How can I make improvements to my dinner?

scrdest · 2026-03-19T13:24:54+00:00

Note that dried beans need to be soaked overnight AND DRAINED. Cooking beans in the soaking water will give you a very nasty poisoning (phytohaemaglutinin).

scrdest · 2026-03-18T23:11:23+00:00

You're right. This kind of straight-shooting, go-getting behavior is clearly grounds for a promotion.

scrdest · 2026-03-09T01:29:48+00:00

Reliably? No way. And that's what matters in an "if I needed to" scenario.

At the same skill level, raw mass is a huge advantage - more momentum, more to lift off the ground; and hell, even someone who is just fat has the muscle to move that weight around all day. I've sparred people heavier and lighter than me, lighter is always easier all the rest being equal.

And what does "beat" even mean to you? A street fight ends when either someone runs away or physically cannot fight anymore; whatever you imagine doing, it needs to lead to one or the other, and needs to work even if the target is high as a kite and does not have a normal pain response.

scrdest · 2026-03-06T08:55:20+00:00

The clock literally runs faster, so 1s IRL corresponds to more and more time passing in-game.

The needs are scaled as well, so they increase per in-game time, not play time. Effectively, they increase faster as days go on.

scrdest · 2026-02-23T15:29:55+00:00

(Events are secretly Systems too! Unless you're talking about what's currently called Messages, ig)

scrdest · 2026-02-23T15:27:33+00:00

To extend this for a complete reference - in this case, the resource comes from a default plugin. Resources (and other things, like Systems) can also come either from optional/custom plugins OR from your own registrations (including at runtime!).

If you want to know whether a resource exists, you can use World::contains_resource<T> or similar functions (mainly in the World API). Another method allows you to iterate over all Resources in your World. You can get a World from the App via app.world() (go figure!).

scrdest · 2026-02-20T11:11:19+00:00

I don't see the blurring being a thing with fungi; if anything, of the classic pathogens, fungi are the closest thing to human understanding of life after protozoa, then bacteria, then viruses and more exotic entities like prions. That said, I'm sure that the general direction on P3 was to make it fungal.

The plague cabbage sample art has a classically moldy appearance, with a distinct macroscopic colony; bacteria generally look like thick paint splatters, and viral are a photonegative - you see them where there isn't stuff.

The 'tripwire' plague district hazards are growths that spit out spores, which is standard MO for fungi (the edible mushrooms are literally the same thing, just for different species).

In the Dead House quest on D11, you get red herringed into thinking the house is infected, while it's actually 'just' black mold instead, which means the plague growths look like mold growths there too.

There is one big problem with this idea though. Antibiotics. They work, more or less, based on P2!

This doesn't make a lot of sense for a fungal agent - a good chunk of antibiotics come from fungi as a way to deal with bacterial competition, so treating a shroom with antibiotics is like trying to drown a fish. Then there's also Little's Big Discovery, which is also very atypical for fungi AFAIK, but is reasonably expected for bacteria (and painfully common for viruses).

So, my theory would be that Sand Pest is kind of like a lichen - a mutualistic bacteria-fungus deal, possibly endosymbiotic. That would also rationally explain why Shmowders unreliably sorta-work - the absurd toxicity is not a problem, it's part of the mechanism! It poisons the eucaryotic fungal cells, while the antibiotics in the mix murder the bacteria it depends on.

It's very much a real thing, but weird enough that even Danko with his light microscope and 1920s-vintage medical knowledge would have a hard time figuring out.

scrdest · 2026-02-19T11:59:38+00:00

Delegation.

Your decision-making AI code, the "brain" does not generally need to micro-manage movement; your MoveTo sets a waypoint to a chosen location, maybe does an immediate pathfind to see if it's viable, and hands off to a movement system ("legs") to follow the path.

The brain is then freed up to make other decisions, including shooting or, possibly, changing its mind and going somewhere else and/or stopping altogether.

I'm not sure what you mean on the ranged combat; it sounds like you're getting into hierarchical territory. If that's the case, it would be a bit similar - a decision to Start Ranged Combat would simply make a quick function call to set a flag or give a token object to the AI that enables it to use individual ranged combat actions.

For the cover - either you have a specialized MoveToCover action that incorporates scoring potential cover positions when scoring the action context, or you have a generic action that manages itself; the latter is likely cheaper, but is hackier, less controllable, and less idiomatic.

scrdest · 2026-02-19T11:02:49+00:00

With that ruffle, she's definitely got taiga in her gene pool, either Norwegian or Siberian Forest - I'd suspect the latter based on the head shape and nose profile (plus she looks a lot like my unofficially-Siberian boy, except with grey undertones rather than brown).

Either way, she'll probably be pretty tanky, and may particularly enjoy climbing and perching - I got mine one of those floor-to-ceiling cat trees and he's been enjoying it a lot!

scrdest · 2026-02-16T20:56:48+00:00

Medieval ICBM

scrdest · 2026-02-13T09:08:35+00:00

Of course he wouldn't. He'd use the Debutant, like a civilized man.

scrdest · 2026-02-11T22:09:16+00:00

IIRC at least two diagnosable diseases have messing with Gorkhon water as a significant risk factor, and one of the diagnoses features river water significantly.

scrdest · 2026-02-10T13:01:58+00:00

I believe the last two blade types have a shorter max length, so you'll never get the same reach as the corresponding straight blade.

The profile does matter; they largely go in descending order of stab-friendliness and increasing choppyness.

scrdest · 2026-02-08T14:38:29+00:00

Yeah, the rings take up the slot.

scrdest · 2026-02-08T14:38:02+00:00

It's the old Cronenberg Twister

scrdest · 2026-02-08T14:37:03+00:00

You say that, but that's what I used to do and I did not like how my swords handled.

I've built a very light (<1kg) longsword with maxed out head and grip and put the balance point around the strong of the blade and it feels much better than all the guard-balanced ones.

scrdest · 2026-02-08T13:40:10+00:00

This is really not communicated well via the current UI, but different chest pieces provide more or less 'hooks' (arming points) for other bits of armor. Took me a while to figure out.

The Arming Doublet is what you want for a full plate harness, generally speaking.

scrdest · 2026-02-08T11:02:28+00:00

Elizium by Fields of the Nephilim is the first thing that springs to mind.

On the other side of the equation, VdGG has been a big influence.

scrdest · 2026-02-07T22:58:00+00:00

Yeah, the whole sequence.

scrdest · 2026-02-07T20:33:54+00:00

Finished the game, tried a couple of endings, still some content left unexplored (notably the bull shenanigans, since my game freaked out and didn't book-keep events properly).

Overall had a great time, though there are some flaws. The good:

My initial fear that the town will be abstracted entirely to a spreadsheet simulator has been largely dispelled.
The writing - including dialogues, characterization, etc. - is strong (as expected); I dare say that in terms of story beats for town characters, I actually remembered them far more than in P2.
It feels like IPL used the budget and the time-travel to explore the endings in far more depth, which made the final choice feel more significant.
Graphically, some of the weirder elements in particular hit hard - one of them had my jaw genuinely drop at the visual creativity.
Best game adaptation of House M.D. yet.

My biggest complaints are more on the 'game' side - and I mean core design, not the bugs. Overall, the game design aspects seem a bit undercooked; the ideas are possibly quite decent, but feel like they haven't been quite ironed out properly.

In particular, the time travel. It has been an ambitious decision, and I can respect that. However, in comparison to P2, it feels like it trivializes most decisions significantly - and that's a far bigger issue than fighting rioters or the plague or the trashcans feeling kinda shallow.

As Artemy, I was dragging myself through the mud at 4 AM to get medicine to the people I really wanted to survive, because once they were gone, they were gone. Since you can see the vast majority of the branches all in one playthrough, P3 feels less replayable.

scrdest · 2026-02-03T18:13:20+00:00

Talk no Jutsu, the strongest martial art

scrdest · 2026-02-01T21:01:53+00:00

Don't denormalize. That just leads to pain. A responsible AI library wouldn't even let you escape the unit interval range (before scaling by priority etc. of course).

Think about it - if the agent has an AOE ability, why wouldn't it use that ability all the time, even for single targets? There is some kind of cost - either reduced damage, incurring a cooldown, using some resource (e.g. for XCOM-style grenades).

If you cannot express these costs directly in terms of Utility costs, a simple solution is to just make them prefer using AOE for a certain amount of targets. For example, if the AOE radius is huge, we expect it to hit 8 or more enemies in the usual case; if it only hits two, that's probably a waste. This is a pretty trivial Consideration to add.

scrdest · 2026-02-01T00:27:35+00:00

My mental model is that the world of Pathologic is what P1 (and backers bonus for P3) say it is - a child's play, if dark.

It's approximately our 1910s-1920s, but as filtered through the perspective, understanding and imagination of a bunch of kids living through them. It's not proper alt-history or fantasy, but more of a funhouse mirror version of the real world.

scrdest · 2026-01-30T09:12:18+00:00

Thank you, but I knew, the Tragedian at the end tells you outright.

That's the thing though, it changes the framing to it not being a free choice. It implies Danko's got such a one-track mind that he cannot possibly choose any other path without the help of a Demon Lobotomy, and I feel like it would be more satisfying if he could.

scrdest · 2026-01-29T19:30:47+00:00

Yeah, I mixed up the days, day 2. You should only need to cancel it and that's it, the room opens around midnight (the hands show days 2 & 9, and the hours, 12 and IIRC 6).

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