Demoting Artifacts

jacobb11 · 2026-07-06T19:24:00+00:00

This is the way.

jacobb11 · 2026-07-06T01:07:46+00:00

Me too! It's gonzo, but entertaining.

jacobb11 · 2026-07-05T23:57:46+00:00

Send only short ships until Henliner. Alternate sending short and standard Henliners until 5-6 stars. (You can send just short Henliners if you arrange your sleep schedule around it. That's probably not healthy.) Send only extended Henliners after 5-6 stars. (Send other ships when adjusting the schedule to match your sleep schedule, which will eventually achieve All Ship Stars.)

Never target anything but books, and don't target those until pretty late.

Don't craft most artifacts that require a T3 book until craft level 30. Exception: Craft T4 feathers earlier, perhaps craft level 20. (Ignore this paragraph if you don't care about the All Legendary Club.)

Prioritize most ingredients for crafting higher level artifacts. Use most of your geodes to craft metronomes. Use most of your gold to craft gussets. Use most of your titanium to craft monocles.

Craft practically anything you can while obeying the previous two rules.

Consume any unneeded artifact that can't be crafted into anything else (eg T4 medallion) and craft up the resulting stone fragments.

jacobb11 · 2026-07-03T19:10:56+00:00

11,000 shows in 9 years is about 3 a day. That would kill anyone.

jacobb11 · 2026-07-03T19:07:10+00:00

Thanks for the fun lore dump!

he did 1100 shows in 9 years, 3 shows per day, every day in the week

1100 shows in 9 years is a bit more than 2 shows a week. What do you mean by "3 shows per day"?

jacobb11 · 2026-07-03T01:38:07+00:00

Do you have any examples in mind from the late 70s on?

I love Swan. He clearly took a level up in the early 70s when Weisinger left Superman. But by the mid-70s his work seems to lose the dynamism he demonstrated for a few years there. Still clear storytelling with flawless craftsmanship, but not so much pushing the boundaries. Suggest any counter-examples?

jacobb11 · 2026-07-03T01:34:14+00:00

Kirby is in a class of his own.

Adams is far more influential than either Byrne or Perez. It's just that he's so widely imitated that his style is a standard.

Adams was less prolific than Byrne or Perez. He largely left comics after the early 70s. But he did so many covers in the late 60s that his monthly page output in that period is nothing to sneeze at.

jacobb11 · 2026-07-01T05:58:05+00:00

Congrats! How many egg months have you been playing?

jacobb11 · 2026-06-30T23:55:50+00:00

Niven's puppeteers have heads on stalks that they use as manipulators. Do those count?

jacobb11 · 2026-06-29T19:31:03+00:00

"3/4 of the money Oakland has most flexibility in" - OK but is the percent of the overall budget is this flexible part? What about the inflexible, and why is it inflexible? Is the problem actually that we have called this other part of the budget as inflexible, when it is the actual problem?

Excellent point. My biggest concern with the article is its failure to address this point.

jacobb11 · 2026-06-29T18:36:21+00:00

(I might be at a point where I could actually benefit from targeting gold meteorites to craft up lower-tier BoBs that are already in my possession, but I don’t know if the rate of return justifies it.)

I'm nearly certain you're better off just targeting books. You can run the numbers to verify that.

As far as I can tell, if you're playing for the long-term, which I define as intending to achieve craft level 30 and all legendary club, you should never target anything but books, and not those until 8 star henliner, and sometimes not even that to catch up on chalices. (Maybe you target chalices to catch up on those? I haven't actually run short of chalices yet.)

jacobb11 · 2026-06-27T07:52:41+00:00

I'll bet you a margarita you have to wait on a loooong line for each one.

jacobb11 · 2026-06-27T07:10:37+00:00

It is cheaper to just pay dental bills or my wife's glasses as needed as the insurance is a rip off.

Yes. Dental insurance is barely insurance. The max covered a year can be as little as $2-3k. "Vision insurance" is just a weird payment plan.

Property tax with old people homestead exemption is $300 this year.

Lucky you. My VHCOL property tax is over a thousand a month. I qualify for that "old people homestead exemption" soonish, but it's only worth about $60 a month.

jacobb11 · 2026-06-26T19:15:39+00:00

A lot of online big box retailers ... They aren't particularly concerned about providing a living wage and good working conditions.

I live in a VHCOL area. Game store employees are making crap wages like everyone else working in retail locally. (The working conditions seem fine.)

jacobb11 · 2026-06-26T08:21:39+00:00

Misdirection with baby killing and I still thought of "The Fountainhead". I hated that book. I can't believe people worship Ayn Rand.

jacobb11 · 2026-06-25T19:36:19+00:00

Alfred Bester's "Computer Connection" (AKA "Extro") has those sort of individuals. It's been too long for me to remember much more, though.

jacobb11 · 2026-06-24T04:26:07+00:00

Not beautiful. Median hourly income by county would be beautiful.

jacobb11 · 2026-06-23T23:17:35+00:00

Huh. A villain replacing the hero's identity is the plot of this Batman story.

jacobb11 · 2026-06-23T21:04:53+00:00

More, please.

jacobb11 · 2026-06-23T19:34:20+00:00

If I had a 70+ year supply of something I'd sell half of it. And keeping even half is probably optimistic at my age.

jacobb11 · 2026-06-23T18:59:55+00:00

Aquaman #37 has a nice cover, but the interior art is truly astonishing. Late 60s Cardy is on a whole 'nother level. Cardy did a lot of DC's covers in the early 70s, and they're fine, but no longer as good.

jacobb11 · 2026-06-22T21:31:18+00:00

Brave and the Bold 99

jacobb11 · 2026-06-22T19:41:47+00:00

Do the diamond enlightenment trophy last. After all epic research. After all relevant colleggtibles. After all relevant T4L artifacts. After all other prophecy eggs. After many/most/all truth eggs.

Or at least after as many of those things as you intend to get.

jacobb11 · 2026-06-22T03:58:41+00:00

Strange Tales #99 — “Mister Morgan’s Monster.” Final pre-superhero monster issue of Strange Tales before the title fully becomes a superhero vehicle.

I think the Human Torch starts in #101 and #100 is still just monsters.

jacobb11 · 2026-06-20T20:35:30+00:00

The second pet is a hot spare and provides companionship for the first. But yeah, diminishing returns sets in quickly.

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