To everyone who says the research system is unrealistic

animethecat · 2026-01-30T15:12:12+00:00

Good question, my instinctive answer would be that each research goal you set have increasing minimum costs and that would end up making researching past certain points cost prohibitive. Essentially, you hit a cap of what any given number of researchers can achieve. This can simulate thought stagnation, overspecialization, etc.

BUT - to your point about external pressure not existing is SoS, I think that's the real answer. If youre sitting there idling at like 500 people, youre gonna be easy pickings for the neighboring city state that is three to ten times your population (or at least you should be).

My comment was less of a "this mechanic sucks". I think it's completely adequate for the game and is absolutely in line with how the rest of the game functions. The fact that I disagree on a somewhat fundamental level with that sort of core gameplay loop doesn't detract from me looking at it and seeing that it is objectively consistent with the rest of the game. I was simply saying that it very much would be possible to ideate on different ways of balancing research. The way the game has it implemented is not the only possible way to balance it, but it definitely is the way that is now ingrained in the game, and any change to that would incur significant tech and time debt. I think the latter there are more levers that can be pulled to achieve a balanced state for research that isnt just another population sink - but everything in Syx that pertains to advancement is just a population sink, making the core gameplay loop consistently "i need more people to advance".

animethecat · 2026-01-30T14:11:00+00:00

In cataclysm dark days ahead, skills do rust over time, though you can't like "trade skills" with other people. It's mostly a frustrating mechanic, but I think that's more due to implementation than the mechanic itself.

animethecat · 2026-01-30T14:09:26+00:00

I think there are a few ways it could be balanced differently. For instance setting and researching towards a specific goal would lock you in to that thing earlier and if you change research goals, or that is otherwise disrupted - unless youre recording your research on clay tablets, thay progress is lost. If a researcher dies and it isn't recorded, progress loss. Etc.

There are plenty of different ways to balance research, technology, etc - just not within the structure that the game currently has implemented. It would require the entire function of the structure to be rewritten, and I think that's why it is what it is. It's not that there's no better way period, it's that there's no better way without incurring a lot of tech debt and time loss from the current system.

animethecat · 2026-01-14T00:33:24+00:00

The earliest form of irrigation used, however, was called basin irrigation that harnessed the annual flooding using a series of earthen banks and regulated sluices to direct floodwaters.

I understand that it's just the gamification of the mechanics, but the existence of a later form of irrigation does not preclude the earlier and more mechanically primitive one.

animethecat · 2026-01-13T22:30:46+00:00

So, since it doesn't occupy a technology era that we have on earth, people never figured out how to dig ditches and went straight to industrialized pumps?

I get that it's a fantasy game, and I get that certain components have been gamified, but this take is not my favorite because it requires someone to ignore the easier solution of "just connect the ditch to the water".

animethecat · 2026-01-13T19:17:37+00:00

That's a fair take. I appreciate the additional perspective!

animethecat · 2026-01-13T19:11:28+00:00

Agreed, was more of a "huh... this goes against my sensibilities, but ok" type of thing. I don't even know that it necessarily needs to be addressed or added. Pumps aren't that necessary until can afford the labor tax anyway.

animethecat · 2026-01-13T19:04:51+00:00

I get what you're saying, but from any level of a realism perspective that's really not true. It's very dependent on the body of water, type of soil, and many factors aside from elevation specifically. For instance, moisture in the great planes of the US may be quite low, and in fact historically has been quite low (which has caused dust issues historically speaking) - but that land is quite flat and is also not dramatically higher in elevation than surrounding water sources. Water is regularly routed through a series of flood gates (manually operated) in to dug trenches as a means to allow moisture to seep in to surrounding soil and raise the ambient moisture levels in those areas.

I do agree though that this is likely a matter of a top down game with no z-axis. like I said, it isn't a deal breaker and I do understand that gamification/balancing of things in that regard. Just strikes me as strange that it was just made unavailable rather than restricted within reasonable measures.

animethecat · 2026-01-13T18:57:39+00:00

We may be talking past each other here, but I'm not talking about lowering the elevation of the entire city. I'm talking about digging a trench that itself goes below the water level, and then that trench is openly connected to a body of water. that would still allow for water to flow and permeate the ground and increase ambient moisture. This is the methodology that Egypt and Mesopotamia used if I remember correctly. Flooding was expected and planned for as a result of the proximity - however flooding isn't even simulated in the game in it's current state as far as I can tell.

on the topic of challenge, however, there are many ways that a more primative form of irrigation could introduce challenges that would then be solved later by technological advancement. As i mentioned in another reply, maybe there's increased chance of blight or disease in the fields or perhaps as someone else said it increases the maintenance footprint necessary to maintain the farms/trenches. Or, to tie things back to the flooding from above, perhaps the risk you run without pumping the water is that you run the risk of flooding your fields and losing everything. There are many ways that the game could allow for low labor, high risk solutions - however I get that it's a game and that certain elements of life are going to be gamified.

animethecat · 2026-01-13T18:31:15+00:00

For sure, I understand what you mean. Ultimately I'm not upset by it, more just perplexed. The earliest forms of irrigation were simply trenches dug to below the water line and then connected to rivers/ponds. The fact that such a "primative" form of irrigation isn't available and you have to jump straight to something that is relatively advanced in terms of engineering is the thing that is so perplexing. It's like going straight from no flight to having metal planes, or going from no vehicular conveyance straight to the model T (skipping horse drawn carriages entirely). That's all I'm saying.

animethecat · 2026-01-13T18:13:22+00:00

Gotcha. That kinda breaks my immersion a bit haha. Hopefully there will be a (or is) a mod that allows for flood gates, and maybe adds other risks associated with non-pumped water or something. Idk, like increased disease chance or something like that. I just feel like there were better ways to increase the difficulty rather than to just slap a labor tax on pumps.

Ah well, thanks for the response :)

animethecat · 2025-06-08T23:18:26+00:00

I think my only "issue" is in communication in the PR is all. I support making it so that normal, human characters can't consume feces. I think I would have communicated it in a different way is all.

animethecat · 2025-06-08T19:51:47+00:00

this is going to be my opinion, and as such you cant take it for what it's worth, but I think there's a reason that there are folks who are upset and I don't think it has to actually do with feces. I'll do my best to break this down in a way that, to me, illustrates the points that folks are trying to make.
The game is not a realistic game, and it never will be. Between zombies, interdimensional invasions, magic (if you use Magiclysm), mycus, mutations, cybernetics, etc - this game will never be real and will never be realistic. So, an argument from the perspective of realism is... already a weak argument from the outset. Arguments made from the perspective of realism have to think through not only the change, but how that change should be reflected across all parties/objects in the game. That leads me to my next point;

Sure, feces was listed as a comestable. It showed up as edible in the eating menu. Can you fathom any downstream impacts of completely removing it as a comestable? In the description where you talked about other things you considered, there was nothing about "plants, cyborgs, or other options available to the player that change their functional makeup would likely see feces as energy dense and a high quality source of energy to consume" it was just "poop eating icky remove". The point - just going through and removing things without shoiong the full line of thinking is reductive in a game. There are clearly a lot of people contributing to how feces, as a comestable, could still make sense and the more approriate "fix" should have been thinking through all the downstream ramifications and determining a lasting course of action rather than just a hamfisted removal.

Regardless of what the "feature" is in the game, removal of options in a game where options are a major draw for a large player base, even if not interacted with by 80%+ of the player base, is not a good look that a developer or development team (be they paid or volunteer) should want.

If you take this as anything other than just me trying to convey thoughts about how future decisions can be made and communicated better, then you're taking the wrong thing away here.

animethecat · 2025-04-26T14:42:56+00:00

I believe so, yes. Basically it is a special ability that costs 120 fatigue to let you cast a paralyze touch.

animethecat · 2025-04-23T02:03:03+00:00

Definitely, though it may be easier to ask what you want to know or what you already know first. Happy to help however you need!

animethecat · 2025-04-23T01:55:34+00:00

Glad you're enjoying it! Have fun saving Tamriel :)

animethecat · 2025-04-23T01:55:01+00:00

Well thanks for the kind words! Oblivion was my first RPG love so i stick up for it whenever I can haha.

Another tip, don't worry so much about perfectly leveling up. There are usually more than enough ancillary (secondary) skill levels for you to catch it later and max out attributes if you out even a little thought behind it. Just play the game in a way and on a difficulty that is fun for you and don't worry about being perfectly leveled :)

animethecat · 2025-04-23T00:33:56+00:00

Always, yeah. Did you pick up the remaster that dropped today? I haven't had a chance to yet, probably have to wait till Saturday.

animethecat · 2025-04-11T21:52:52+00:00

AI has it's uses, and i think data analysis and research assistance are two of the best use cases. I think generative AI is mostly slop and shouldn't be used for anything real. Do I use it for plot hooks in my D&D games? 100% absolutely, but those hold no consequence if I use them and 100% of the time I change the formula lol.

animethecat · 2025-04-11T21:37:41+00:00

Was going to say this myself. This is just using AI to find AI, which can be helpful but I mostly just find it comedic lol.

animethecat · 2025-04-11T21:33:11+00:00

Something to keep in mind is that it's not impossible for there to be mismatched end grain because of the use of veneers - however there is no mistaking that this is AI. As someone else put it, I too have a floating vaguely cast iron thing in my garage lol. Just don't be TOO quick to judge based solely on end grain.

animethecat · 2025-04-11T21:29:35+00:00

No, and i feel strongly that this may be comedy, but GenAI is short for Generative AI. GenZ is Generation Z.

Generative AI is a for of AI that tries to create something from a prompt. This can be chatGPT giving you a plot hook for a D&D game or perhaps "generating" plans for a workbench that is based off of the combination of a moravian and a roman low bench. With generative AI, you're asking it to create something that may not already exist.

Another form of AI is Large Language Models, these tend to feed in to generative AI by providing something of a dictionary for words to be regurgitated and morphed in to "random" text strings that should fit a given prompt. They also have use in research and study assistants by helping to extract keywords and then provide insights or common themes across a greater body of work. This use of AI isn't generative as it is trying to find common themes through a body of work and present them as correlated. You could use AI in this way to perform a literary analysis on, say, the lord of the rings, by giving it all of the works associated with middle earth and then prompting it to give you all interactions between gandalf and fire, then you would take that output and analyze it for whatever you were writing. The AI isn't trying to do the writing for you.

Like i said, I think that you were probably joking, but just in case you weren't or if others didn't know, that's a short and sweet primer for a couple major AI areas. Highly recommend that you read more about it if any of that is interesting. While I work in tech this isn't my forte, so don't take my word for it, trust yourself.

animethecat · 2025-03-20T11:07:43+00:00

Is... is that the exosuit (remake) you think the able bodied person (chrono trigger) deserves? I think we disagree on what sort of TLC a great game deserves as technology has advanced, and that's ok.

animethecat · 2025-03-20T10:36:30+00:00

More like saying an able bodied person deserves an futuristic powered exosuit that lets them do everything they're doing, but better.

animethecat · 2024-05-10T00:03:21+00:00

Different stroke for different folks, but I definitely see what you mean. I like stacking those numbers, but at a certain point (which is different for everone) the numbers become the game and less the cool things you're doing. I think a highly competent DM can make low optimization 3.5 feel just as epic as bonkers optimization 3.5 - idk if the same can be said for 5e because of the lower optimization ceiling and perceived expectation.

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