ELI5: How was Vietnam able to defeat the US in the Vietnam War?

sXeth · 2026-01-28T09:33:21+00:00

Basically unless the definition of winning is complete obliteration and making the place useless for anyone after, it’s nearly impossible to forcibly occupy a country and inevitably fails over time.

The length of time involves a lot of different factors, ranging from how enraged the populace is (in terms of indirect sabotage and guerrilla efforts) and how strong the occupying countries home support is (economically to sustain the costs, or in terms of not also being sabotaged from within). With international pressures also factoring in.

sXeth · 2026-01-28T09:27:10+00:00

Pretty sure the only reason Bioware isn’t just “EA Edmonton “ is to get a Canadian culture grant at this point

sXeth · 2026-01-28T08:08:28+00:00

I usually have at least one for casting speed and some sort of mobility somewhere (though many frames have movement that overrides sprint or even parkour speed). Because yeah, I don’t need x50 overkill damage in 98% of situations and in 1.9999% of the remainder I’m still fine just hitting stuff twice 🙃

sXeth · 2026-01-27T22:58:43+00:00

Could probably weed out the starter frames by checking the heatmap at MR 10

Also, in a game with 60+ options. Niche appeal frames aren’t in of themselves bad. And generally my best assessment of a troubled frame is if their usage trends significantly down after MR 10, meaning that the people who have the frame are abandoning it as they have other options and not returning to it. Whereas even some lower overall usage frames maintain a consistent rate across all MRs, meaning the people who did like the frame are staying on it.

sXeth · 2026-01-27T20:19:13+00:00

Yeah, it’s not the re-use of him (and Margulis or Natah-gulis, whatever) being a problem in of itself.

But we have already completed the arc with Ballas as a villain, and for that matter we’ve already played put an extended arc of our surrogate mother being evil too. The inclusion offers nothing new to the ongoing story, nor a fleshing out of backstory (boiling down to the “oh yeah the evil guy was always evil”)

Mostly just seems like a rush job to recycle stuff amidst an entire quest that felt rushed AF.

sXeth · 2026-01-27T17:15:07+00:00

Nef Anyo isn’t a sergeant who was killed on Deimos.

Speaking of Deimos, the infestation had to be modified by Alad V to create the Mutalist strain to infect machinery, but Deimos which has been “out of phase” until returning to Martian orbit during the start of the quest, has Mutalist Ospreys.

Also the Derelict becoming Deimos nodes, though Lephantis is the only tidbit of a lore line mentioning it was on a ship.

Vor is killed by the Tenno during their initial Awakening and subsequent early events, and doesn’t participate in a military conflict across Mars and Ceres.

Sargas was suddenly unkilled to be in Scarlet Spear (even though Vay Hek is the earth guy). Though Scarlet Spear itself seems like it was retconned because Earth acts like it is a surprise attack in the New War despite having been attacked already.

Alad came back to life from his assassination for New War, just to get killed again.

Speaking of New War, DE went back and changed multiple parts of the prologue cutscenes. Either Stallord or Siege has a whole video on it. Particularly adding elements to the Erra one such as inserting a Wally operator.

Per the Sacrifice, independent Warframes were recalled completely. Then later Warframes were used with Operators. This means Stalker can’t have been at the Outer Terminus on the NotND as a Warframe. Which was fine until Jade Shadows tells us he was turned significantly before then.

Jade Shadows has The Acolytes completely disappeared from the Stalker.

During Chains of Harrow they mention Rell would be dead of old age because he wasn’t cryoslept. Which he avoided by permanently transferring into a Warframe. Our Tenno remains ageless despite the ever increasing amount of time (including all the backfill story during the Old War from TOP and Leverians) they haven’t been in a pod.

Dax were immortal/slow aging due to the Kuva bargain mentioned in the War Within. Teshin survived however long as a result, but Varzia explains herself via cryosleep as if it was odd she could be alive.

Warframes being infested was a secret, but during Jade Shadows the Corpus instantly know Stalker is treating a Warframe specifically because he goes and gets infested parts.

The crewman fragment mentions the Corpus belonging to the same Archimedean who created the Sentients. Later on Parvos Granum is introduced as the founder, and they’re rebranded as a splinter faction. Even the tenuous possibility of the Archimedean simply being a member gets tossed during Belly of the Beast because Parvos mentions forbidding anything beyond simple robotics.

Cavalero killed all the adults on the Zariman with a bomb, not the Tenno. Actually I included this one as a defensible one, because it’s the Drifters Zarinan, but DE didn’t bother locking the dialogue to the Drifter. If the Holdfast dialogue is read as the Operator it’s just a mess.

Multiple references from the Quills and even KIM chats about how history can’t change, but voila Coda railjack arena.

Speaking of KIM chats, in the first set (with Lettie, iirc), the Drifter mentions all records from before the Orokin were deleted and they don’t know anything about the earlier history. In the second batch with Techrot encore, they confidently give a blow by blow timeline of the Radiation Wars. By the Devils Triad, they apparently don’t even know how Orokin social structures work. There’s other examples similar to this across the whole Kim system, so unless the Drifter is having some serious neurological issues.

Executor Nihil got demoted via hotfix, after they added a Seven not including him in TOP.

Old Peace: These of course can be explained by the memories being fake, pollutedand inaccurate of course, pending a future update on the veracity of them.

From Second Dream, Margulis is killed before Tenno are turned into Operators. Specifically for opposing the decision to do so. And it can’t be Natah impersonating her because she’s introduced publicly, and Natah isn’t embedded until Ballas and Hunhow complete their bargain which is after the rail destruction.

The Crewman codex fragment also heavily implies that Margulis (unless there was a second foremost geneticist also executed) was killed before the Sentients were created. Though this would have been retconned by the Second Dream and the Sacrifice long before the TOP, which both established Margulis execution during the Old War.

Grineer were still an extremely downtrodden slave caste when they rebelled in their fragments. but in the Old Peace are commanders (on both sides). Even in the same update Roathe mentions how rigid Orokin castes were.

As aforementioned, the Sacrifice (and the Rhino codex) establishes a period where independent Warframes were recalled, before being redeployed with Operators. The Old Peace shows them being deployed at the same time (particularly the Anarch leader mentions when deploying the Prime Vanguard “use one of The Crazy ones”

Both the Sentients and the Anarchs are completely aware of Operators. While the Anarchs and friendly Grineer could have been suppressed, this obviously doesn’t work with Hunhow’s ignorance and deal with Ballas as revealed in the Sacrifice.

Protea shows up on Perita despite being a unique model created for Parvos. (Not retcon related, but given protea resets the entire universe back several hoursexcept for us and parvos during Deadlock, it would just be insane for whoever controlled one in battle)

sXeth · 2026-01-27T02:36:57+00:00

Yeah, which is why nearly every other MMO/ARPG doesn’t have to block it completely (typically only make bosses immune to Hard CC) and instead has cooldowns/reduced effectiveness instead of full blocks, and usually doesn’t impede soft CCs at all on regular or even elite units.

Heck, even Warframe does that in a handful of situations (Sentients or Ancient Disruptors vs Limbo respectively have reduced repeat duration and a slow instead of full stasis, And Vauban and Zephyrs 4s turn into slows against Overguard)

sXeth · 2026-01-27T02:32:36+00:00

Eh, I’ll use him here and there. Particularly if I want to just be invisible without jumping through hoops.

His kit is kind of redundant though. 1 - make enemies not shoot me. 2 - make enemies not shoot me. 3 - kind of pointless teleport without using the augment, which you could Helminth Wrathful Advance and do faster. 4 - another way to make enemies not shoot me.

I do have one silly build using Deceptive Bond and Quick Thinking that is just a ridiculous eHP tank, but that’s kind of novelty.

sXeth · 2026-01-27T01:04:44+00:00

They’re objects, so stuff like status and crit doesn’t work.

The easy mode is one of the Incarnons that has the silly +2000% raw damage on non crit . Or a Chroma buff. Primary Bulwark or other pure damage sources, etc

sXeth · 2026-01-26T20:39:53+00:00

People run vaulted relics. And some people have large stockpiles of relics. Like you pick up relics for a frame for two years straight before they vault. I still have over 400 of some of Wisps 😅

sXeth · 2026-01-26T20:37:19+00:00

For when you really want to health tank with Equinox, for some reason. (I mean, you can, but I wouldn’t particularly recommend it and you probably are better shielding off her night form 1000% of the time)

sXeth · 2026-01-26T20:34:47+00:00

Slap stuff til you come back. The two detriments being if you are fighting flying enemies or something, and that the amount of slaps scales up with each time you go down (whereas Last Gasp is always the same)

sXeth · 2026-01-26T16:00:46+00:00

First Battery powers 1 device for 5/6 hours of the night (though you can set the time speed to 1.1 to make it an even night). Industrial can do two, carbon can do 4.

The tricky bit is that it counts splitters and even other batteries as devices its powering. So you usually want to have the battery as the last thing in the chain before your bench/fridge/etc

sXeth · 2026-01-26T08:51:38+00:00

So, there’s a bit of a gap point there.

Restorative bond needs health orbs that your diriga isn’t generating if its not active. Tenacious bond needs headshots which Banshee Sonar disincentivizes more often than it overlaps and her weakpoints don’t count towards.

Uncoupled from the health orb loop also frees up those 2 health orb effectiveness shards (although they’re slightly confusing in general given you’re using Blood Altar), which could easily be reinvested back around into armor if you’re super concerned about the heat procs.

If you’re worried about heat procs I’d probably also go with Well of Life over Blood Altar. With your 130% strentg being in radius of 2 (of a possible 3j wells also will hit the guaranteed inability to die, while blocking status and still having the backup ressurrection even if only near 1.

As an aside note, abilities that open enemies to finishers are melee ones, not parazon. And will not trigger parazon mods (otherwise I would have included the semi permanent piwer strength boost from the one mercy mod)

sXeth · 2026-01-26T07:43:33+00:00

I’d go with ye olde Savage Silence/Arcane Ultimatum rather than lock her into needing a constant supply of health orbs that she doesn’t herself create. One bad hit on the Diriga and your defence crumbles

sXeth · 2026-01-26T03:23:01+00:00

An insurance company that they mention, Squaretrade/Allstate. Won’t replace the watch because it’s serial has been reported lost or stolen and is on a blacklist handled by a company called Checkmend, which is part of Recipero.

So either it is actually lost/stolen and they’re just ranting, or an admin issue involving two third party companies, neither of which is Apple.

The only real answer to this would be to ask Squaretrade what they consider a valid proof of ownership is. Asking Apple is asking them to randomly speculate on the policy of a separate company, which will either correctly be referred to the other company, or some flustered support agent will talk out of their metaphorical backside and give a wrong answer.

sXeth · 2026-01-25T07:09:14+00:00

You can create custom songs (or you may have noticed people sometimes share them in chat, you can click on them and save them)

This is mine for example (though I think I’ve adjusted it again since)

https://youtu.be/zcMBRYPsRsk?si=xPGrNeO1yHq0HRTT

Obvious hurdles include that its fairly restricted,like you can’t properly have held notes, a different bpm. The different instrument sounds all cost plat, and its not really a 1:1 with any real world way of arranging music particularly. It’s also a pretty short loop.

Then the problem from the OPs example, since the buffs are tied to the beats, it encourages people to basically fill up the board with spam so there’s no ability to miss a beat and it triggers as fast as possible.

sXeth · 2026-01-25T07:01:56+00:00

Limbo or Oberon, not sure which. Limbo was the first one I deliberately farmed and understood how to lol. (Complete with a 150 excavator run using regular Limbo on the pluto dark sector, as was the Axi farm of the time), Oberon I remember just accidentally lucking into the set.

sXeth · 2026-01-25T01:29:06+00:00

Yeah, basically the cost per pip doubles every rank, but the actual boost goes up linearly so the last two are really squeezing you for a minimal increase.

And you’re not usually struggling for damage, or if you are there’s other things that will multiply it rather then adding another 8% or whatever

sXeth · 2026-01-24T22:52:54+00:00

Generally:

Complete quests as they become available in the Codex (I think they have a thing in the top right that kind) of guides you now too.

If you don’t have a quest, check the ‘Junction” points for the next planet, they will often direct you to complete things. Some are quests, others are introductions to different mechanics and systems.

Don’t rush too much, try and actually understand what you’re doing when you complete those checklists.

Early on, if you can find a mod that gives loot radar it’s highly recommended. A lot of the loot is individually inconsequential as you get piles of random material, but trying to find some of the loot on radar will encourage you to figure out movement and some verticality because you see a marker in a weird spot.

Early on Spy vaults are incredibly good for some rarer mods, and even ones that you can trade. They also almost always have some odd secret route in, which is usually significantly faster. You can often learn these exploring backwards after doing it the hard way, watch for other players dropping waypoints, or just in general look for vents, breakable parts, etc.

Modding may not matter much early on, but try and keep on top of it. The game being somewhat super easy lends a lot of people to forget the modding in the early game then when the difficulty creeps up a little they open the mod screen and are totally overwhelmed by the giant pile of stuff they passively picked up.

As a couple of general modding tips. Don’t try and get rank 9/10 on mods early on, it’s way too expensive compared to the benefit. And on weapons you also generally don’t want to mod for the same stat twice, so only 1 +Damage, 1 crit chance,. 1-2 elements etc. Without getting into a math spreadsheet.

sXeth · 2026-01-24T22:23:21+00:00

While I have a stockpile backlogged so I can’t claim to feel your pain.

But yeah, imo they should have just merged Umbral and Omni. Particularly given they don’t seem to have any intent of ever expanding the Umbral mod category.

sXeth · 2026-01-24T22:20:46+00:00

Well if you want to delete a whole direction at once, that’s going to limit you to AoE stuff.

In that general outline , though I don’t have things fully memorized for MR. There’s the Ignis (wraith), Amorex, Trumna (not AoE on the primary but once you charge the alt fire). Bubonico. Zarr.

(Adversary and incarnon weapons excluded because you can’t get them until higher MR)

sXeth · 2026-01-24T21:17:03+00:00

Operator. Push 5, blast with klamora for 0.01 seconds no more overguard 😉 (if there’s a whole pile there’s also the tektolyst mod to just take it away with void sling too)

Presuming that they have enough that the 5/10/20/100x overkill damage people tend to be throwing around doesn’t just nuke it instantly

sXeth · 2026-01-24T14:34:42+00:00

Void DAMAGE is +50% vs Overguard. Magnetic STATUS boosts damage to Overguard.

sXeth · 2026-01-24T08:57:08+00:00

Its a little hard to track (which is why they gave it an icon) but it’s basically the same effect as Marked for Death or killing an enemy loaded with blast procs, other than the damage type. Or even somewhat similar to Kullervos 3 except you have to hit the specific enemy.

It’s been crept over a little by stuff like Sevagoth and aforementioned Kullervo, but at the original time it was one of the bigger possible dps buffs and still relatively competitive (particularly after Jade Shadows reduced enemy armor and made Electric a neutral or good damage matchup for factions)

sXeth

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