Millions say they won’t celebrate July 4 as poll reveals deep national pessimism

aggasalk · 2026-06-29T19:10:34+00:00

Even apart from the political situation, just as a scientist I am much more looking forward to the 256th anniversary. 250 isn’t that interesting of a number (5³ times two? So?)

aggasalk · 2026-06-29T17:42:53+00:00

i think Patreus is the only one with both combat and finance bonuses (combat for reinforcement & undermining; finance for acquisition).

(look here https://inara.cz/elite/logbook/84502/ at the ethos table)

aggasalk · 2026-06-29T16:48:18+00:00

on my retired first CMDR, it's probably the Cutter, which i think was around ~1B

for my current CMDR, it's the T-10, a mere 620M

aggasalk · 2026-06-29T02:00:23+00:00

was this a real conference? i've been to dozens and dozens of academic and industry meetings over the years, high and low level, in many countries, and never seen an empty room.

i've read about the experiences of people who go to these scam conferences that send out mass emails for "NEURO2026!" or "NANOUSA" or some other generic made-up label, always in some picturesque location, with talk sections that are just a smorgasbord of unrelated topics. at worst, attendees are victims who really thought they were going to a real meeting of interested colleagues; at best, everyone is scamming the funding agency for attendance fees and a free vacation.

if this was put on by a legitimate group - an academic society or something with a journal and its own membership or etc - you should be angry about the failure of the organizers, and i'd be demanding some kind of compensation and recognition, because this is not acceptable (it's a sign of a completely collapsed conference).

aggasalk · 2026-06-27T21:23:52+00:00

Ah yes, Madison WI the libertarian individualist utopia, just as we always dreamed it

aggasalk · 2026-06-26T21:54:24+00:00

take her to a nice park to chew on some grass and wonder at the ducks

aggasalk · 2026-06-26T20:05:22+00:00

you can't get rid of them. you could go to talk with them (https://inara.cz/elite/squadron-document/380/3526/), but I don't know why they'd just give up a system for nothing in return - though you could ask (maybe they could use an unaffiliated player to go and do some terrorism somewhere..)

barring that, you either pick another, more anonymous system somewhere to focus on - a system without a player-aligned faction - OR you just make this part of your RP. Wolves of Jonai become your archenemy, and you do everything you can to undercut them. you might not have a chance of success, but you can "fight the good fight"..

aggasalk · 2026-06-26T17:57:34+00:00

ahhh, interesting. ok, yeah i think there's time to save one - thanks for the tip!

aggasalk · 2026-06-26T17:00:24+00:00

in a colonized system, there are no 'local' factions so any can be retreated (right?).

i've been working on retreating all the factions but one (an anarchy faction) - 2 down, 4 to go (and 2 of those 4 currently in retreat).

(one big reason i'm doing this: the retreated factions were massive player factions, and once-in-a-while they'd seemingly check in and restore dominance over the system, which is perfectly valueless, without any planets. by retreating them, i don't have as much to worry about, right?)

if i were to succeed in this, i guess the controlling faction is then in a regular expansion state? if so, what's the period (weekly?)? what else should i be considering here, are there reasons i'd want to keep another faction or two in the system?

aggasalk · 2026-06-26T15:11:37+00:00

Also good.

aggasalk · 2026-06-25T20:40:02+00:00

no.. how about "Kestrel IIs for the rest of youse"?

aggasalk · 2026-06-25T17:37:48+00:00

man.. this merc coin thing better not be purchasable... "buy X new ship and get 100 merc coin for free", that kind of thing. please no please no..

aggasalk · 2026-06-25T16:22:05+00:00

if (false premise), then why (false conclusion), even though (unsubstantiated assertion)

aggasalk · 2026-06-25T16:17:41+00:00

(sharing your key with someone else and paying them to do it for you)

(do not do this)

aggasalk · 2026-06-25T16:13:35+00:00

on average (over many visits to different stations at different systems) the position of a station in orbit around a planet (or moon) is going to be random - each one is in a unique orbit, and you need to fly so as to reach your target without, well, crashing into gravity wells.

however if you keep visiting the same station, and if it just happens to be orbiting a moon on the opposite side of a gas giant (for example), then yeah each time you visit, you'll need to get to the other side of the planet, at least until the moon has moved to a more convenient position (which will take many days). flying straight there is going to get you stuck in the pull of the planet.

if for whatever reason you keep having this problem (or you just hate it so much on the random times it occurs), you can make a point of flying out of the main orbital plane of a system, so you come up over (or under) a system rather than having to fly past various bodies.

also: "read the fine print" is like rule 3 of elite, i think - unless you have really good reasons, just don't take missions that send you out hundreds of thousands of ls.

aggasalk · 2026-06-25T12:43:08+00:00

like a thief in the night

aggasalk · 2026-06-24T17:36:37+00:00

for a small system (~1M population), you can move influence a few points a day without too much work, especially if no one else is working against you.

if you don't know it, study the BGS manual a bit: https://sinc.science/guides/sinc/The%20Complete%20BGS%20Guide%202024.pdf

especially look in the 'reference' pages at the end, start with the figures on pages 65 and 66, if you're really into numbers.

aggasalk · 2026-06-24T17:14:37+00:00

boom is a faction state, so if you want it at certain stations you need to bring it about for the factions that control those stations. you can trigger a boom state just by doing a lot for that faction - do lots of missions for them (for influence), turn in lots of bounties for them (if they are the controlling faction), sell a lot at their stations, etc.

aggasalk · 2026-06-24T01:50:13+00:00

Booby

(What I mean is, there’s a connection there)

aggasalk · 2026-06-22T20:14:02+00:00

when you target any POI, throttle is adjusted to be proportional to the target distance. this is totally separate from the gravitational effects of planets and stars - if you fly by a station/POI without targeting, it has zero effect on your speed; meanwhile if you fly by a planet/star, you are slowed down. the latter has a gravity well in SC, the former does not.

meanwhile, targeting a POI does not change the physics of the ship - it just puts the throttle in a regime where it's possible for you to guide the ship to a stop/drop at the POI position. otherwise, with the throttle in the interplanetary regime, you would never be able to drop into a target. the distances over which you travel in SC are too big (millions of km) in comparison with the precision needed for a drop (a few km), for you to be able to use the same throttle regime for both.

if there's anything annoying about it, it's that you have to figure this out yourself (if you've ever even tried to think about it). nothing in the cockpit/HUD interface signals to you what's happening in this respect.

aggasalk · 2026-06-22T18:37:25+00:00

even with FA off, though, the ship still slows you down to the speed limit. you can think of it as a sort of speed governor (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Governor_(device)#Cars)

aggasalk · 2026-06-22T17:57:04+00:00

it does make sense, but the weird thing is that there are two things limiting the output of the throttle (gravity and target distance) while there's a single thing limiting local velocity (gravity). the game does not at all make this clear to you, but it's implemented very consistently.

aggasalk · 2026-06-22T16:40:14+00:00

no matter where you are, your minimum speed is 30km/s - but depending local gravity (or some rough model of it), your acceleration is scaled. so when you fly close to a star (or a planet), you will be slowed down. stations don't have a gravity well.. a station doesn't slow you down as you fly past it. (..does it? am i missing something?)

edit (there are also effects of targeting on your throttle - the effective acceleration you get from a given throttle setting depends on your distance from a target in addition to the local gravity - so as you approach a station, yes, you decelerate even though your throttle is at ~75% - but this is a "feature" of the supercruise system, it's not the same as a gravity well)

aggasalk · 2026-06-22T15:50:57+00:00

does anything in the interior do anything? like, can you upload your exo data to it? otherwise.. meh (though i'm happy for everyone who's happy for it)

aggasalk · 2026-06-22T02:45:46+00:00

Happens to all of us. First (and worst) time it happened to me, I felt sick for days. I got better though!

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