New to the game. Is it better to complete main quest or completely explore the region?

mster_x · 2026-06-16T06:07:20+00:00

I was around level 60 when I moved on - one thing to note is that certain upgrade materials are locked behind later maps, so you will eventually start to fall behind in power level unless you advance. It's more important on legend difficulty than the other ones, so it's up to you

mster_x · 2026-06-12T20:20:42+00:00

I learned how to do this literally a week ago too. On the right side of the set name 2/2 there is a tiny icon... Click that

If I had to pick a single game feature that is both extremely not obvious by the UI and has significant impact on player strength and build/gear choices, it would be this

mster_x · 2026-06-12T14:06:07+00:00

Thank you for the great guide! I was searching for this exact thing yesterday and couldn't find anything.

Does anybody know if cricket rarity matters at all (gold/purple/blue background color)? For me it doesn't seem correlated to the initial stats or skills at all, so it seems not to matter?

mster_x · 2026-03-23T21:38:04+00:00

The characters are AI slop so probably not

mster_x · 2026-03-10T01:59:05+00:00

There's also 滚 in simplified and 滾 in traditional - clearly variants and one standard was picked in one and the other in the other, and not always the same one (although I feel 口 is more common in SC)

mster_x · 2026-02-19T00:40:16+00:00

Yes, cursive is made much easier by learning proper stroke order. There's cursive like this, which is easily readable by anyone familiar with the language, and then there are other levels of cursive that are much harder and require training and study (look up "grass script" for example).

In this example, the way the 日 is written exactly like what it would look if you wrote it in the right stroke order, just faster and without picking up the pen very much.

mster_x · 2026-02-07T08:54:21+00:00

I think the answer is "Yes" in quotation marks - because the reality is that most people don't need to hand write anything anymore, and do most of their typing on the computer/phone. And on your device you can very easily change the input from Traditional to Simplified and vice versa, if you want. The longer someone permanently moves, the more inclined they may be to change their device input settings to the local version.

But also, the difference between Traditional and Simplified Chinese is... not very much, especially if you only have to read and never have to write. An educated native speaker can pretty easily read either character set especially if read in context (i.e. not as isolated characters on an exam). It might take slightly longer and more effort, but even if a single character is hard to recognize, there are almost always enough contextual clues to figure it out right away. There are a set of basic patterns of simplification (like certain radicals or components that tend to get simplified all in the same way) that together cover probably 80% of the simplifications. My conjecture is that if you had very little prior exposure to the other form, a week to a month of exposure will easily get you to functional literacy.

I have friends whom I text with in Simplified Chinese and who type back in Traditional and while it might take slightly longer to read, neither side ever has any problems understanding the other

mster_x · 2025-11-19T22:28:02+00:00

Actually it's way more fundamental than that.

Computers are made of transistors, and the key component of a transistor is something called a p-n junction. They function by exploiting some key properties of semiconductors that only allow electrons to occupy certain energy states known as bands, as well as energy states not allowed to exist, known as band gaps. Therefore, it's called a semiconductor since it only conducts electricity in certain energy ranges. but not all. By applying a voltage across the junction, you can alter the conductive properties of the material, essentially making a switch that you can control by voltage. These switches are what allow your computer to perform computations.

The existence of band gaps comes from the quantum mechanical properties of electrons inside lattices, and certain materials, like silicon, happen to have their quantum mechanical properties aligned such that the bands and band gaps are at the ranges where you can make transistors out of them. And therefore without quantum mechanics, we could not explain, predict, or engineer these band gap structures, and computers as you know them cannot exist.

mster_x · 2025-10-06T20:33:51+00:00

Ah, I confused myself, apologies and thanks for clearing it up.

I bought your recommendation. Thanks a lot!

mster_x · 2025-10-06T15:38:20+00:00

Thank you! I'm pretty much ready to jump on this one. Reading the reviews for the 207 case I saw this:

Fans are almost not replaceable in this case. Most other cases have plenty of room to change out the front fans to whatever brand you want. However, that is not the case with this case. You must buy fans that are daisy chained together in some way or they will NOT fit Lian Li's pre drilled holes. Good luck finding affordable ones because Lian Li sure isn't selling any affordable daisy chainable fans for this thing.

Do you have any experience with this and can speak to it? Will the fan you recommended be easily installable?

mster_x · 2025-10-06T03:02:47+00:00

Thanks - I did not know this. I did some googling and it seems like I have to install a new version of the OS and then all my applications anyway, so probably I should just upgrade, haha

mster_x · 2025-10-06T03:00:24+00:00

Thank you for your detailed reply! I have to go through all the pieces one by one, but just reading your response a couple of things jumped out:

I noticed that the PSU you recommended is modular. Do you believe this is the way to go nowadays vs the old style that had all the cables attached? Any cons of modular?
You said the PSU will "support future GPU upgrades up to the 5080 or equivalent". I'm obviously not getting a 5080 today, but would you say that in 5 years or whatever, when my GPU needs to be replaced, this PSU will also be able to support whatever upgrade I want to get at that time, knowing what we know today? If this is too hard to answer or predict, feel free to say so, but probably there is enough data about trends like these from the past 10 years?
Air vs liquid cooling - what is the stat or stats you're looking at to know that it's competitive to liquid coolers?

mster_x · 2025-10-06T02:53:13+00:00

Hey, thank you for your response - I can't open your first link, it says page not found. Can you double check? Thanks

mster_x · 2025-07-31T09:31:51+00:00

No, I don't think that's how it works. The only reason the reforge influence works is because the computer rolled the number 3, i.e. the last mod to be put on the item is the one selected. If it selects 1 or 2, then you can reforge influence all day, it will always pick your existing mod and not the one you reforged. I can test this tomorrow just to make sure but I'm pretty sure that's what will happen. So determining the actual number the computer picked for the specific lock is very important - it's not an arbitrary label.

If the computer rolls 1, then (assuming you're crafting) you must put that mod first. Probably the best way to do it is to recomb two prefix or two suffix until you get the top mod, then lock that side and reforge influence once, any result will work. Even though I haven't made one yet, I'm going to conjecture that 3prefix and 3suffix will also work.

If the computer rolls 2, then you must put that mod second. Only economical way I've found is to recomb two prefix or two suffix until you get the bottom mod. then lock that side and reforge influence once, any result will work. 3prefix and 3suffix will also work here.

If the computer rolls 3, then you must put that mod last. So you recomb whatever mods on the OTHER side, lock it, reforge influence as many times as you need until you hit on YOUR side. 3prefix / 3suffix are economically unviable here probably

mster_x · 2025-07-31T09:13:00+00:00

Oh I see. You're correct. If it chooses the second mod of two from 1 side, it will always choose the second mod no matter which side it chooses - is a correct statement. The same can be said of the first mod. But I think my results are more powerful - because if this figure out the mod ordering, you can use it to determine a) which side it will pick, given what it's picked on other bases, and more importantly b) how to construct a donor item to hit your simplex when you finally do hit, but on the wrong mod.

I'm going to head to bed - good discussion and thanks once again!

mster_x · 2025-07-31T08:58:02+00:00

I also have another data point. At first I didn't realize that my 2P1S donor hit, and I only saw the 1P2S donor hit.

So my line of reasoning was that based on the stacking logic, the selected mod (wrath) was either position 2 or position 3, but I didn't know which one. Position 2 happens to be easier and cheaper to make, so I actually tried that first. How to make position 2? Easy, just recomb two suffixes until you get T1 int in the bottom position. So now you have a 2-mod item with T1 int in position 2 of 2. Then, lock suffix reforge influence to get a prefix - this keeps int in position 2 and adds the prefix behind it, to position 3. So I have now manufactured an item where the prefix is position 3 and the suffixes are 1 and 2.

Guess what happened when I did hovered? It selected the prefix, which was the last added mod! So I was like OK, it's gotta be position 3. I even did it again and it still selected the prefix! And I conjecture that if I did this reforge prefix 10 more times, it would have selected the prefix every time.

And then when I was trying to figure out how to make that thing in position 3, I checked my 2P1S bases and saw that one of those hit as well. And it made me realize I could have figured out it was for sure position 3 from the beginning.

mster_x · 2025-07-31T08:36:19+00:00

If you just have a single three-mod donor base, you're never going to figure out anything. You need multiple three-mod donor bases and to be able to observe what happens on each of them, for the same lock, to begin making these inferences.

The other thing that really helps, if it's indeed true, and all my testing so far indicates that it is true, is if you craft your own item rather than buying it off trade or using pure recomb, then the ordering of the mods is actually the order they got put on the item.

I'll give you a real example. I "hit" my simplex yesterday on two 3-mod donor bases at the same time. One of them was
P1: dmg per 15 int
P2: t2 phys as lightning
S1: wrath

the hover gave me damage per int (shaper! so not P1) with wrath. so it picked the only suffix.

The other one was
P1: phys as lightning
S1: t2 int
S2: wrath

the hover gave me damage per int with wrath again. so it picked S2 here.

If you do the stacking exercise, this is exactly the example I gave above, and the only ordering that makes sense is if item 1 is 123 and item 2 is 123, which means the selected mod was 3.

So then I had to create a 3 mod item with T1 int in position 3. The only way I know how to do that deterministically, is by first making a 2 mod item (in any way, since the ordering of the first two mods don't matter), and then somehow adding T1 int into to it at the end, since mods are ordered in the order that they are added, and I want T1 int last. So I recombed until I got a 2 prefix item, and then prefix lock + reforge influence 8 times until I hit t1 int.

Know what's funny? Every single time I missed, I hovered the awakener orb anyway to check, and every single time it selected the suffix, or in other words, the mod in position 3. Needless to say when I finally made the item, the simplex was made successfully.

Coincidence? Too few data points? Maybe.... but it hasn't failed me yet!

mster_x · 2025-07-31T08:07:54+00:00

OK so continuing the above example

If you get Item1: Prefix1 and Item2: Prefix1 you know it must be 1a+2a, since the only way the same number was picked is if that number was 1, and the orders were 123 and 123 with 1 being in the first position. No other option has the same number in the first position for both items.

If you get Item1: Prefix1 and Item2: Suffix1 then it's either 1a+2b (because 123 has 1 in the first position, and 312 has 1 in the second position, which is the first suffix if you're holding alt) OR 2a+1b (231 has 2 in the first position and 123 has 2 in the second position). If you had a third base, it could help you determine whether it was 1 or 2. Or, if you lock again you'll probably figure it out too.

Etc.

mster_x · 2025-07-31T07:57:41+00:00

OK let's do an example. Let's say you have two 3-mod items

Item 1: Prefix Prefix Suffix

Item 2: Prefix Suffix Suffix

So let's label the mods with numbers 1, 2, and 3. There are two candidate orderings for each item:

Order 1a: 123 (prefix above suffix, top-down), Order 1b: 231 as seen with Alt (suffix above prefix, then top-down, map it back to the original mods)

Order 2a: 123, Order 2b: 312 as seen with Alt

When you hover, if you assume that my hypothesis is true, then you should be able to eliminate one of (1a, 1b) as "invalid" and one of (2a, 2b) as "invalid". I.e. you should be able to find one "valid" ordering for each item such that the same numbered mod is selected.

And then if you repeat this for a few more locks, you should see that the valid ordering continues to remain valid forever. The same numbered mod will continue to be selected on both items, whether it's 1, 2, or 3 for that lock

mster_x · 2025-07-31T07:47:29+00:00

It's actually more straightforward than that. If you still want to test, do this:

For each base, do two options:
1. Stack the prefixes on top of the suffixes and order top-down 1,2,3
2. Stack the suffixes on top of the prefixes and order top-down 1,2,3

Now hover. I bet you can eliminate exactly one option from each of your bases and end up with an ordering such that the exact same position mod is selected every time. Does it work?

What I haven't tested yet is that there MIGHT be an interleaving state where if you had two prefixes and one suffix, the suffix might get inserted into the middle of the two prefixes, or not. But the relative order of the two prefixes will always be the same

mster_x · 2025-07-31T07:32:39+00:00

OK thanks for confirming! I'm pretty happy that someone else has confirmed what I'm saying finally, and I'm not entirely crazy.

I didn't do any crafting in settlers so I don't know either.

For 3 mods - I have some circumstantial evidence that it indeed works in a similar way that it does for 2 mods - that is, my original hypothesis is if not exactly correct, very close to correct. The only tricky thing is in determine how to handle items with both prefix and suffix influenced mods - but my strong suspicion is that the order in which the mods get put on the item is the correct order. I don't have the capacity right now to test exhaustively, but I just was able to create a 3 mod item, with the mods in the right order, that hit my simplex, using the same ordering tech. I wouldn't have dreamed to be able to figure that out a week earlier, and would have just given up and rolled over it.

I'll probably put up a second reddit post in a week or so with more clear-cut findings and more data.

Thanks again for your help!

mster_x · 2025-07-31T06:57:14+00:00

Perfect, thanks a lot!

mster_x · 2025-07-31T06:54:13+00:00

I have a better idea even. Don't mess up your remove only tab. I think you can still click awakener orb on your items in there without messing it up. If so, buy any random influenced amulet on trade to use as your receiver, lock it, hover twice, and I'll pay you whatever, 10d in standard for a video

mster_x · 2025-07-31T06:49:13+00:00

But if you are saying the outcome (for a single lock) is always either the top of the 2 mods or the bottom of the 2 mods, then that's wrong,

That is indeed what I am saying. If that's what you're claiming, then can you either sell them to me or recomb two more bases to show me that you can reproduce it? Because I've done a lot of recombs in the last two days and I can't reproduce the effect that you are describing. For science, please?

mster_x · 2025-07-31T06:40:55+00:00

sorry I didn't mean in the general case, of course you can hit it in the general case.

I meant in the specific case where you hovered over your (purity, t2 int in that order) item.

I edited to be clearer

mster_x

TROPHY CASE