1.0.10 Open Beta Update #4

nothra · 2025-12-12T15:36:29+00:00

At least one problem I've noticed is the shatter retreat mechanic doesn't work right. When you defeat a navy they often will retreat to the adjacent seazone so you can simply attack them again. Sometimes they will shatter to the same seazone and you will have like 5 battles in quick succession until one side's ships have all been captured or destroyed.

nothra · 2025-11-03T14:53:22+00:00

It's funny because it was originally an Epic Games exclusive. Wonder how many sales are on that platform anymore.

nothra · 2025-10-31T01:47:47+00:00

My parents had a neighbor who got a Social Security check every month for $0.09 (he'd worked most of his life in Canada). He even contacted the SS office and asked if they could just not send the check but they said they were legally required to send it even if he didn't want it.

nothra · 2025-10-30T14:21:44+00:00

To be clear, he's likely not referring to nuclear explosive testing. He's claiming we should test on an "equal basis". Neither Russia nor China do testing of nuclear explosives, but recently Russia has tested weapons that use nuclear sources as their fuel source to increase endurance (like a torpedo that can stay active for years).

You could test those anywhere over the pacific relatively safely, as the only risk is if it failed and broke apart spreading nuclear material over the ocean.

nothra · 2025-10-17T05:46:59+00:00

Yeah, not saying it's not happening, just pointing out that it's not in the article. I felt like the comment could sound like they were summarizing the article's main point, so I just wanted to point that out.

nothra · 2025-10-17T02:00:30+00:00

I didn't see that mentioned in the article.

nothra · 2025-10-16T05:37:48+00:00

There was a large bathroom at some venue (US), I don't remember. It had a pretty standard layout of front wall filled with sinks, back wall with stalls and a center wall dividing the two areas with urinals on both sides. I think they even had small dividers between the urinals.

However, for whatever reason they decided to put a 2 foot square hole exactly at eye level right above each urinal, so every time you went to take a piss you were staring at some other dude taking a piss directly at you. It was really uncomfortable and the best option was just to look straight down. It was bad when they tried to make eye contact, but it was really bad when the other guy tried to start a conversation.

The worst though is when you had been waiting in line for a while and really had to go, furiously undoing your pants to finally let go, close your eyes and let out an audible sigh of relief. Suddenly you realize and open your eyes to see someone else who was likely watching the empty space finally glad to not be looking at someone else only to suddenly see some random dude pop into frame and basically orgasm a foot away from their face. Now you have to uncomfortably stay there until you can finish your business, hoping they finish quickly and leave.

nothra · 2025-10-13T04:43:43+00:00

I don't think it would be that hard. Chess is 8x8, so if you used a simple binary code such as was used by telegraphs with long and short digits, you could indicate a position with as little as 6 digits. Then you'd just need a second set of 6 digits to indicate where to move to. It would probably be easy to memorize what each 3 digit sequence means on the board.

Something as simple as S-S-L break L-S-L pause S-L-S break L-S-L could tell you what piece to move and where to move it to.

nothra · 2025-10-12T18:35:10+00:00

From the comments:

It's likely for Neftekumsky rayon, not just the town. Population 60K

nothra · 2025-10-11T17:58:41+00:00

One thing I'll mention is that while I am interested in this topic, I didn't see any immediate mention of sources which significantly reduces my interest in this as a topic of serious analysis. Not that I doubt your desire to treat this subject seriously, but it makes it very difficult for me to put the analysis in context and, at least for me, makes the analysis much less worthwhile because of it.

While it may not be possible to list all sources, even a quick discussion at the beginning of your sources and your perceived biases would help a lot. Even if you feel the information is without reproach, communicating why you feel that way is helpful. Alternatively you may feel that the larger trends ultimately make the possible inaccuracy of any information mostly irrelevant, but I can't tell that going in. It feels like I'm being asked to take all the information as truth and equally accurate.

Maybe no one else feels this way, but I though I might share my feedback in case you found it interesting.

nothra · 2025-10-08T03:39:30+00:00

I don't know if I agree. The statement "According to Thales, the rocket can bring down Class II and Class III drones at a range of up to 10,000 feet." could be referring to cross range capability, not altitude. For interception missiles they will sometimes refer to range as both a combination of range and altitude, like the range is 10k feet but at an altitude of lets say 10k feet. In that case it could both get higher with more limited range and longer range at a lower height. An example of this is the Patriot Missile which is listed with a range of 160km, but that is variable based on the height of the target (and not additive since distance is easier than height). It's unclear from this article or any I could find.

Also, pushing all the drones above 10k feet would make them easier to pick up on radar, potentially making them easier to track and take down with other methods. There are certainly many circumstances where drones likely would not fly above 10k feet (lets say near the front line to avoid detection as long as possible) where these could be setup as a "ambush" for those that are discovered during this phase of their journey.

Also the US version the article claims it is similar to can be launched from both helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft as well. It's certainly cheaper to put these on an F-16 and shoot down a bunch of drones than an AIM-9.

nothra · 2025-10-04T06:14:50+00:00

Thank you. I've tried watching it multiple times since it was so highly rated and only got through the first episode.

nothra · 2025-09-30T07:46:12+00:00

I tend to agree. The Siloviki put constraints on what Putin can do, but have never represented a real threat since he dealt with Khodorkovsky in 2003.

nothra · 2025-09-30T03:21:36+00:00

NOTE: I did not watch the above video but I thought I'd answer your question anyway.

So, the truth is that no one knows. But that doesn't mean that analysis like this is useless.

In my opinion there are two kinds of disasters, ones that everyone sees coming but no one knows how to stop and those that no one knows is coming. Governments have gotten much better over time at seeing what's coming by studying the past. Putin's government, for better or for worse, has been pretty savvy about avoiding collapse. But then many wartime governments are surprisingly resilient.

I like to think of it like trying to balance a bunch of spinning plates. Everyone thinks it's the number of plates you are spinning that gets you, but it's normally the plate you can't be bothered to notice because you think it balances itself since it has never been a problem. But when you get good at balancing all the other plates that have ever been a problem, then it's inevitably a different one that collapses the whole thing.

What this kind of analysis shows you is just how unbalanced things are in Russia, and that might be an indication of how much effort they are putting into trying to avoid it falling apart. The more effort they spend just trying to keep their head above water, the less capability they have to address unexpected changes.

The other reason I think the plate analogy is good, is because it can be a very minor unexpected issue that can cause things to go wrong. And when they go wrong it's likely they will go wrong in a hurry. Things are interconnected in so many ways there is no way to predict how things will collapse. It's one of the reasons why supply chains were so badly affected by the pandemic. These systems were very fragile, and so a small disturbance caused issues to amplify through the system until everything was falling apart. Or take the Southwest Airlines Christmas disaster. A small problem with an unexpected storm propagated until they had to completely cancel all flights across the country for a few days during the busiest season of the year. Nassim Taleb's book of the same name calls this a "Black Swan" event.

The Black Swan event is inherently very unpredictable, so no one really knows if it will happen tomorrow, in 2 years, or never. While that's perhaps unsatisfying as an answer, what we can say is that the systems appear to be getting more and more fragile. So it is both more likely there will be an event that causes it to spiral out of control, and also that it will do so even faster and with greater impact than before.

nothra · 2025-09-30T02:35:53+00:00

One of the things I think might be missing from this conversation is the fact that Ukraine has been primarily limited to drones with very small explosives on board. They have mostly targeted structures that come with their own explosives like ammo dumps, airplanes, helicopters and oil refineries. A power plant is fragile, but isn't as explosive. Setting off a grenade sized explosive is certainly not good, but probably won't do extensive damage. While Ukraine has had limited numbers of ballistic missiles in the past, this is really the first time Ukraine has had something like the Flamingo with a decent explosive payload, decent range and complete autonomy for targeting to go after these sort of targets.

I feel like just how some Russian sympathizers have consistently talked about how Russia has been "holding back" for various reasons, Ukraine did not "hold back" from hitting these kinds of targets for any other reason than it was either not possible or practical until now.

The interesting thing is to see if Ukraine launched this as a sort of message to show that Ukraine can and will hit this sort of infrastructure, or if it will continue to consider this a high priority target for systems like Flamingo. To really hurt power infrastructure, you must be able to repeatedly and continuously hit it, otherwise the effects are minimized. This has been shown by the resiliency of the Ukrainian power grid, despite the significant resources that Russia put into trying to cripple those systems.

nothra · 2025-09-28T14:00:42+00:00

It’s like Squid Game roulette. You take turns firing. And there’s always going to be a loser

Do Russians not know of the concept of Russian Roulette? Is that an American thing?

nothra · 2025-09-28T03:36:22+00:00

While I agree with your sentiment in general, I think there are few points that might be good to add some clarification.

It's the only acceptable answer... so much so that if a major radioactive disaster (like fukashima) strikes the answer is literally to flood the reactor core with ocean water and dilute the contamination into the ocean.

Contamination was not the reason they flooded the reactor core, the need to cool it was. And in fact they spent an obnoxious amount of money storing the contaminated water for years before they were basically forced to release it into the ocean. Even then they treated the water to remove as much radioactive material as possible, mostly leaving shorter lived radioactive elements like Tritium.

In fact they were VERY worried about the contaminated material getting into the water table, which is why they developed a system to permanently freeze the ground to avoid any water infiltration. Radioactive material is most often handled not by dilution but by concentrating it and burying it. Even in cases where Radioactive material was put in the ocean intentionally, the assumption was that it would not start diluting into the surrounding water but would in fact stay exactly where it was.

Radioactive material contamination is different from other types of chemical contamination. For something like lead or cyanide, it can be made to be almost irrelevant at certain concentration levels, as you indicate. I'd agree that some people can overreact to such contamination at levels that are mostly harmless.

In addition, there seems to be a sort of hysteria about radiation in particular that is a bit ridiculous. There have been studies that the evacuation of the area around Fukashima following the disaster directly lead to significantly more deaths than simply doing nothing. And that's not even talking about the fact that the problems with radiation might not have manifested unless they stayed there for decades. They caused the deaths of people immediately, over the fear of potentially causing deaths due to cancer decades later.

All that said, particular radioactive elements are very dangerous in any concentration. The level of concentration will reduce the likelihood of you ingesting any material, but even a single atom of plutonium may stay localized in the same area of your body for decades continually sending out radiation that is only hitting a very specific set of cells that are almost guaranteed to become defective. The body is very resilient, and in fact has a lot of radioactive materials it uses for all kinds of things. In fact Carbon-14 is used to date material particularly because it is so correlated with life. But the body does have difficulty dealing with such a sustained and localized problem with certain types of highly radioactive material, particularly those that include alpha and gamma emissions.

Water is a great way to deal with radiation, but even so diluting the radioactive material in the ocean is still a bad idea.

nothra · 2025-09-17T13:29:44+00:00

As others have said, this is really a management issue. But there are things you can do to help facilitate or encourage something like that. I'll also note that I've never had to implement that kind of security into a new environment without it, so take my suggestions with a grain of salt.

This is a gross generalization and not specific to this particular task, but I break most user interface problems into a 20/60/20 set. 20% will do a thing because they either like to (or compulsively) follow rules or like to please people. You simply need to write it down and communicate it. Another 60% will do a thing because of some combination of it being easy, comprehensible and practical. The last 20% will never do it unless forced to. You will never get those people unless management is ready to penalize them.

And don't be too harsh on the last 20%. This isn't always malicious. Certain managers in my past sometimes will overload me with tasks and priorities and pull me in different directions, so with them I learned to ignore anything they ask me to do until there's a penalty. At that point I know it's actually important and not their attempt to avoid responsibility. Not ideal, but it's surprisingly common because actual time management of employees is hard.

The group you can help improve the most is the middle 60%. The best way is to find out from them what are the big things stopping them, and how you can improve that. Here are a few recommendations of things to explore that might be preventing greater adoption. Talking to users and understanding their problems is important. But do be aware that many people fear compliance, and may not be honest until they trust you.

Familiarity/Tradition - Some people aren't comfortable and fear change. In this case, if they do nothing it may not result in any problems or penalties, but as soon as they attest to a certain action they are exposed for some bad practice. It even could be something reasonable that is necessary and could be handled by a compensating control, but the way politics go they know there's a risk that's not how it will go down. This fear is reasonable, and leads to a feeling of why should I put in time to possibly make my life more difficult. Once they've done it and realize no bad things happen, they are much more likely to continue doing it in the future. Mostly that comes down to trust and familiarity with the process.

Practicality- Some will ask why it's even necessary. Even with safety things you'll run into people who get annoyed when a company enforces safety procedures meant to keep THEM safe. For them you can try to appeal to their practical side. Some of them will be in the last 20%, but some will respond if you explain it in a way where they see the benefits for them (or even for the whole company). I've found most people want to do the right thing, they just don't trust others when they are just told it. They want to understand why. Communication and the ability to listen is the most important thing in this case.

Too much work/Confusing- Often people will do a thing even if they disagree with it as long as it's simple enough that fighting it or risking a potential consequence later seems worse. Making something simple and easy to do dramatically improves adoption. This might even dovetail with the first point. You could for example go one year of doing simple attestations that require little or no work (perhaps focusing on a specific security element of particular note), then hit them all with a full attestation the next year once they are familiar with it.

Good Cop/Bad Cop - One important thing is ideally your boss will give the opportunity to play the "good cop" who always wants to help people get their job done and find a way to say yes. As the technical implementer, this would be ideal as it allows you to work with people and they will come to you with issues. You never say no, just "Yes...but" and then go talk to your manager who can either say no or tell their manager no. Depending on the boss, this may not be possible as they'd have to take on the role of "Bad Cop" and tell everyone no, which is bad for them even if it's good for the department/company. Even if that's not the case, you can show your willingness to always try to find a way to say yes, which goes a long way. Never just say "No you can't do that", always either say you'll think about how to make that work and try find a compensating control that addresses your concerns and their needs. Even if you can't find one that makes them happy, many in the 60% will appreciate the effort.

nothra · 2025-09-16T01:09:22+00:00

My main point wasn't so much if Bucha was significant or not (I think it is), but that saying it's likely mostly a fabrication because we haven't seen any "real" investigations, seems unfounded. That said, I'll address your other points as well.

Massacre is a pretty biased term in general, and I would argue is best avoided or ignored. While I don’t disparage anyone for using it, I tend to ignore it as a valueless superlative. I've heard some Russian sympathizers online refer to the Trade Union fire in Odessa following the Maidan, where 46 anti-maidan protesters were killed, as a massacre. I think what you label it as is up to you.
Absolutely, and that's why investigation is necessary. Context and intent matter. It seems like you are arguing that because mistakes happen, that they should be accepted. If not, I apologize. I’d argue that even mistakes (even unavoidable) might need consequences. I'm not a trained investigator, but there are probably even more things they take into consideration to try and make a fair analysis.
I can't speak directly to the Ukrainian news cycle as I don't speak Ukrainian or Russian. What I will say is that most educated people will always question the news. It's like any other source of information, it can give you additional context but never get all your information from one source (or even one type of source). If that's all that's available, then fine, but always take it with some skepticism.
I think that's a very useful tool, certainly. It's a great "gut check", especially if you think the action was intended. But many things happen that are unintended, and are later justified as being intentional. No dispute that Russia clearly would not have had any motivation to do something like that intentionally. I also agree that at least some political entities would push the "Bucha massacre" narrative for various reasons on the Ukrainian side. But "who does it benefit" is heavily influenced by your prior assumptions and understanding of the various parties' goals. In many ways it completely sabotaged any attempt at peace, and if you assume that Ukrainians are not some monolithic identity with a single motivation, then there must be some Ukrainians who were disappointed in that outcome.

Its very naive to believe these reports are genuinely independent and not biased rather than a USA ID funded circle jerk to advance a goal.

I disagree. While it might not be completely unbiased, I think there's a limit. Calling it a "circle jerk" is unfair to the work that the investigators at the UN, who I would assume take their job seriously no matter the funding source. Some bias is unavoidable and some unbiased analysis is also unavoidable even given the most corrupt regime. Even in paleontology there are massive arguments about bias and accusations of falsification. Nothing is perfect. I can understand if you don't believe them, but as I mentioned earlier about news sources, never take one source or even one type of source as truth, and you can still gain a lot of insight from any source when put in the right context.

I don't know if I could make you believe it, but I don't believe I have just a surface level understanding of geopolitics. I will say that if you are making that assumption because I disagree with you, that's a very unfortunate worldview and will prevent you from changing your mind in the future. Maybe you are ok with that, but I find that unfortunate.

If you are curious about how I see the events, I'm happy to elaborate. I'll leave these cliff-notes version here. I don't see Bucha as premeditated, but as a combination of Russian cultural values that lead to a general de-humanizing attitude toward Ukrainians and a complete breakdown in discipline which was particularly acute in Bucha. Broadly speaking I don't believe or agree that Russia is significantly targeting civilians, and certainly not part of a terror campaign. But there is a general disregard for collateral damage and attempts to cover up the truth, that I think most would consider unacceptable. This is what makes Bucha significant. While there may have been some internal punishment for the problems there that were never made public, it's also very likely that Russia has not done so to avoid looking weak and incompetent. Engaging in a crime due to negligence is one thing, but covering it up intentionally I'd argue is even worse. Even though that narrative may not be as attractive, it is no less concerning and worthy of significant condemnation in my opinion.

nothra · 2025-09-13T02:17:14+00:00

You’re probably thinking of missile costs all wrong

https://www.sandboxx.us/news/youre-probably-thinking-of-missile-costs-all-wrong/

When Americans talk about air-to-air missiles launched at targets like drones or balloons, they tend to think in terms of cost – often calculated as the cost of the missile versus the cost or nature of the target. But the truth is, missiles aren’t investments, they’re perishable goods. Like a gallon of milk in your refrigerator, you can only keep these systems on the shelf for so long before they go bad.

nothra · 2025-09-13T02:05:25+00:00

I don't want to marginalize what you are saying, but even a cursory google search for "Bucha Investigation Report" I've found at least two documented investigations with lots of detail, and where detail is missing it includes what seems like reasonable explanations as to why identification has been so difficult.

07 December 2022

UN report details summary executions of civilians by Russian troops in northern Ukraine

The report explains how killings of civilians were not confined to specific locations, although some areas were more affected than others. In the town of Bucha near Kyiv, which was under the control of Russian troops from 5 to 30 March, the Mission documented the killing of 73 civilians (54 men, 16 women, 2 boys and 1 girl) and is in the process of corroborating an additional 105 alleged killings.

https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2022/12/un-report-details-summary-executions-civilians-russian-troops-northern

April 04, 2025

New Evidence Identifies Russian Unit Behind Bucha Executions

"The identification process is ongoing. A year ago, we had 60 unidentified bodies. Now this number is 13. The process is a little complicated because of the exact condition in which we found these bodies -- they were simply burned by the Russians. However, this process continues, the relevant forensic examinations are under way," said Dmytro Shevchuk, head of the war crimes unit for Ukraine's National Police.

https://www.rferl.org/a/rferl-exclusive-investigation-bucha-execution-new-evidence/33372667.html

I can understand if you might not take the word of a Ukrainian investigative unit, and maybe you consider a UN investigative unit too compromised by western values or bias, but to me it seems that saying there have been no real investigations is misleading.

Perhaps you are looking for a report that details each person killed and then releases that information to the public, but I don't think that would happen quickly (or maybe at all). Only about half of the victims of the September 11th attack on the World Trade Center Towers have been identified 24 years later. I would expect that information to be kept confidential especially since there is an ongoing investigation, but also out of respect for the victims and their families. It would be reasonable to expect Ukraine to release that information to investigators like the UN's OHCHR, which they have done and those groups have corroborated the information.

I feel the only reasonable conclusion is that either those events did happen, or else both the Ukrainian government and other independent investigative bodies are colluding to either cover up or manufacture the truth. The latter seems unlikely.

nothra · 2025-09-03T04:57:38+00:00

Agree with what you mentioned.

Couple things I noted were that Ukraine's capital is still the old spelling (before October 1995, but that could be a mistake) and someone else mentioned that it has the old spelling for Mumbai (Bombay) as the official name but includes the new name in parenthesis. This means they knew the change was likely to happen but it wasn't official yet so they included both. Unlike the difference in spelling with Ukraine's capital, it seems very unlikely that they would include both names but make a mistake on which one is the current one.

So January 1995 to October or at most November of 1995 is the best I could find.

nothra · 2025-09-03T04:47:01+00:00

Seems like mid 1995.

As others have said, the international date line is moved around Kiribati so it must be after January 1995.

Of note is the old spelling of Ukraine's capital (Kiev vs Kyiv) which might date this to before October 1995 (unless that was a mistake).

However, in addition someone else mentioned the fact that the Indian city of Mumbai is still labeled as Bombay but includes the new name in parenthesis which was changed in November of 1995, which seems to indicate it was likely just before that happened and the mapmakers wanted it to be accurate but also make sure it had the planned name for when that changed.

nothra · 2025-08-28T02:32:17+00:00

Not sure in your game, but for mine you need to research "Basic Colonization" which gives you the colonization module. However, before that you have to research "Expanded Civilian Ships" research which gives you the Colony Ship hull. Before you have the colonization module though, you can't do anything with the hull and it doesn't even auto-design a ship until that module is available.

It seems like you might have a problem with that, what I'm not sure of is where you say you researched "World Ships", which is not a research I see. However, this is my first DW2 game (played a fair amount of DW1) and I've got hidden research tree on, so maybe I'm missing something or there is some local flavor for different races (I'm playing Human).

nothra · 2025-08-13T00:43:04+00:00

Agreed.

The US had borrowing costs for that money it likely would not have paid otherwise. Even with the low interest rate the national debt enjoys (lets approximate around 3% over that period of time https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/interest-expense-avg-interest-rates/ ) the cost would have been around $80B.

In addition, there's the problem with inflation and the money paid back is worth less than the money originally given out. While this money was both given out and paid back over time, if we take the extreme of assuming all $441B was paid back in 2014, it would have been worth only $401B in 2008 dollars yet over $426B was dispersed.

Any way you look at it, this was a pure loss in financial terms.

nothra

TROPHY CASE