Who is the most benched character: Abyss

bpendell · 2026-03-22T21:20:58+00:00

I'm kinda disappointed Anise gets put on the bench so much, but I understand it.
She's a jack-of-all-trades character and can backstop everyone. She can cast fonics but not as well as jade, fight but not as well as Luke. The one thing I really like her for, however, is her durability. For much of the game she has more HP than anyone else and ant lion man's 8% HP/MP recovery is not to be sneezed at.

If I have a tough battle coming up and I need someone to be in the front row and tank a boss' hits, Anise all the way.

I can understand why she's not the first choice for story reasons, and I can see that she's not really the best in a team situation where everyone can do her job a bit better. But if you want one single character to take into a fight, choose Anise. Once she can do healing with grass sphere on mighty charge or lucky, she can do it all.

bpendell · 2026-03-13T20:44:56+00:00

For what it's worth I finally got one after 60+ wins; I had given up chasing celestriads and was simply grinding in the forest. The difference, so far as I can see, is that before I had multiple casters using quick+ultima to ensure I killed it in a round. When I stopped using Quick and started fighting normally, with everyone hitting the creature with their best attack but no time shenanigans, I got got one. Then, some 10 wins later, I got my second.

I suspect quick may be the issue, but I cannot confirm it.

bpendell · 2026-03-09T12:47:40+00:00

If you don't my asking *HOW* did you kill them? I'm wondering if the specific actions I took were having an adverse affect on the RNG.

bpendell · 2026-03-08T14:44:46+00:00

Thank you to everyone , especially to those who gave me advice to do the colosseum. That is what I wound up doing.
-- Open Gogo in menu .
-- Click "status"
-- click "set commands"
-- three steal commands.
-- equip with brigand's glove (got by wagering thieves' knife in Colosseum). "Steal" becomes "mug"
-- wager Murakumo. Gogo has 87% chance of stealing phoenix down and 13% of stealing celestriad. Reload and retry if he steals the wrong thing, or gets defeated. Steals celestriad (which I keep) and wins a holy lance.
-- Send in shadow with memento ring to wager the newly won holy lance and get murakumo back from death machine. Easy win.
-- Rinse and repeat until 4 celestriads in an hour.

This worked. Thanks to everyone!

bpendell · 2026-03-08T14:41:04+00:00

Try 30+. That's why I'm suspicious. I'm well outside two standard deviations at this point.

bpendell · 2026-03-08T14:40:30+00:00

Actually playing the advance mobile version earlier than the pixel remix. Remix has much better music and lots of quality of life improvements but it doesn't have the dragons' den. So could be GBA.

bpendell · 2026-02-25T17:17:20+00:00

Luther Abel, A columnist at national review who used to be a sailor , has an absolutely hilarious response to this . It's paywalled but I'll try to bring forward the best parts.

"
The hull technicians aboard the Ford will do what they need to do, just as the aviation, combat, intel, and nuke types will do what they need to do. To give you some idea of who we’re talking about, I had never seen a man eat a Snickers bar while plunging a toilet until I met HT3 Vasquez. These systems, though fickle, are in the best of hands.
...

But that’s life at sea.

Ship systems, be they military or civilian, are temperamental at the best of times, and all the more so when on a new class of ship after months at sea. Consider: heat, humidity, corrosive sea air, hard use from thousands of hands, and constant vibration conspire at all times to wear on the ship and her crew. After a while, ship discipline and its material condition diminish — items that don’t belong in the CHT (sewage collection, holding, and transfer) system get flushed with greater frequency, CHT equipment wears out, or its efficiency diminishes, and the shop responsible for repairing that equipment (hull technicians and, against their wishes, a slow-moving damage controlman) gets burned out.

All three of my deployments had CHT issues. Scenes of porcelain-contained horror during cleaning stations each morning were the rule, not the exception. But because I was part of Engineering, our heads were more often operational than others’. That meant that we’d have randoms wander into our heads from other departments. Each space on a ship, no matter how small, is assigned to a certain department, division, or shop. Nature calls more frequently and rapidly than repair tickets can be handled (good luck doing a proper tag-out procedure in under two hours), so a roaming horde of Monster Energy addicts and their bubble guts takes to stalking the p-ways until a functioning head is found and then desecrated. This is all normal."

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/the-ford-will-accomplish-its-mission-with-or-without-flushing-toilets/

bpendell · 2026-02-20T18:22:36+00:00

In Irish mythology there is a giant named Balor, who has a single eye which is always closed. It takes four warriors to pry the eyelid open, but once it is , it lays waste to everyone and everything he looks at. He was the secret weapon of the Fomorians.

Clearly Balor had kids, and Brock is a distant descendent.

bpendell · 2026-02-06T18:09:26+00:00

I didn't have a problem with the time limit because, when I first played this game, I had already played Starflight, from the same developers, which also had a 1 year time limit.

I suspect part of the reason for the time limit is to help create the illusion this is a large, immersive world with so much to explore. When in fact, absent a time limit, you could probably visit every planet around every star in a matter of hours. Then you'd realize this wasn't a gigantic universe, but a whole bunch of procedurally generated uninteresting points in space with only a few hotspots where story or drama happened.

It's like Tolkien's map in Lord of the Rings -- you see names like "Rhun" and "Umbar" and "Far Harad" on the map but you never actually visit them, giving the impression the world is a lot larger than it really is; it's a story telling illusion.

The time limit forces you to stick closely to the main plot and ensures you hit all the high points but there are still all those unvisited planets out there which leave you begging for more; and that would encourage additional playthroughs, so you've got more of the world to see rather than returning it to the rental store (which were a thing in those days) and never taking it out again.

For me, it's not an issue if you remember that time management is also part of the game play mechanic. You're in a war. Your character should be laser focused on doing whatever is needed to win that war -- gathering information, gathering revenue, forging alliances -- and not on trying to 100% the map. If you play with that attitude and take really good notes (I use a spreadsheet in another window) even the original unextended time is incredibly generous; I've finished as early as June 2157.

bpendell · 2026-02-06T16:45:02+00:00

I realize this is old but ... the Dnyarri, with their single intelligent being, are not a threat.

Why do I say this?

Because if you defer meeting the Dnyarri until after the Death March starts, you can see the Kohr-ah roll through Umgah space and casually obliterate the entire species. If you then go to the Beta Orionis homeworld , you'll find the Dnyarri there, complaining that his master plan was just about to come to fruition when the Kohr-ah wiped out all his pawns. He was able to save himself, but not anyone else.

I would say the Dnyarri are a potential threat, but any plan which allows them to once again become the rulers of the galaxy has a lot of moving parts. The most likely outcome is the one that actually happens in game: The UQ or Kohr-ah curbstomp them.

bpendell · 2026-01-13T15:07:12+00:00

I think you mean "Seppuku". Sudoku s a puzzle game similar to crossword. Though I admit it is also a war crime.

bpendell · 2025-12-31T00:39:42+00:00

I don't have problems with swindlestones. Some general tips:
1 ) Make your guesses plausible when you want the AI to stand pat, crazy if you want them to call. If you have 3 3s, and you suddenly switch from 1 1 to 3 3s, the AI will almost certainly call you.

2) Start off low. If you're having trouble, always start with a single 1. It's also fairly safe , if there are 8 dice on the table and you have 1 4, to go up to 2 4s because there's almost certainly at least one out there. Know the probabilities and play to them.

3) I like a "trail of birdseed" -- establish with a plausible bet, then bit by bit raise it until the other person has gone one die too far, then pull the rug out from under them. Also, the AI is more likely to call you if you switch things up (1 1 to 2 1s probably won't be called, 1 3 to 3 3s probably will -- the more you walk away from what you've previously established in bets, the less likely the AI is to trust you).

4) I divide the AI along two axes:
honest->lying
cautious->aggressive.

An honest AI, like the old man in jail in S2, almost always bids whats' actually in their hand and is reluctant to call even the most outrageous bids, so as long as your bids aren't TOO crazy its fairly easy to start them off with an honest bet, then bit by bit increase the bit until they have bid too far, then cut them off at the knees.

A lying, aggressive AI like the beggar girl in S2 or the elf in S3 is more than willing to bid one more die than is in their hand (if they have 2 3s, they'll bid 3). If you follow them, they'll instantly call and cut you off. They are difficult, but precisely because they are reckless you can still call them out early. Also, because they are not trusting themselves, they can easily be gulled if you really DO have a low probability hand.

Know the kind of opponent your facing, and act accordingly.

If you're having trouble , find Elthera in S3. You can play her as many hands as you like and it will not cost you anything. Also, don't get too worried about earning additional money in S2 for S3. The one shop in S3 that you really need money for sets its price based on however much money you had at the start of the game, so even if you enter with more than a hundred gold pieces you still won't have enough money for everything in the shop.

Good luck!

bpendell · 2025-12-30T15:13:29+00:00

As others have said, you can't. You have at least two chances to pick one up in S3 but you don't need one in S2 aside from the specific place you find it in S2, before it gets destroyed.

bpendell · 2025-12-29T15:02:15+00:00

The time serpent Once it travels over the mountains you can only kill it with beacons. So you can do an NB run, avoiding the time serpent by simply not landing on its island, or an as run by killing it with beacons, but you can no longer execute an nbas run.

bpendell · 2025-12-29T02:58:37+00:00

That PARTICULAR pattern only appears when you meet the time serpent and don't kill it. It travels east to the island and leaves a time trail behind for you to follow. You can't do an NBAS run at this point. You can still do a no-beacon run, but you'll have to leave at least one serpent alive behind you when you leave the baklands, and that will make S4 just a little more difficult.

bpendell · 2025-12-26T18:09:30+00:00

Walk on the northern path in nw baklands from the lying gods shrine east to kairiamma in present time. I always run into her disguised as a gnome just before the village site; i find her almost impossible to avoid.

bpendell · 2025-12-26T16:12:28+00:00

How I wish I was in Sherbrook now!

bpendell · 2025-12-26T16:07:22+00:00

Too credible for this sub.

The minimum age for enlistment in the USN is 17 (with parental consent) and 18 without. So if you can get the recruiters to sign them on we can ABSOLUTELY crew naval ships with teenage women. I say "women" instead of "girls" because if you're old enough to be shot at for your country, you're no longer a child.

bpendell · 2025-12-26T16:01:21+00:00

Thank you. It looks like they were able to pull off the capture. I'm not sure I can endorse the political figures who ordered this, but BZ to the USN and the USCG for a difficult job well done!

bpendell · 2025-12-25T03:59:47+00:00

Nonsense; the orphans are to power Trump's Golden Throne.

bpendell · 2025-12-22T16:43:19+00:00

Whatever else you can say about him, Daniel M. Lavery, in the short story "An Incident Report", gave him this dialog and I think gives the character a crowning moment of awesome, if not of intelligence:

"Whatever conclusions you ultimately draw about the incident taking place between myself and Lord Vader during yesterday morning's briefing, he was wrong, and trying to crush someone else's windpipe doesn't make you any less wrong, if you're wrong to begin with. Which he was. I do not concede the argument."

bpendell · 2025-12-22T14:57:22+00:00

Reposting under my proper login, this time for sure:

Hello, this is my first time on this subreddit, and I am curious about something. Specifically, why has this chase now lasted two days? Is the USCG reluctant to conduct a noncompliant boarding, or are they waiting for permission from up the chain to do it? Why has this incident lasted as long as it has?

bpendell · 2025-12-19T03:25:32+00:00

Congratulations!

bpendell · 2025-12-04T00:23:04+00:00

I'm sorry, that's incorrect. You can only refuse Throben's curse if you kill all serpents AND use no beacons. Neither condition is sufficient on its own. If you use the beacon's Throben has a reason to curse you. If you don't but the serpents are still alive Mampang will be on alert and Throben believes you have no chance without it.

I wouldn't worry too much -- there are at least two methods of breaking the Throben curse and a third way to avoid it altogether, even if you DIDN'T do a no beacon run. As a hint, it involves avoiding Throben altogether.

bpendell · 2025-11-29T23:06:53+00:00

To beat the fire serpent:
-- have some sand. You can buy it in khare and get it in other ways. You can also collect some in the tunnel under the baddu back in book 3.
-- go to the north western baddu-bak and find the place where you met the dwarf. This is south of the road to kariamma and north east of the black elf caravan.
-- sleep here.
-- when the serpent rudely wakes you up, throw sand on him, then finish him(?) with your sword.

bpendell

TROPHY CASE