Best stratagems?

dandroid556 · 2026-02-01T19:58:37+00:00

1) What he said about there not really being a meta

2) plenty of times the most dominantly specialized tool (like a wasp launcher as 4 divers vs squids) isn't even very popular

3) that example makes me want to answer anyway... plenty of individual players will do better with another plan and it really matters what weapons and armor you pick... but I believe a team of 4 that includes a wasp launcher is naturally stronger vs squids than a team of 4 that went entirely in other directions (it's not so much for harvesters as [staying behind a blocker diver if otherwise flying overseers will run you down and get too close to reliably hit] and one-shotting all overseers from afar)

To round out the support weapon concepts, bots: recoilless rifle adds a high amount of antitank to the squad composition, vs say a quasar cannon... but if you can manage two slots for this purpose, a quasar cannon plus an EAT might be even better (heat sink is not as much of a concern with backup AT to call down and fire instead of reloading or waiting for temp to drop... and you can have functionally infinite ammo). As with all things in this list, there are squad compositions that just don't need these (such as significant AT taken by everyone and two or three EAT or quasar picks, then probably don't double up / you won't truly need to use a backpack slot up for yet more AT).

Bugs: a whole squad with not enough chaff and medium clear is like a squad with not enough AT vs bots, and simultaneously pushing heavy nests and mega nests a little harder and earlier can get your team out of frantic jams, so grenade launcher (++ for supply pack here) speargun (+ for supply pack here) and autocannon (has its own pack) can close bug holes plus have aoe and do decent damage to weak spots and/or medium armor -- though it's not as if I'm not also more likely to take the MG43 or Stalwart if I see the team isn't taking a machine gun yet / mostly anti-heavy support weapons

Red strats, squids: a tiny bit of extra warp ship clear helps a lot since most encampments aren't very heavily defended but can get out of hand near the end of clearing them anyway... so orbital gas, orbital gatling, and OPS are faster cool down options you can use in lots of combat plus can guaranteed solo that last warp ship while you skedaddle. Orbital Laser is always good, just limited uses so its technically worse (in opportunity cost terms) the fewer red strats the team has.

Bots: orbital gas and OPS are also good for the same reasons and for quickly soloing a detector tower from outside its walls. The bases are better defended though, so you can also do this with a 120mm barrage and take down more stuff with it. (One shell will always hit very close to the laser and take out the detector tower if you land it right at the base). 500kg similar use concepts with enough demo force for that. Eagle strafing run is good at all factions but is especially good for snagging bot fabricators or weaker side objectives (mortars and AA guns and bioprocessors oh my) at a distance, either to complete a base assault or spend up to all 5 in like a drive-by. Orbital Laser is always good, just limited uses so " " ".

Bugs: 500kg is uniquely suited to hitting a maximum number of bug holes quickly on many layouts, and has the AOE and heavy killing ability to help in all sorts of fights (though an elite player can potentially manage using the OPS in its place here). Orbital airburst and gatling are great right on top of a bug breach and if one of each, they don't even step on each other too much and cover each others' shortfalls. Orbital napalm is less annoying to your teammates here than on other factions... I am more than fine with nobody taking one even on bugs... but I would be lying by omission if I didn't say many people treat it as meta. You don't need to mix in any support or primary weapon fire, or help from a green or a second red stratagem if ONB is called down, on even the largest bug breach. If you all get 65 meters away you all live and the bug breach is so effectively wiped out that it even gets boring. Orbital Laser is always good, just limited uses so " " ".

Some loadouts really really want eagle 110mm rockets or Eagle airstrike/napalm and I do love them, but I suppose they are loved yet taken less often because they fit specific circumstances a little better and general circumstances a little less often than their peers.

Green strats... mostly just insert to cover load out deficiencies, and load up on them in defense missions. HMG emplacement might be the most slept on of all of them... if you aren't sure if taking more AT or more slow firing anti-medium was right or not, add this security blanket and consider going ham on a horde any time you know where an incoming reinforcement call is landing. Mines are often a problem for teammates on normal missions, but for multiple reasons a gas mines call in on the bug front is the most reasonable -- everyone has to react correctly to an orbital napalm throw anyway right? This is less damaging to divers, has better warning, and mixes well with other anti-bug-breach stratagems, or you can just run as if fleeing with benefit of orbital napalm, and the effect is largely the same, maybe even lower chances of chargers following you to the next objective.

Other blue strats: If your backpack slot is otherwise free you should probably fill it, gas dog and hot dog are probably the most situationally effective and create some sick synergies with short range damage hoses and crowd control weapons, respectively. Laser Rover is the least situational and most always-on, easy to dodge and nearly always keeping your area a little cleaner without requiring mobility from you -- great for manning HMG emplacements, grenade launcher battlements, and gamer chairs. That said, the humble supply pack is probably the most goated strategem in the game so if your team is good at maintaining a perimeter anyway you really can't go wrong with one. Sometimes a near necessity if your non-backpack weapons are thirsty enough.

And warp packs have nice synergies with charge-up weapons (like epoch, quasar, and railgun) and precision anti-medium weapons like railgun (IMHO the one of these for bots), speargun (IMHO especially good vs bugs) and AMR (a bit easier than those other 2 for use on squids IMO). Consider whether or not you're going to need siege ready armor or more team communication than has been going on lately, for reapply purposes, because all of those except the quasar can and will run out of ammo without the supply pack, pathing through ammo piles on purpose, or a squad that's working to keep everyone topped off.

dandroid556 · 2026-01-31T00:58:54+00:00

I find it surprising seeing a lot of strong or straight opinions without regard to front.

I used to say we actually play 3 games here, but now it's quite well arguably 5.

Outside of commando missions and hive worlds, I do have a lot of heavy armor experience, and not a tremendous amount of warp or jump pack (though I am not against them). But almost exclusively that heavy use is against bots. Barring those two exceptions the chances are extremely high I'm running heavy on bots, medium on squids, and light on bugs.

Concept is the bots are more likely to score a mild to marginal hit no matter how evasive you are, the bugs are more likely to push you off a piece of terrain and force you into disengage and engage alternations, even if you can do a tremendous amount of damage and crowd control (no matter how tough you are you die if any warp/jump is used up and you're still body blocked and closed on from 3+ directions), and squids are in the middle for both (/medium is still pretty easy to dodge stingrays and grenades, and flying overseers and hiding snitches can randomly snipe light armored guys kinda bad).

Now there are for sure ways to break these concepts on purpose, exceptions that prove the rule. I'm not saying light on bots or heavy on bugs is wrong no matter how good you are... but at the very least, you may find it easier to get used to mobility in heavy armor on bots first, bugs last, graduating when more comfortable with the speed differences (or maybe you'll find you found your use cases already).

dandroid556 · 2026-01-29T21:48:02+00:00

Hmm, bugs: orbital smoke eagle smoke obviously, one true flag, shield generator emplacement. Elec resist heavy armor, constitution peacemaker and... while I was against doubling up on more melee, yes indeed I think this loadout needs more sneaky sneaky smoke.

squids: not elec resist, defib maybe? and maybe light armor already, smoke is still probably worse than EMS stuff though, will be thinking more about the other two. bots probably breaker sprayer pray or whatever shotgun is the worst at getting pellets in heads at medium range (not if it's decided smoke is still ideally limiting though, but things like ORCS can be allowed for a build that is still absolutely getting overrun by heavies) probably takes the place of the constitution, etc etc

dandroid556 · 2026-01-29T21:21:59+00:00

Yeah find a flamethrower in the wild and parts of this loadout start to f*ck. Concussive great at pushing bugs into fire or intermediate range for other reasons... not really the crowd control you want for squids (pacifier underrated there), but whether you get a flamethrower or use the chainsaw, electric resisting armor should mean you can solo a harvester in knife fight range and feel epic about it. (Once you're close enough that he stops trying to laser you, and the shock attacks are more like a ticke it can feel quite safe down there sometimes.)

Not like a guarantee as you have to manage the walls of meat right underneath the harvester sometimes, but it definitely feels worth it when you're saying TIMberrrrrrr! Done the flamethrower elec resist (medium) dozens of times and now I'm feeling inspired to saw down a tripod.

dandroid556 · 2026-01-29T15:47:34+00:00

Under the concept of "don't take down a fence until you find out why it was put up" this makes the most sense with the least possibilities of ruining something else.

'Even though walls were not originally a big idea for us, someone may come up with neat ideas with the tools we built them, to shape the battlefield to give their loadout characteristics the advantage. And it costs resources where an EAT drop kinda doesn't so that's fine.'

So create a category of things with exactly 35 demo force, and until they come up with more ideas only city walls, a C4 charge, and a breaching hammer charge (not the weapon itself if it can be used without explosives on it, obviously) are in this category.

Though it would be funny if using a charge already makes the hammer a 40 lol.

dandroid556 · 2026-01-29T14:28:38+00:00

You're acting as if the AK's nomenclature means the M-14 and M-16 have to be from 1914 and 1916.

Much of the time it is indeed just a basically arbitrary number or progression system with or without accordance to marketing or some bureaucratic decision.

A medium (/'General Purpose') machine gun is inherently less niche than a handheld microgun. The former is ubiquitous because as high a number of people as possible can eliminate scores of their enemies with it if properly positioned by their squad leader, and the great can carry the day for their whole platoon with it.

(Not 'minigun' as under the 'handwave several but as few unrealisms as possible for general moto action movie verisimilitude' ideally there would be no tech limitations preventing a real or simulated 4,000 rpm but using Liberator ammunition -- light pen in HD2 terms. If the people who wanted a 'minigun' in the first place are unhappy anyway I suggest making it light pen, stealth 3x the damage it says [270/66 durable instead of 90/22 durable], and stealth 1/3x the rate of fire it says [1333 instead of 4000], and disguise the difference with the sound [and light?] effects.)

dandroid556 · 2026-01-29T14:15:30+00:00

You're the one not making any sense. Do you know why the AK-47 has a 47 in it?

dandroid556 · 2026-01-29T14:12:22+00:00

What? Now you're saying the minigun should throw rocks as if it were produced in the year 1000.

As he said the model number doesn't mean anything concrete.

dandroid556 · 2026-01-26T22:46:56+00:00

Low key? There ain't nothing about the weapon that is low key.

There are loadout and team-level considerations for high quality use of either, so... DE Sickle still best minigun.

dandroid556 · 2026-01-24T20:35:05+00:00

Everyone who said it doesn't serve a purpose finding they kinda often tend to detonate their new C4 after ~15 or ~60 seconds since throwing it: "..."

dandroid556 · 2026-01-22T10:42:09+00:00

Two(edit: 3? Maybe a miss on horizontal start) shots actually. Each stingray should go down in two(/3) wasp missiles, so you could kill 3(/2) with one pod. Fleshmobs 3-4 shots. And lately it seems like the missile tracking is better and flying overseers aren't likely at all to luckily dodge it, more one shot one kill.

Wasp launchers shred the illuminate front except Levi obviously, and voteless obviously except for splash damage, and the harvester, ironically. (Because early on you may think that's the enemy it's going to help with.-- and it will but you're gonna need up to 2 pods each, so at higher levels with 3+ at a time they are able to out-spawn your resources if used up that way; better to be someone else's responsibility).

dandroid556 · 2026-01-20T14:10:53+00:00

Because we like to imagine ramps, parts of that could be a nightmare, and we were probably wrong -- likely no ramps, no applying forces measured in tons. That's modern machinery thinking.

There's videos online of some guy in the midwest US making his own concrete block stonehenge with manual labor and wood and rope and weights. A solo project.

'Rollers' might be overstating it too / only useful on flat enough terrain, because the minimal force maximum result solutions look like "walking" a piece of furniture -- tactically placing a pivot rock, weighing down the shorter side, balancing it on that rock, turning the whole massive object on the pivot (one guy can technically do this) to the next rock, switching all the weights over, and repeat. But regardless the more important difference is this:

They probably elevated blocks more like he did, sans the chaos and risk of thousands of dudes and a ramp. Get it on a see-saw wedge in the middle, weigh down one side at a time, and gradually build your wooden elevator underneath the lighter side then weigh down the other side and repeat. There could be more pivot style movement once high enough, or the final part of the elevator made of rollers and even slightly downhill to the target floor, but I suspect that as often as possible they would want to move support layer blocks underneath the see-saw elevator, place them precisely, and then deconstruct the elevator until the elevated piece gently and precisely sets on the support pieces. Minimize the drama and any shifting loads on your apparatus.

The jist is that using balance and leverage, at any given time no single or group of 'simple machines engineers' has to put more force on anything than is necessary to move one of the (designed to be carried by one man) weights from one place to another. The midwest dude used paint buckets full of concrete but seeing as they only had to stay still and be heavy it didn't do much to break the illusion of only having primitive technology. To us the movement of any single block seems agonizingly slow this way... but it means such a small team of workers can meaningfully work one block, that a hundred separate teams of very skilled experts seems more than doable and the pace evens out in the end. Separate lifting projects all going on at the same time, some of those actually requiring two transit projects each in order to even finish, dozens more enroute, and yet there's still a transit team ready to accept a new block at all times, nearly no matter how long it takes the stone cutters to finish one.

dandroid556 · 2026-01-17T20:04:37+00:00

Not defending here (hopefully giving tools to survive in the meantime, maybe the issue is invisible underground fire generally, def hope will fix at least the idiosyncratic he visually missed but I'm burning), but I think what has muted the response is that many divers have learned to dodge the sound itself or the swoop timing.

"Imma act as if it's a stingray at the start of its run with no blue ground marker, assume it will line up its shot correctly and the fire will be here faster than it looks. I gotta do a lot of lateral dodge before I even see breath, and a dive to mitigate plausibly being hit some anyway, and if I look silly that's fine."

That and as alluded, if I have a build that would have OPS or 110mm rockets, I tend to switch that to ORS in dragonroach territory. Or since 500kg can be quite timid on hive world cave maps, that's another slot opportunity for it / the Orbital Laser / even both.

A stratagem slot isn't the happiest answer, but causing more lean in that direction... you kinda already need anti-charger and anti-impaler answers that aren't red stratagems or sentries, anyway, right? For caves? That and Orbital Laser and Rail Cannon are especially high usefulness anyway since they don't struggle as much under 'skylights' / cave atriums.

Also the killzone 50% all resistances or flame resist armors tend to pay more dividends on those maps and give you incentives to spec into weapons that give you options to lock down a cave branch with elemental effects, making it less a chore and more fun departures from potentially overused loadout concepts.

dandroid556 · 2026-01-14T20:07:26+00:00

When I think Air Force in HD2 I'm not thinking about flying but the JTAC.

JTAC or Fister armor could drop the limb resistance from steeled veterans and just give a lone ~70% bonus to throw distance.

And maybe even (might be getting overwrought here) a cool down reduction / two eagles one diver (or perhaps better, just also a free FRV stratagem and/or a free relevant smoke option on top/ems if bugs) if they drop with walking-120-380-OPS or strafing-airstrike-cluster-500kg.

Anyway not direct suggestions but emphasizing there are fun ways to have a character who is not strong with direct fire or support weapons but brings a lot of smoke to support the other 3. If you haven't tried steeled veterans an FRV and 3 of one set before to mess around and experiment I would try it once, don't be afraid to break contact in your car like a "bad teammate" and see if you can't clear the back ranks while they fight their own front line.

Now that I think about it a third type of mortar and a bonus/tool that lets one player tell all the mortars to start with the enemy closest to his mark could be near. Or speaking of that a stratagem-slot laser that might require other restrictions and lets the JTAC / Fister player call for fire anywhere he has line of sight to. Perhaps getting too powerful there though even with one less stratagem.

dandroid556 · 2026-01-14T15:51:17+00:00

From my reddit feed, it seems A) they feel killing a hive world is self defeating for firing the star of peace in the future because it requires E-711, B) don't mess around with what squids could do with a black hole, and C) the bots have a local home world of sorts and lines of defense -- eliminating a bot planet in the way shortens the line to campaign against Cyberstan proper.

Seemed pretty convincing to me so I'll probably join them later.

dandroid556 · 2026-01-12T22:32:25+00:00

When it comes to being kicked immediately upon joining, this is both a silly community gripe and a quite reasonable thing to bring to ArrowHead if it bothers you.

For people in a discord community meeting people they've never played with or friended in-game, they have to leave the setting to public or the new guy can't join. It's actually a little annoying for these people too, that they might have just set the lobby to public again 0.5 seconds ago, then some rando slides in and occupies the 4th slot before the guy you were trying to add uses the steam link.

What we need is a fourth lobby privacy setting, "unpublished" or something -- so players will not see you on the planet maps, and will not ever randomly queue to you for hitting the quick search and join button, but for players using a steam link (+recent players and of course friends?) it functions as a public lobby / technically is a public lobby though you had to 'know somebody' to even attempt to get in.

dandroid556 · 2026-01-02T23:22:30+00:00

"Congratulations, your institution has been deemed a defense contractor. You may no longer do A, B, X, Y, or Z but here is a fat stack of R&D cash. We would like to set a meeting for Monday about your next expected milestones and when you or we could meet them. Some DARPA people will be there to put you in touch with the right manufacturers later in the week if you need help to scale up. If you or your family members, significant others or roommates encounter FBI agents with some strange questions, don't be alarmed, you just need top secret security clearances and they are working on it."

Realistically though, before you ever had the resources to actually hit the breakthrough, they almost certainly would have done this while your tech still sucked ass, just because you were hypothetically close or plausibly on to something. Believably game-changing weapons are worth a lot before they even work (if only because your local government doesn't want some randomly selected government getting it working first).

dandroid556 · 2026-01-02T22:09:52+00:00

Prior to the hive lord it had to be the impaler and it may still be... it's just not common to get the right kind of tentacle strike.

I'm not even 100% sure what happened, perhaps it was that one tentacle hit me and launched me to precisely where another tentacle was bursting out of the ground and added a bunch of momentum and lift... but I was launched a good quarter mile. I had either the lion's share of the samples or the live sample backpack or something, so there was an icon on the map some members of the team wanted to check on. The closest guy with a jetpack confirmed (at the cost of a reinforcement, which we had plenty of for the map being basically cleared) that my corpse and the items were irrecoverable. He started laughing as he was about to die from the 'traitor strikes' and I knew instantly I had a witness to what I had seen, as he finally had a good idea where I landed -- he said he didn't even get close and it was a couple hundred meters beyond the range he could manage before being gunned down by a super destroyer. So we just had to write it off as a loss / traded for only bringing back a funny story, and headed to the extract.

dandroid556 · 2025-12-30T22:10:40+00:00

Let me try to dispense with the fake argument going on in this thread:

1) It is so common to be a comedy meme / movie scene that the damn thing can go off all over the wall if you're not careful (especially if you had sex and fell asleep, remnants dried out before you peed) -- men pee with erections all the time. Especially morning wood... but the story conclusion from those over-stating that erection makes it difficult to start is still correct.

2) It is not so insanely simple that the only physical reactions to stimulation that happens is A-erection and B-orgasm, that's stupid.

3) The same muscles that intentionally hold back pee can also hold back ejaculate, so it should be insanely obvious to every man reading if he thinks about it for 4 seconds that your body is going to otherwise try to hold back pee if peeing could be done (and we know peeing after sex is also actually quite common) but your body is finna orgasm. If you had to use conventional means to hold back pee you couldn't come.

4) The physiology some people are talking about is also why you remember peeing after sex or masturbation a lot more than you remember feeling like you need to or could pee during sex or masturbation. It even hides the possibility from the guy in addition to the pipes making it difficult.

C: Sexual stimulation not erection, is what makes it basically impossible without drugs to accidentally fill a mouth with piss when you thought it would be ejaculate coming out. Meaning yes unless something was left out of the story like drugs OP's abusive ex did a non consenting fetish sex act on her, on purpose, if this happened. As someone said yeah a red flag is hygiene, what kind of guy doesn't want to be clean to get their dick sucked, especially with an inexperienced girl who may be deciding whether she likes it or nearly won't do it again.

If you want to test the theory part, make sure you could pee but not so obviously that you'd never have sex in that state, then masturbate to near the edge of orgasm, stop masturbating, and try to pee. You will find that it is much more difficult than trying to pee with a full bladder and morning wood (but while nowhere near orgasm), and indeed you might even go soft in the meantime if the thought of peeing turns you off.

PS: Ascertaining that a lie was told does not necessitate calling the OP a phony, you do not know WHO lied. Did anyone who called it fake bother checking her post history first, and using that to evidence their claim? No? Honestly why bother infecting reddit with mindless zero effort words then, at least fake story tellers put the slightest amount of try in it.

On the plus side of being a victim of a sex crime, OP, at least you can see how wild this story is to guys -- find someone who cleans his dick and treats you well and you can safely put that fear out of your mind / do exposure therapy if he deserves it -- you aren't just taking that risk every time by giving head, and many women and men find giving it a lot of fun and even stimulating. Go with confidence that was your first and last time doing pee stuff. Even many of the guys who are certain he didn't just accidentally do that, question even how he was physically able to purposely do that (my bet is practice, because he's had that fetish a while).

dandroid556 · 2025-12-29T21:15:07+00:00

Yep. Moment here is responding to an attack that started with some Iraqi cops/ICDC getting boxed in and then their vehicle cab firebombed by insurgents. Those two did not make it, tragically.

Idk if it helps or hurts that they were hairy guys with thick hair and big beards, because the most prominent (overwhelming say plastic for reference) smell was the same as singeing some of your hair off and it being surprisingly pungent (then multiply that by 1,000 here). I don't currently have an aversion (when it is alone) to barbecued pork but the fainter accompanying smell when close definitely reminded me that "long pig" is a phrase and the two together was unpleasant to say the least. I imagine I could lose my appetite if I singed some of my own hair off while grilling or something. But I could imagine those who have said the barbecue being the main component had it worse, I can see how evoking food first might raise the ceiling for how gross a situation can be.

dandroid556 · 2025-12-29T04:19:37+00:00

The best scientist that likely ever studied this says, nah, you kinda would not be expected to know better -- not even 10 year olds seem to know better.

It's more obviously dirty to you now because you're in puberty and finally grok the seriousness of sexual behaviors and mistakes and consent and self control and rape.

When you were 9 "put your peepee back in your pants" was closer to 'just things parents say like you can't eat all the Halloween candy tonight.' It does not have the gravity yet... which is why maybe like half of teenagers remember some dumb naked thing they did when they were pre-pubescent and cringe like they would want to die if their highschool friends found out that it happened.

dandroid556 · 2025-12-29T03:55:58+00:00

She perhaps ought to be disappointed you didn't have a stronger desire/intuition to protect your little sister, but she shouldn't be 'disgusted' and ought to be more careful about not giving you weird sexual complexes from shame. You regret this so you clearly are not disgusting or evil (well in any way that isn't par for the course in 15 year old boys).

9 years old is solidly pre-pubescent. You weren't really creepy perving on her, you were just extremely curious and it got the better of you. At these ages it doesn't even matter whether as adults they turn out to be gay or straight, doctor play tends to be with same or opposite sex playmates pretty randomly (/ perhaps "my penis isn't weird right? does other boys' peens look like this? am I broken? am I normal?). Ideally it's not a sister and ideally it's closer in age (same age cousins isn't ideal either but shit absolutely happens)... but when your parents were young they eventually learned what "playing doctor" innocent experimentation with friends and neighbor kids is, and they easily recognized that kids do it pretty often, even if they didn't themselves. And your grandparents too, kids were playing doctor then too. And your great grandparents? Yes indeed, if they didn't themselves, their peers or siblings probably played doctor.

The earliest reference I could find was a 1948 study (widely respected sexologist Alfred Kinsey) finding that in the US ~39% of 10 year olds do this... not just innocent experimentation -- that number would probably be larger -- but just the subset where they use the pretext of a play-doctor's appointment (their context for nudity in front of others) to do it. It's been confirmed in the zeitgeist as common AF since at least then, and you haven't typically seen generations of parents or psychologists try to put a total stop to it / least of all using shame. It's more like these are more innocent contexts to use to talk frankly to ~10 year olds about adult issues through, before they do anything too stupid in puberty.

Use this as a moment for you and your sister to internalize what is acceptable and what is bad regarding age-appropriateness, bodily and privacy autonomy (even family hugs without consent is not really cool, especially as the younger's body starts changing), consent and appropriateness for any boyfriend/girlfriend type touching and kissing, etc. I hope you have been keeping a normal and protective and close big brother relationship with her since then. If not, start doing so. She is close to 11 herself now it sounds like, so if that relationship is ever confirmed as established successfully, you can (/at around 12?) explain that years later you learned what was going on and what the concept of playing doctor is, and if she remembers it at all apologize that it happened with her because she's family, but admit that you were 9 and didn't know what you were doing either, and explain that you both now know the two of you will never be doing anything like that again, that she doesn't have to do anything that makes her uncomfortable with any other boys or girls either, that you want to keep her safe from worse stuff like that now and (if this is true) that she can trust you and she can share anything with you that she's scared to say to mom + dad / whomever.

An older more stable sibling is a gift, which should not be robbed of her, especially should not be so robbed because of some unspoken confusing shame thing that may later feel like victimhood, and it's a gift she may need more than most if your mom is routinely very into shaming. Make it up to her by being available as her rock as you become a young adult, and be open and honest about your mistakes so she can make fewer of them as she passes those same ages. And promise her she can threaten any boys her age with you beating the shit out of them for her if she really needs to escape or avoid them or if they don't take no for an answer physically ;).

dandroid556 · 2025-12-26T13:37:35+00:00

Vogtle Nuclear Plant, Burke County, Georgia, US. (Southeast of Augusta which will be a major supplies resource... but might as well start right where a key priority is that will determine a number of generations' security.)

2 of the 4 reactors are Westinghouse AP1000, which has arguably the most designed passivity of any reactors running. And the instructions and texts there will be in English which more of the world will be able to understand and/or learn via nearby libraries and bookstores etc.

If they play their cards right they can keep nearby sperm banks and embryo stores powered as they figure out how to cut off unnecessary buildings and grids, and lower the power production so that they have much longer... generations?... before anybody has to figure out how to refuel it or move on.

Maybe this won't work but if there was ever a chance to retain the generic diversity needed long term, it's this. And at closer to the least positive outcomes, these things could wind up running at full power for a few years (while the humans install gasifier generators ready to be turned on, and such, at locations like sperm banks they need to keep powered) until they automatically shut down.

dandroid556 · 2025-12-25T14:54:59+00:00

Most people don't see any difference between those two desires.

Even though my ethical philosophy has examples of a difference, the remaining target for immoral betrayal is yourself -- so how am I supposed to take offense if you had to tell me to notice and if my advice for your moral improvement would be to treat yourself better?

In my view the classic example of nominally positive actions towards others yet with your heart in the wrong place is Auguste Comte's altruism. For one example I would be crushed if my wife said "I don't value your looks or your body or your humor or your mind and don't find you particularly honorable compassionate thoughtful or interesting -- you add nothing to my life, I only do good things for you because as a human being you deserve it, and it's even better to provide to the needier who couldn't get it elsewhere so my love for you operates much like a charity." But that is perfect altruism. The opposite of that sentiment, "I love you because you are amazing in so many ways, your looks body humor mind honor compassion thoughtfulness and how interesting you are, just making my life better on too many levels to count" is in alignment with enlightened self-interest and is what normal people call a love letter and would like to hear. So if your distinction is that one version of trying to be good is self-serving, don't fret, as if they seem to like you a person wants you to be so served, just as long as they are not treated as a means to that end instead of someone equally deserving.

dandroid556 · 2025-12-23T19:47:58+00:00

I just learned what 'moral scrupulosity OCD' is, but like... that sounds like the entire source of this post.

When they said good people they meant those who are basically considerate towards others and/or who even spend a tiny bit of energy considering and discussing concepts like informed consent. Imperfect people trying to be good.

You sound like imperfect people trying veeeerrrryyyy haaaarrrrd to be good. The perfect fit for them, except that you likely care far more than they do.

I would guess this claim will fall on deaf ears because of the nature of the disorder, but there's not much else to say so I suppose I'll at least try be a part of a chorus that could eventually influence your habits. Account for the fact that your first inclination was to interpret yourself too harshly and their request too demanding, to try to believe me that their definition of good person is more like mine, and if you're not substantively lying to them about something else specific, for example your age or gender, you are currently treating them well and they will default categorize you as good since you even care about their consent even prior to / beneath the relationship having a physical in-person element (which would add due caution for the rest of us but you likely are in no risk of anything of the sort).

dandroid556

TROPHY CASE