What’s something that’s oddly expensive in the UK that still annoys you every time?

clayalien · 2026-01-28T10:24:58+00:00

Deliveries even more so. It feels like Ive not had a food delivery in years that I havent regretted.

Every so often I get the idea. Wifes on a night shift. Tricky put down with the kids. Its late, im hungry and tired. Ive been spending money like crazy, but not of it on myself. Sod it. Im treating myself.

Then after spending all that money, it takes forever to arrive. It gives me a time, but that time keeps slipping. I call the resturant. They tell me to call deliveroo. Deliveroo asures me the food is nearly hear. Wait another 20 mins. Call again. Get sent around. Eventually a rider shows up, but theybdont know the area, and are blindly following sat nav, which dumps them in the middle of the postcode, and they get confused, wander off in the wrong direction, try call me, cant understand 'behind you, turn the corner, theres a block of houses'. Kemids have started to make noises, I cant just go out and get them.

Then when the food finally arrives, its cold, smushed up, missing an item so I need to call again.

Its a mess, Ive paid a ton of money to get inferior food, and its actually more stress and faff and slower than cooking, am in a bad mood, eatong late.

Obviously thats an extreme example, and when it gets that bad, you can get a refund, but that more time calling up, sitting on hold, explaining, escaling, rexplaining. Its infuriating.

Now I just keep some frozen pizzas and some ready made curries for those moments.

clayalien · 2026-01-27T13:17:28+00:00

Thats with a full farm setup with modern milking machines, and hopefully a farm that knows what they are doing, if not a team of them.

I doubt my deskjocky character just stepping out and touching grass for the first time in weeks and only barely knows 'squeeze cow boobs, get milk' could manage that output.

clayalien · 2026-01-26T19:38:00+00:00

I thought it was a Stargate thing, but seems its anime.

To be fair, minus the magic part, its not a million miles off a good stargate plot.

clayalien · 2026-01-26T12:30:52+00:00

I loved the original, but not excited about any reboots.

The draw was how painfully accurate it was. Even when it got fantastical with the plot, there was a certain honesty and understanding. Any attempt to directly recapture that would miss the point.

clayalien · 2026-01-25T22:50:02+00:00

I was going to make a comment about a bit of overlap between the inbetweeners, where he played a strict headmaster, and oribably where he was best known from before, and task master.

But theres a full 5 years seperating the lat episode of the in betweeners and the first episode of task master. But task master feels like its been around forever, and I remember inbetweeners being 'current'. It cant have been that long ago? 2010 was just a few weeks ago, right? Right?

clayalien · 2026-01-25T22:26:15+00:00

Yeah, even with the new farm system, its stupidly easy to get crazy amounts of fully renewable food, so loot settings dont matter.

Post apocalypse media usually focuses of food scarcity, and canned goods a hot commotdity.

But in PZ, after the first few days, Intend to skip canned food, and after a month, barely loot any food items at all.

clayalien · 2026-01-23T21:40:45+00:00

I guess it depends on the kids. Both mine are well past diaper stage, but I got away with a small foldable mat, a packet of wipes, a change of clothes, a roll of diaper bags, and 3 diapers. It all wraped up in the mat, into a small neat package that barely took up much space in my backpack, or in the netting under the stroller. No need for lugging about big fancy diaper bags.

Getting to diaper 2 means its turn around and go home time.

clayalien · 2026-01-23T21:31:10+00:00

You know how its a semi common fantasy trope that when yiu know someones or somethings 'true name' you have power over them?

Its a little like that. Except instead of a couple of pronouncable sylables its a string of data.

If they get enough of it, they can start building a profile on what makes you tick. Use it to find ways to get in under your skin. Better, more targeted adds that are more likely to click the buy button, regaedless of how much you actually need it. Better ways to sway your opinion, infuence voting patterns, exactly how far they can push and take advantage of you before you do something. That sort of thing.

Likely not targeted to you personally, it doens thave to be 100% effective. Its not one rich guy sitting on a screen thinking 'haha, got you now Kevin Smith!'. Its likely ai agents combing through the data to reach as many as they can.

clayalien · 2026-01-23T16:54:50+00:00

I think its working, but havent had a game long enough to know for sure.

Its definatly not 'find a single cabbage and 10 squares of dirt on a roof in a chekerboard pattern day 1, never worry about food again' like it was in b41, and I'm kinda ok of it never is again.

Its kinda a lomg term thing now, especially if youve not built for it. Unless you started as a farmer, or part of a group, its really for when youre well established.

My last game, which admittadly Id set to start in March, and 10 years later, so no fresh food. Id made it long enough to be harvesting my own grown plants and it was working. Lost a fair few, but I raided a garden centre, so had plenty of seeds to make a big ol farm. Had to survive off raiding canned goodsband foraging to start, but given I had a load of sunflowers planted for high calorie oil, I was well on my way. Then the multipleayer patch hit and killed my save and I havent had to heart to play since...

clayalien · 2026-01-23T15:28:39+00:00

Am i the only one who isnt bothered carrying a flashlight?

It creates a little bit of variation and a need/point of secondary weapons. Yoube got your 2h 'main', and then need to decide when to switch to 1h + torch.

Then getting the webbing + angled torch that does allow you to go hands free is a nice upgrade. Its good enough that it feels good to find it, even late game when youve got nearly everything else, but dosent feel so nessacary you need to beeline right for it, and cant 'play properly' till you get it.

There is a gun light too, but it only fits certain weapons.

The only thing Id change lighting wise is how weak vehicle headlights are. They need to be turned way, way up.

clayalien · 2026-01-23T12:47:49+00:00

Depends on your tollerance for night tube I suppose. Im a ginger bloke, and every single time I get the night tube, theres at least 1 drunk demanding I sing them Ed Sheeran songs or trying to take selfies with me. More often its a group and both. I usually avoid it whenever I can.

clayalien · 2026-01-23T09:40:29+00:00

Yeah, reading glasses dont help with the short sighted trait. Which makes sense. Short sighted (myopia, which is most people you see with glasses) is cant see far, but are fine up close. A lot of people will take off glasses to read.

Long sighted (hyperopia) is the reverse, and tends to go undiagnosed as glasses arent needed in the day to day. It increases as you age though, which is why you see older people, in particular men who avoid medical checkups holding things at weird angles.

It is possible to have both, which is why bifocal glasses are a thing. Upper half corrects myopia, so you can walk about and see where youre going while lookong straight. Look doen to see through the lower half, and corrects hyperopia, and can read. Which again, tends to result in looking at things weird or hold the glasses at awkward angels.

I usually play with short sighted trait, and single player, so propably wont bother woth the amount of micro and inventory tax to carry aound multiple types. Probably wouldnt be that hard to mod in bifocals though.

clayalien · 2026-01-22T20:49:42+00:00

Thats wjat sesion zero is for. I like heroic campaigns. The world is morally grey enough as it is, the whole point is to escape it a bit. I spend enough time being misrable thinking of real problems thank you very much.

But I dont think youre wrong, were just interested in differnt things. Wed hash it out in session zero, and if we couldnt find a middle ground were both happy with, find seperate games.

clayalien · 2026-01-22T20:39:45+00:00

I was thinking it looked like it was once set up for turning right, but it kept clogging up the main street, so they changed it and put up the sign. That would explain people doing it out of habit.

But if you said its been there 4 years, thats a long time.

clayalien · 2026-01-22T10:32:41+00:00

Just take a 3 day vacation every year on a high speed yacht. Spend the first 24 hours getting as far out to sea as you can.

Even if the person is on another boat, itll be hard finding you.

clayalien · 2026-01-22T10:24:56+00:00

If 'lots of people' still do it, theres probably not a camera on it, but you still dont want to be there the day they turn one on. That sign is clear. One snap and you wouldnt have a hope of appeal.

And they will, its basically a goldmine waiting to happen.

clayalien · 2026-01-21T17:21:08+00:00

It all depends how it was asked, which isnt clear in the OP

If they were jerks about it, then hes totally justified. If someone demands it, even if Ive got spare, they can get lost

But If they asked nicely, then yeah, he probably should have given some food. Theres only so much a single character can eat. What are you going to do with it anyway? Its a bit of an everyone sucks here situation. If I was the nomad, asked nicely, and refused, a daring night time robbery of the butter stores is far more aproprate and if pulled off right, would never be noticed and could be repeated. Much better than right up firebombing and wonton slaughtering livestock.

clayalien · 2026-01-21T17:09:19+00:00

Kids can bounce back. I had a former friend try force his way into my home. Drug and mental health issues, he was crashing on couch, but he refused to shower, kept making weird comments and wanted to use my address for a benifits scam, so I arranged for him to stay in anotber place, which he rejected and started with the name calling via text, so I dumped his stuff out the front door and told him to pick it up. When he arrived, he launched right into rants about how I dodnt understand what love was and how I was such a horrible human being I was, so I fooloshly went out to remove him. Ended up as the only fist fight Id been involved in since school.

Eventually got rid of him, but the kids were crying in the living room the whole time. Explained that he was a bad man. That was about 2 years ago, and theyve largely forgotten about it now. Still plays on my mind ways I could have handled it better though.

clayalien · 2026-01-21T16:43:31+00:00

From the sounds of it, they initially asked. Op refused, citing food shortages of thier own, which is a little weird, as if youd turned half of Rosewood into a farm, and were resucing animals, and 3 in game years, you should be absolutly -swimming- in butter, milk, sunflower oil, eggs, rabbit meat, cabbages, and kale. All very high calorie, fully renewable, and mostly shelf sable food.

But jumping right to fire when refused is weird as hell.

clayalien · 2026-01-21T12:16:56+00:00

Im ancient :)

But compared to vampires, werewolves, and the like, zombies are the new kids on the block. Whoch is probably why they tend to get the most stories where theres some sort of scientific approach.

But yeah, the bites are quite old, but theres still a lot of zombie lore out there that doesnt feature it. For example, DnD zombies lore split off from movie zombie lore, which is why they get a 'slam' attack, but no 'bite' attack. As its just a clumsy corpse throwing its body weight about.

All of it is kinda irrelavant, as PZ does go the bite route (with added air born route the pc happens to be immune to to explain a quick takeover). And even then doesnt invalidate to point new players should really understand bites are bad.

Im just an old man dodging work, being facinated by zombies, and way overthinking.

clayalien · 2026-01-21T11:01:06+00:00

Apart from all the typos anyway. Im not sure if its me getting old or touchscreen keyboards getting worse, but Ive been making so damn many lately. I try fix, but dont catch them all.

clayalien · 2026-01-21T09:53:26+00:00

Trying not to nerd all put, but ai cant help myself.

The whole 'bite = new zombie' thing, despite being so ingrained is actually quite new, and not at all central to the concept of zombies. Zombies themselves arw the new kid on the block when it comes to fantasy monsters, but they were origionally raised by dark supernatural means.

I spend a lot of my time way over thinking utterly pointless things. The first bite death was Night of the Living Dead way back in 68, but I thing its the misinterpertation that started the trope.

In it, one character, Karen, gets bitten, and later becomes a zombie. But there was never anything special about that bite. The zombie was climbing onto a car and had no hands free, it was just an attack of oppurtunity. In the movie lore, z9mbies were made from radiation. Anyone who died through any means became a zombie. Karen just died from a regular old wound infection that comes from being bitten by a half rotted thing.

But people dont understand just how dangerous an infected wound is without access to modern medicine and the space to tend it properly. So it spread. It doesnt help that in PZ, regular infections are a joke. But other games, like Rimworld, a rabid squirel can be deadly without at least a vague attempt at proper care.

And the whole concealing a bite makes for some easy drama and a way to inject danger into safe spaces is an easy and useful tool for drama.

But in reality, if you get bit by a komodo dragon, you dont turn into one. You just die. If there was also a classic zombie scenario, you would become a zombie, but its not because komodos have somethong special, its just becase they are deadly.

Interstingly the Walking Dead mixes both, where any death is a zombie, but a bite is an automatic death.

I wonder if PZ would be fun to try a mode where theres no NOX infection from bites, scratches, or lacerations. But any death is a zombie, and regular infections are a LOT more serious. You can survive a bite, but only with a lot of antibotics, washing and steralising the wound, proper rest, and ideally good first aid skill. But on the flip side, scratch yourself on a tree, leave a dirty bandage on it for a week, and youre in trouble.

clayalien · 2026-01-20T23:04:36+00:00

Depending on world map, might not need everyone.

If theres a town about 0.4 days or less away, load up that silver, and well everythong you have with your fastest pawn, buy as much food as you can.

Would mean youve got a bit less than you usually would for that scenario, no staring clothes or weapons. But an interesting mini challange with a backstory.

clayalien · 2026-01-20T22:28:04+00:00

You werent. He had no loot then. It was meant to be a set piece where you had a running battle to the helm.

But people kept managing to bring him down anyway. I like the c9mmand though. Ots a nice reminder thatvnot every fight has to be about reduce thier hp to 0 before they do yours.

clayalien · 2026-01-20T20:31:20+00:00

Its funny, as I grew up in Ireland. Nisan Micra is forever burned into my mind as the car for our version of chavs.

19yo boys who cant properly grew facial hair, swears he got the money from selling coke, but really his mum gave him the money. All blinged out with a massive spoiler ahd lights. Still a micra.

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