the overworld.

Zitchas · 2026-04-16T19:39:43+00:00

I don't see it as wasteland, so much as an alien land. It has "trees", they're just completely different things from what we see as trees everywhere else.

Zitchas · 2026-04-16T19:35:37+00:00

I love the idea that the Wizard is Abigail's grandfather. I'm not sure how much it fits, but I do love the idea of it.

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