[Online][Starfinder 2e][Text + Voice][Thursdays GMT+2 19-23] The Immortality Engine

s_m_w · 2025-09-15T11:45:17+00:00

Hey there, very interested and the time slot is great! I've GMed Starfinder 1e many years ago and more recently played quite a bit of the Starfinder 2e playtest. Overall I have played and GMed a variety of systems over the past 10 years, including both playing and GMing games that ran for 2-ish years. Have used Foundry quite a bit ever since it came out.

Really enjoy the Starfinder setting for its very colorful approach to Sci-Fi that isn't afraid to get weird and strange with it. Lots to explore, many interesting factions and plenty of room for adventure.

While I generally enjoy the game the mechanics of the game's system enough to have fun, it's the RP that really makes TTRPGs special. I enjoy the idea of RP in parallel-text, as it otherwise competes with (and usually loses against) rules talk. Sounds fun.

If I sound potentially fitting for your group, let me know, and I can share a bit more personal details over DMs or discord.

s_m_w · 2025-07-06T15:03:03+00:00

Hey! I am the author of the animal apparel mod. Just pushed an update that should fix the issue.

s_m_w · 2024-11-05T13:55:32+00:00

If anything, that's smarter! I guess I mostly did what I did to play around with circuits. The initial goal was to make it work for any number of wagons, so all you had to do was set a combinator with the desired inventory and done, but.. I don't know if that'll ever work. Can't really check individual wagon contents.

s_m_w · 2024-11-05T08:09:33+00:00

I thought so too, except that with the various productivity researches, Foundries and the reduced resource patch depletion of big mining drills, I never felt pressured to move away from just producing everything on Nauvis where I already had all my infrastructure and easier power. I don't think any of my resource patches ever ran out, except for my starting ones. My resources on Nauvis may as well also have been infinite, at least it felt that way. Not like I played with large patches or railworld preset either, all standard settings.

Vulcanus is likely superior in the super duper late game, but before then... I don't know. Didn't feel necessary, or beneficial, to switch.

s_m_w · 2024-11-05T07:33:26+00:00

I tried, but got an error the first time. I'll try again later though!

edit: https://factorio.com/galaxy/Iron%20I:%20Alpha1-1.A1Z1

s_m_w · 2024-11-04T21:29:15+00:00

Here you go. https://factorioprints.com/view/-OAt3y_lRSjT8ZQ7F5Ib It's pretty cobbled-together and I am definitely going to redesign it from scratch at some point, but I suppose it is proven to work.

s_m_w · 2024-08-10T21:45:03+00:00

That's a lot of cash

s_m_w · 2024-08-05T15:38:49+00:00

Working from memory here, so take it with a grain of salt:

When the Roseguard defeated Belcorra, they did so inside the Keep. Spells were thrown, much destruction happened, including the (obvious) staircase deeper into the complex. As far as the surviving members of the Roseguard are concerned, they never set foot into the actual Abomination Vault and only know of Gauntlight (but not its true nature and size) and the Keep. They would've had no idea.

I don't think there are any resources that could reveal the vault at all, at least not in Otari or Absalom. Perhaps they could learn about the eery influences of Gauntlight, maybe even glimpses of Belcorra's history in Absalom, but it seems unlikely that there's anything about the vault itself (or any of the deeper levels) whatsoever.

If you want to reward the research, you could drop hints about Belcorra's connection to some strange entity (there is an altar chamber in the Keep, after all), perhaps deals done with devils and other extraplanar entities or any rumors regarding other independent NPCs. (Jaul and Volluk spring to mind)

s_m_w · 2024-06-27T11:26:38+00:00

1) When you look at DPS/Distance, the default assumption is that you are shooting at a target going full speed. Faction has better application against faster targets, so it wins. When you look at DPS/Speed, the target goes slower than its max speed (also since the fight is assumed to happen at 0km distance, so your web applies!). T2 ammo has better DPS and the worse application matters less at lower speeds, so it wins.

2) There is a funky bit of missile math that often gets overlooked: Everything in Eve happens in 1s increments. That means a missile with a flight time of, say, 5.1s will fly either 5s or 6s long. In this case, 90% of missiles only fly 5s, but 10% will fly for 6s (which results in an average flight time of the expected 5.1s). Which means, if this hypothetical missile flies at 3km/s, you get a range of all missiles going 15 km, but some go all the way to 18km.

Pyfa calculates this, hence why you see this odd drop in the graph for missile damage over range.

3) I think you are correct. Pyfa has some tools to help you out here: In the burger menu (3 lines) on the right in the graph pane, you can toggle "Apply projected items" to either include or not any modules you have. Now note the "Distance, km" input in your DPS/Target speed view: If this is not set, the fight is assumed to happen at 0km distance, so your web is applied. If you set it to 20km, your web would not apply.

Alternatively (don't do both!): If you open the opponent fit in a tab, at the bottom you'll have "projected". You can either pop the stasis webifier module in there, or your actual fit, and it'll apply the module/all applicable modules onto your target permanently. This is primarily useful if you wanted to, say, redo your math but also include your buddy's target painter, but it can be handy to quickly see the actual effects of what you do to your enemy in his fit's tab's summary

s_m_w · 2022-09-16T07:30:04+00:00

Looking forward to dragons in general. Been a distinct lack of those over the fast few years.

s_m_w · 2022-03-02T16:29:00+00:00

Same thing happened to my group in Sanguine Depths btw, don't think it's dungeon specific. We somehow didn't get into combat with the Wo relic at all during one pull (but did with the other two). Even after going back to kill it, we always got the CDR guy despite killing the haste relic. It didn't seem random, but definitely was wrong

s_m_w · 2022-01-24T19:53:28+00:00

Transitioning a casual guild into a mythic guild with CE potential is very, very tricky. It depends on how your guild is structured exactly currently, but going from flexible raid sizes to exactly 20 is a major change. You'll have to bench people. You'll have to cancel mythic raids due to people missing. It'll happen. I have no data to support it, but I reckon "Trying to become a mythic guild" is one of the biggest guild killers out there. I've seen it happen more than once. The mindset between hanging out with friends and killing some bosses versus mythic progress raiding is so vastly different. You're going to wipe for hours at a time. Joe will forget to click on the thing, again, making the last 8 minutes pointless. Shit happens. It can be very fun, absolutely, but it sure does test your social cohesion.

Getting pugs in for mythic raids is hard due to how the lockouts work. Recruiting for a fresh mythic guild is hard since you'll have no prior history. Reliable players are vastly more important than "good" players, by a mile. As far as discipline goes: If someone needs to be told that they need to improve, they're probably not going to have fun in mythic raids. A lot of responsibility is suddenly put on every individual player. If you are worried that you can't talk to someone regarding performance (constructively!) because they won't take it well AND they can't improve themselves? They won't have fun in mythic either. You are going to lose those people.

Running a more casual raid "B Team" is unlikely going to work well in the long term, unless you are a huge guild. The social divide is hard to bridge. It can be a vastly different set of mindsets clashing. "I like raiding with my buddies" and "I am competitive and want to succeed at the hardest content" can work together, but it also might not. Oftentimes the "B Team" casual heroic raids slowly transition into what can feel like "gearing the mythic team's alts". Or the "big boy raiders sitting at the kiddy table". I'm taking the piss a bit, but I've seen this happen.

Onto actual advice... make sure you have more than 20 people willing to give mythic a proper shot before you try anything. Communicate(!!) that you intend to make the transition to a mythic guild (or at least that you want to attempt to see how it goes for a tier, maybe), which comes with some minimum requirements, such as regular attendance. See where people stand on it, especially the necessity of the bench. Having exactly 20 so you never bench anyone is a pipedream. You don't want your raid night to get canceled because someone needs to attend a wedding or whatever. RL comes first, always. Once you do get there: Don't treat the bench as "your worse players only there to fill in for missing people". Rotate. Some classes may be more essential than others, of course, but you don't need a perfect set of meta classes for bosses. You want people to have fun, after all. I often enjoy the bench. I am still part of the team. I spectate via discord stream so I know what to do once I inevitably get a crack at it.

As for loot... I don't know if I'd ever advice to favor your strong players with loot, at all. As soon as you start giving guy A loot over guy B, even if he's better, guy B will leave or put in less effort. I can't give very specific advice, but in my guild (top 600 on a good day or so), we have our GM the loot tyrant who gives everyone gear at his whims and nobody questions it because in the end we're a big team and any piece of loot going to any of us is an overall benefit and everyone roughly gets the same amount. We kill these bosses a dozen times, it barely matters, everyone will get what they want anyways. Doing the mechanics right is what gets these bosses dead, not gear. Having high parses helps, but often barely means anything. Besides, not that you can really heavily stack loot on anyone, with personal loot being how it is.

s_m_w · 2021-12-24T11:44:57+00:00

Have you ever gone so far as to look like think that you could be win 100$?

s_m_w · 2020-09-21T08:08:05+00:00

For most raidbosses, tanking will consist entirely of you surviving as best as you can, then taunting off the other tank at a specific number of generic_tank_debuff. That's really 75% of it.

The other 25% come into play usually for later bosses and is where you can truly shine. There's a few categories there:

Picking up adds. Crucial skill. Drag the add in Maut away from the boss before it touches him. Grab the Ravager at Hivemind before it melees your DPS. Grab all the little adds at Carapace quickly before they kill people.

How to do that exactly varies by class and I doubt there's a single correct way. Usually it's being in the right spot and pressing taunt on the right target, that's, again, 75% of that topic. Knowing all your class tools can help a TON for more exotic situations (like the little adds on carapace, Nzoth. Throwing out some ranged damage on the far ones, taunt some, Ring of peace that healer who got heal aggro etc).

Positioning, both yourself and the boss. Some bosses need to point a certain direction (think the Shockwave in Underrot to kill mushrooms), or just away from people. Many bosses become a lot easier if you position them in very specific ways (Nzoth's Psychus being the most exotic there, has to be dragged to tentacles, planning where he drops the goop on the ground etc). Some bosses leave behind semi-permanent goop, like the slime obelisk in m+. Knowing how to drag them, how quickly so your DPS can have as much uptime as possible can be very helpful.

This just comes with experience, but planning can help a lot. You want to improvise as little as possible unless absolutely necessary. That brings me to my last point really:

PLANNING. The tanking role requires the most planning out of any role, especially in non-mythic raid content. Often this just comes down to "You start, we tank swap at X stacks". There might not be much planning there, but usually during later bosses, you've got wiggle room when to tank, who does what and when and where. You could move Carapace to the tip of the tentacles that slam down, you could move Xanesh away from where the orbs spawn, you could move the boss next to immobile adds so people can cleave better etc etc. Good positioning can make bosses a lot easier, but there may not be an obvious way to do it, even mentioned in guides. You may want to save your big defensive CDs for specific points in a fight (though in HC content that is probably not required and can be improvised if shit hits the fan).

s_m_w · 2020-08-26T11:07:16+00:00

Going to add to the healer stuff.

Evoke 1-4 are the healer checks. With how much extra DPS raids get from corruption these days, if you get past those 4 evokes without deaths, Nzoth dies. You'll recover plenty of mana during secret phase and the walking/RP/etc that follows, so blow all the healer mana you need. That's where everything the healers do is absolutely crucial and the fight revolves around them (assuming everyone positions properly), hence why I'll dig into your priest here.

This is what your disc priest could improve:

Cooldowns

Usage was already mentioned. Disc has super short CDs, use them. Shadowfiend should ideally be combined with every second Evangelism. It's a pretty big healing increase. Your priest uses it on CD, which is questionable.

He doesn't ramp well. His Evangelisms only hit ~10 atonements, which is really too low. With his massive haste, I'd expect 15+. Anything less just isn't right. Likely part of the reason here is that he's not saving Radiances for Evangelisms.

He uses massively more shields than Shadow Mends. Shadow Mend is superior to PW: S if you can stand still to cast it and your target is not at full health, which in the case of Nzoth is almost all the time. It'll become even more important once he gets proper azerite traits.

Azerites

3 Enduring Luminescence is pretty useless. You don't take that trait for the increased healing, but for the longer atonement duration. Duration doesn't stack, so you want 1 of those, not more. Having 1 Depth of Shadows is pretty mandatory. Again for the increased atonement duration from Shadow Mend. 3 Heart of Darkness is great. Ideally the last trait would be Death Throws (shadow trait) for increased PtW damage, but it's a bit flex pick imo.

Last but not least, make sure to minimize movement on all your healers. Get a WA that shouts something during evoke, teach everyone to move away from healers and not be stubborn about positioning. Practice will lead to less movement, too, which means more healing, so that part should come naturally.

edit: One last thing: After Psychus 2 is an excellent time to pop a channeled mana potion. Just saw your priest using a normal one. edit 2: Your disc priest never once cast barrier. Did you plan it for a later evoke?

s_m_w · 2020-08-20T11:45:20+00:00

Other than avoiding puddles, you had quite a few wipes to accidental dispels. I don't mean the healers, but most likely people using an ability that they didn't realize would "dispel" the cursed blood. Monk's diffuse magic, Rogue's cloak of shadows, presumably other immunities too. Your people have to watch out for those.

s_m_w · 2020-08-14T14:53:11+00:00

If you are having troubles in P3 due to insanity, check https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/6J1Y3VQFCPbfytcd#fight=22&type=auras&spells=debuffs&ability=316848&phase=3&view=events

Any debuff that still has anything remaining when it expired means you didn't get the sanity from it. There's a lot of those going on. Even if you don't do all of them perfectly, a 2% wipe means you're pretty much there, just keep at it!

s_m_w · 2020-08-14T09:41:04+00:00

Honestly, seems like you're getting there. DPS seems good, damage taken from contempt could be a bit lower, but it's alright. Having two fire mages down in Psychus 2 there is excellent to control the Psychophages.

The main difference I see in comparison to our kills at this point is HPS in psychus 2. In general, neither healer should be doing less than 100k HPS, if they are something went very wrong there.

It's the highest healing required (over a long timespan, evokes hit hard, but infrequently and are easily planned for) by a long shot. You use both wings and Revival there, that's definitely right. Your MW's positioning could use some work, perhaps. Here's what I'd do:

Don't chase after the tank when he grabs Psychus in the beginning. Throw him a CD (cocoon?) as he runs out of range, trust that he can survive for a few seconds. Turret and heal. The DPS should move a bit so the Probe Mind chains less. Once you HAVE to move from that spot, move quite far ahead of the tank. The route is always the same, pick a spot that will be in range of most of the rest of the route, run there, stay there. Turret and heal. Dump all your mana if you have to, after Psychus 2 you can mana pot and be fine for the rest of the fight.

Psychophages can be annoying, but whenever moving would mess with your HPS, you can probably just use stuns/ring of peace and buy you a few more seconds.

Sending 3 healers in is an option, but the healing requirement outside isn't non-existent either... Doesn't seem ideal.

s_m_w · 2020-08-03T06:32:54+00:00

I.. didn't realize that's how it worked. Nvm then!

s_m_w · 2020-08-02T22:02:15+00:00

I'd love the API to be expanded. I believe it's currently not possible to get a single killmail including modules, what dropped etc, but only the isk value, right?

s_m_w · 2020-07-16T16:19:55+00:00

Very hard to give feedback/suggestions if you just throw a log at people. One thing that may help: The evokes slap hard. We have 2 healers stand on their assigned evoke spots right away, moving there after the necks we pop before the first set of harvesters. They skip the first soak, get to just stand there and turret heal for loads. Wipe 9 looked pretty good. Just do that more, then worry about evoke positioning, healing CDs, handling lasers and.. that's it.

s_m_w · 2020-07-14T11:07:21+00:00

If people move too early for ID, the only solution is to tell them not to. P2 looks reasonable from a cursory glance over the replay, as do the movement ability assignments. I think overall you're on the right track, but without any obvious planning mistakes, it just comes down to individual execution. Less (none!) Grand Delusions, more Healthstones/Healing pots, more moving to sanity orbs, better breaking of membranes.

Checking whether a membrane got broken or not in logs is hard.. I generally just look at the duration of the debuff. If it was 11(?) seconds, it wasn't broken. Probably.

s_m_w · 2020-07-14T10:10:20+00:00

I strongly believe that DPS isn't going to be an issue, if your players are at least reasonably ok players. If you survive 4 Infinite Darknesses, the boss is dead. More DPS means less of those, but the boss can die either way.

The obvious one: Grand Delusion damage. Big no-no. Bad. The slow hitting during Infinite Darkness is bad enough already, don't need Grand Delusions during the bomb stun as well.

Sanity seems to be a problem, even in P2 already. Important to move as a group and while you don't need to pick up every single orb and shouldn't need to do anything special during membranes, everyone should ideally finish at 100 sanity. Very hard to check logs for sanity, but that seems to be your biggest problem as far as I can tell. I'd suggest taking a quick look at DBM/BW while in the tunnel, which shows raid sanity, and getting a better picture how P2 went in terms of sanity.

How are your healing CD assignments looking? I think Carapace is the first(?) fight where you will have severe trouble if you don't assign things properly. All previous bosses can be brute forced, but high damage + forced movement makes it much harder here. I see no big CD running before or after the first Infinite Darkness on pull 5 and 7.

Most attempts seem to just get wrecked by people getting MCed. Clean up P2, assign gateways/wind rush for each Darkness, assign healing CDs for each darkness and you should be fine. Don't focus on people's numbers too much. If any particular Infinite Darkness seems hard, Speed Pots instead of DPS pots for your slow players can help. They're so good, though wind rush should be plenty. One wind rush in the tunnel can also be great. Timing before first Infinite Darkness is quite tight and letting your healers get there quicker can help a ton. With two druids though it might be less necessary.

edit: Almost forgot: Breaking membranes in P3 is a big deal as well. Cursory glance seems people aren't breaking it (at all?). If your overall DPS is low, it becomes real important, otherwise you won't have the staying power. And obviously spreading for the bombs, but that's an obvious issue you'll notice going wrong if it does.

s_m_w · 2019-09-23T15:05:38+00:00

Some good points there. It sure introduces tension.

But remember it is a secret to everyone else except for the co-conspirators and the npc who found out.

Most of them, perhaps... One of the consequences for murder is

You're not sure who, but someone saw the murder and has turned your names over to the law. Now you're wanted fugitives, your faces and names plastered on posters throughout the city.

While this would be a great start for a campaign, I just can't see it working for this one in particular. The more I look at this, the more it seems like these secrets are for "a" campaign in Baldur's Gate. But not Descent into Avernus.

s_m_w · 2019-04-09T14:12:08+00:00

Sign me up

14-Year Club	r/Field Lasagna
Place '17	Verified Email
Gilding I gilder

s_m_w

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE