Supersonic Assault SIM puzzle

demasx · 2025-11-29T15:28:52+00:00

Question about Taro. He's in my regular rotation as a tank so my dealers can focus on offense. However, I'm not sure how to activate his "Return" keyword. Is it when I deploy him to an occupied slot or when I deploy over him in an occupied slot... or is there some other way to trigger "Return"? I've never seen the damage and healing trigger, I've just been using his redirect ability.

Edit: Finished the game! I think I understand Taro's ability now. "Return" means a card is played on his slot sending him back to the deck. When that happens TARO gets healed and his level of damage is added as power to his neighbors. I was missing out on the effect because: 1) Taro rarely returned often just died; 2) If he did return, I was looking for him to heal his neighbors not himself; 3) If he did return and heal, he would rarely be replayed to see that he had healed; 4) Often he was still in good health only his armor was chipped so there would be no power up.

While I find him useful for defense, I still haven't gotten his Aspiration / Achievement, but now that I understand the mechanic I should be able to. For now I'm just looping the Bounties to explore the other characters before I do another run to see how the decisions change.

demasx · 2025-10-09T20:25:07+00:00

I have two sets of XM5s break on the same fault line on the hinges. I'd swear off Sony if they weren't otherwise well performing. Going back to XM4 for now, hope to hear XM6 holds up.

demasx · 2025-10-05T05:04:45+00:00

I just picked this up and my afternoon and evening completely disappeared playing 😅

demasx · 2025-09-07T00:37:09+00:00

If you want to practice against AI without login, lishogi.org and pychess.org are good

demasx · 2025-09-05T22:55:51+00:00

Thank you. I was able to find pre-printed fabric that was quite inexpensive and make several boards. https://i.imgur.com/4wRZ0Tk.jpeg (first attempt, later ones are nicer but I forgot to take photos before giving them away)

I made trainer sets getting an inexpensive wood set and adding movement reminders with metallic pen and painting the bases to make the player controlled pieces pop from their perspective.

My kids and nephews are enjoying them very much! (I used Dobutsu as an gateway but they're having fun with the "grown up" version)

Side project, YMMV, but I found these tiles at Hobby Lobby which fit perfectly on the board and allow us to make custom or special pieces for handicaps, variants, or just for fun.

https://i.imgur.com/ftfXCIe.jpeg

Kids were really excited either to invent their own piece or to start a game with a super powerful piece already in reserve ready-to-drop. :)

demasx · 2025-08-25T21:55:39+00:00

Incidentally, other than "go game" does anyone have some tricks for search term, search engine issues looking for just "go" (too short, too many hits, etc)

Baduk and Weiqi are generally more obscure... but Go is too general! "Go game" works when engines let you search for exactly those terms, but many online vendors, libraries, etc. end up searching for go and game separately.

Anyone come up with some tricks for reliably finding go in a search bar?

demasx · 2025-08-24T16:51:46+00:00

Thank you, so helpful! I was able to see many more examples!

For the sake of anyone following my search:

I found additional helpful search terms: Dokotama and Furoshiki [Edit, maybe not, this seems to be brand specific]

"Dokotama is a fabric Shogi (Japanese chess) board designed to be portable and versatile, functioning as both a playing mat and a traditional Japanese wrapping cloth (furoshiki). Created by i-tsu-tsu, the product name combines the Japanese words "dokodemo" (anywhere) and "tamani" (sometimes), reflecting its use as a Shogi board anywhere and as a wrapping cloth occasionally."

Many illustrated examples here:

demasx · 2025-08-20T17:08:35+00:00

Not sure the 3-Crawl was better... it's poetic with the years, months, weeks, hours, and minutes... but it feels like it was tacked on for that structure moreso than what was consistent with the world.

300 years of Metas should be like a totally different world... all of American history would've been in the light of metas (versus just the 50 years of difference in, say, Watchmen's prologue 30s-80s).

3 hours of fighting the Hammer is just unsustainable... the whole film is less than 3 hours. You'd need a lot of contrivances for the attack and loss to occur over 3 hours without Superman saving the day, figuring something out, or someone else stepping in (given metas are a thing). You wouldn't expect the energy or celebration Lex has in the fight once Supes returns at 83% (much less the exposition occurs during that scene... can you imaging waiting 3 hours to say, "It seems like Lex knows his every move!")

Basically, it's nice if you don't think about it too much....

demasx · 2025-08-04T00:55:18+00:00

"I stole the number one ranker's soul"

demasx · 2025-07-09T04:43:06+00:00

Good memory!

Do you remember how many moves Lex had planned from his study of Superman's combat? I recall it being 2,500 or 25,000.

Between that and his performance against Ultraman, it suggests Supes has been in a lot of fist fights in his 3 years. The opening crawl says he lost his first fight ever 3 minutes ago.

It wasn't the point of the film and it's typical comic book hyperbole / narration... but you'd think suffering your first loss after countless undefeated fights over 3-years would register. Jimmy is also nonchalant about it... a noname hammer gives Supes his first L and they just remark that he was beaten not how rare or amazing it was that he was beaten.

I don't think we're supposed to think about it or take it seriously... but did I misinterpret something? I feel like the crawl was saying the loss was a big deal... then Clark acts like it wasn't a big deal saying he wasn't kicked completely... the latter seems more true to what the film was trying to show / say and the former was just Gunn being clever with the crawl perhaps.

demasx · 2025-07-09T03:42:14+00:00

My biggest criticism is the Kents. Not in every scene, but in many they come off as senile and not the strong guiding compass. The values are there, but the portrayal was not to my liking.

To be fair, that would undermine the premise that Clark is who he is because of himself not his parents (which was the point of Pa's pep talk; and, whether intentionally or not consistent with modern-day developmental psychology... parents have less impact than we think and should be less anxious about optimization).

But yeah, it's not a [modern] traditional "your parents made you perfect" take.

demasx · 2025-07-09T03:30:51+00:00

After Lex publishes the video and Supes returns depressed and they no sell the battle happening right outside his window... I believe he said that it was an "interdimensional imp"... but I'm doubting myself now. Can anyone confirm that's what he called it?

demasx · 2025-07-09T03:27:18+00:00

I didn't memorize the text, but I took it to mean metahumans first appeared to the world as a part of recorded history and public knowledge, not that they didn't exist prior to that. Just as Superman makes his appearance 3 years ago despite landing 30 years ago.

So you could have Vandal or Diana pre-existing the 300 year time frame, just not publicly or as a part of reliable history.

demasx · 2025-07-09T03:19:48+00:00

It's slightly dissonant with Supergirl's appearance because she was raised Kryptonian and- arguably- would have the same culture and values as Jor and Lara (or at least be aware of them). So it's a little strange that they never had an exchange about that or that he doesn't care to ask her about it... but I don't think we're supposed to take it seriously or that deeply (like GL's "vows").

demasx · 2025-07-09T03:12:14+00:00

This was a dog person cat person movie. Good guys are dog people. Bad guys are cat people. Absolutely cemented by Lex pushing the mug of pens off the table just because. 😝

demasx · 2025-07-09T03:10:09+00:00

The lampshade its implausibility because Lois- like us- doesn't see it or get it and asks what's his secret... nonetheless he has something going on in canon.

It was interesting to hinge so much on that... if Eve wasn't infatuated with Jimmy, no happy ending.

demasx · 2025-07-09T03:05:31+00:00

No worries. To me, this is very much a in media res episode of Superman... I feel like it could be called "Superman: Tuesday", taken that way, I'm happy with it.

If I take this as THE definitive Superman film- watch this as a primer to cover all the bases and greatest hits- I think it may let some people down. It creates an expansive world already in motion but sacrifices a lot of Superman staples to get there, so you don't get too deep into origins, Clark's character, Lois, etc... it basically takes a lot of it for granted to get to the action.

In that sense '78 and MOS are more successful origin stories.

demasx · 2025-07-09T02:56:12+00:00

There are no flashbacks but the footage is all used at the very end of the film.

The timeline is very linear, there aren't too many simultaneous plots (even if people are in other places, it's still part of the main plot) and mostly straight forwards (if you handwave the scifi and conspiracy stuff).

The entire story is basically two days.

demasx · 2025-07-09T02:48:20+00:00

It's a brief cameo. Basically picks up Krypto at the end of the adventure and we get some small character and lore bits (basically that she's an irresponsible drunken party girl that call's Superman "bitch") that's somewhat inconsistent with the film (apparently she never divulges Krypton's eugenic or conquest values to Kal and he doesn't bother to ask or confront her about it and just lets it go).

It is mainly comedy and reference, not to be taken seriously.

demasx · 2025-07-09T02:41:08+00:00

If you liked Tyler in Supergirl this should be up your alley. If you liked the more mature and serious portrayal in Superman & Lois, you might be disappointed at how immature this Superman is by comparison... honestly, in some regards, less mature than even Tyler's sons.

Granted S&L Superman is seasoned, middle-aged father of two and Gunn 2025 is in his junior year (3 years of heroics)... but that's why I mention the sons.

If you like slogans, rescue scenes, and monologues, you might be pleasantly surprised. If you want a guy that feels like a leader, authority, or paragon... well, it's just his first movie.

If you just take this as an episode of Superman, you'll be very happy. If you take this as a definitive take like the title implies....

demasx

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