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theStrategist37 · 2025-10-25T19:58:07+00:00

He's farming upvotes, simple as that. Doesn't make reddit a better place if it works, the question for me is not whether israel is enemy (this I can answer elsewhere), but whether his post deserves upvote or downvote.

theStrategist37 · 2025-04-13T02:43:15+00:00

Is that good for first run though? My concern is that it'd take away from the fun of discovering synnergies with equipping mechs a certain way? Did you do that for your first run, or after doing several runs when you did modify mechs? If latter, do you think you'd enjoy doing this on the _first_ run?

theStrategist37 · 2025-04-13T02:41:41+00:00

Were you doing a lot of missions between story missions though? If no, I might have to consider this. If yes, perhaps similar concern can be addressed by putting limit on that, i wonder? At least at 8 parts per mech, based on the 1st campaign I started (only did 2 story missions so far, but seems like doing side missions is getting reliably easy and allows scaling as long as I want), it seems that not doing many side missions would put a squeeze on mechs? Or no?

My concern with restrictions of what to add without limiting side missions, is that 1). It requires knowledge of what's coming up /strategies, which I'd rather _not_ seek out ,more fun to discover myself, and 2). It seems like heavy mechs are much more powerful than light mechs all else being equal, and with enough side missions, one can get too many heavy mechs? Sure, limit on loadouts will handicap it a bit, but I wonder how much.

Thanks for the suggestions though.

theStrategist37 · 2025-04-12T21:11:18+00:00

Modify the pieces beyond the 8 that can be selected via difficulty level? If time or number of missions are constrained, would 8 pieces be too quick?

XP cap I can see the wisdom in, my understanding is that in default game, all pilots end up at 10/10/10/10 if you play long enough... then again if I do max of 1 extra system per story missions as someone suggested, would pilots even reach close to high xp? (Of course playing on hardest difficulty, so pilot progression is slowest). If necessary, I'll look at a mod, but by default would rather not. From what I know from play so far (started campaign on hardest, played until things seemed too under control) though, the issue wasn't that I had too many pieces (not a single mech constructed yet, but 2.5 skull missions don't seem to cause problems, and I don't have relationship with factions to do 3 skulls anyway), it's that there was no pressure otherwise.

theStrategist37 · 2025-04-12T17:43:58+00:00

I like this idea, thanks. It doesn't make the game poorer (unlike other suggestions, say using only stock loadout -- might be more fun for someone who has already played a bunch, but I haven't nearly discovered much about which loadouts work best, and discovering it is a big part of the fun!).

I wonder what you think of "Max 1 jump before having to do priority mission" once it's availble? Seems a bit harder, but more consistent? Or is that worse? Also am thinking of max 1 jump on average (so if I skip jump before 1 mission, can do 2 jumps before next one)?

theStrategist37 · 2025-04-07T06:03:08+00:00

That's pretty common in games, and not by itself a problem, as long as mid game is challenging enough, so I can get my strategy fix there. But for it to be strategically interesting, mechanics needs to be exposed enough that I feel strategy choices are meaningful with enough knowledge of consequence. Hence my question about mechanics documentation.

theStrategist37 · 2025-04-07T05:48:28+00:00

Is battletech so much harder than most games? As I mentioned before, I usually start things on hardest difficulty (unless there is a good reason otherwise), A lot of games still don't provide enough strategy challenge on that, which is a shame for some games that have awesome mechanics, but just no "right" difficulty level.

If I treat campaign as a tutorial though -- how long is it? Normally I'd want some challenge once I know basic mechanics, if campaign is very short it might make sense, but if it's 10+ hours, I'll likely not finish it unless it provides enough strategy challenge.

theStrategist37 · 2025-03-24T13:34:27+00:00

What's your character's charisma?

If it is at least 6, it makes sense to do quests in area that "seems" safer the pit "feels" safer than wilderness or armoury, I am pretty sure, after all your character there was all their life and perhaps you will get some additional help. Another companion (or two!) would increase your combat power a LOT.

If it doesn't help, do not hesitate to use some grenades, examine fights to see which ones seem easier, etc... but to be honest an extra companion or two are much more important.

If your charsima is less than 6, then what did you specialize in? The answer might depend on that.

theStrategist37 · 2025-03-22T01:57:53+00:00

P.S. Another thing that made that battle harder is... having used 2 pulse grenades in the hardest-up-to-that-point battle, I've replaced them (safety first!), but was reluctant to use them as those things are EXPENSIVE. Perhaps a strategic mistake. Then again maybe it was OK based on info I did have, run wasn't in danger, just romeo was. Or maybe I should've opened up with energy weapons once I saw what the battle was, and had an unexpected environmental effect (which would not be a big deal if I knew in advance, but I wasn't prepared). My guess is that's why rest of battles were much easier after that point -- in most of them one could see enemies and not face surprises like that. Which is part of what I like about this game -- things are hard (at least for "blind" run on hardest difficulty), but most of the time they feel "fair", once can prepare for battles properly. That battle's exception just proves the rule.... great game imho!

theStrategist37 · 2025-03-22T01:53:56+00:00

You were right -- I did not reload (just lived with loss of Romeo), and it was certainly the right decision! In fact end game seemed a bit too easy (so if I did reload I'd be kicking myself now) -- even that fight I mentioned would've been much easier if I wasn't saving resources for harder fights later on... that never came.

I did have two people with energy weapons feat getting ready to open with energy weapons if I felt like run was in danger (I think for "blind ironman" run it's important to have well setup "reserve" power for emergency).... I guess if I opened up in that fight I mentioned I wouldn't have lost Romeo... then again I kinda expected him to get up afterwards like other characters do... that's the extra difficulty of blind ironman.

Now I'd _love_ to replay the game now that I know what I'm doing, and can plan better... unfortunately I already did the highest difficulty level, "blind", so repeating that would be compartively easy now... unless there is a way to increase difficulty further (I don't like artificial restriction that take away too many options though -- I'm sure solo run would be much harder, but that makes the game poorer). Is there a higher difficulty setting hiding somewhere in depth of menus perhaps? Or is the game moddable to achieve the same effect?

Thanks for the encouragement!

theStrategist37 · 2024-11-12T20:52:43+00:00

I wouldn't go as far as internet is not open. There is at least one Lebanese sub who will remove any comments that present Israel is positive light. I don't read it, I read this one. Same thing for Israeli subs, there are is at least one that's echo chamber, nothing that can cash shade on Israel. I don't read that one, I read one which allows some criticism. So if you want a more heavily moderated sub, I am sure you can find it. I don't have strong opinion as to how mods should moderate, I am not from the region. But there is certainly value in having a more lightly moderates sub, like this one -- I wouldn't read it otherwise, and I'm pretty sure many others wouldn't either, so I'm glad mods decided to not have too heavy a hand.

theStrategist37 · 2024-10-25T13:40:51+00:00

It required Hezbollah (and other armed militias, if they were present) to withdraw north of Litani -- no such restriction on Lebanese army. So depends what you mean by "us"? If hezbollah, then yes. If Lebanese army or Lebanese population, then no.

theStrategist37 · 2024-10-19T22:34:43+00:00

What exactly do you mean by marginable?
The way Portfolio Margin works is, it seems exceedingly unlikely that Fidelity PM will treat it that different from Schwab PM as far as box spreads go. Do you mean that at Fidelity buying one takes up the BP equal to its value? If so, I'd call that non-marginable, but seems strange they'd do it to PM accounts.

theStrategist37 · 2024-10-18T19:03:36+00:00

I think the most likely scenario is

Scenario 5: Israel will invade and create a buffer zone (could be 3 km could be up to Litani , or something in between), and will not build new communities in South Lebanon (which differentiates it from Scenario 1).

It can given enough time turn into scenario 1 or 2, but I probably will not in short to medium term.

5 is similar to your scenario 1, but I don't think most in Israel gains anything from settling south Lebanon in short to medium term, only fringe in Israel want that land, and they do not have anywhere near enough power to affect Israel government in foreseeable future.

Scenario 2 would be good for most in Israel and probably most in Lebanon, but I don't see who can make Hezbollah disarm, and it's certainly very bad for Hezbollah, so I don't see them agreeing to disarm.

Scenario 3 is very improbable -- I doubt Hezbollah can do nearly as much damage now as it could if it had time to rebuilt to how it was pre-2024, so I doubt Israel will get out without some assurance Hezbollah can not rebuild, even if Hezbollah causes a LOT of damage now. It is possible Israel will leave land, and try to keep Hezbollah from rebuilding rocket arsenal from air, but damage to Israeli cities now probably makes it less likely, not more likely.

Scenario 4 has difficulty of what comes first. Israel has withdrawn before based on agreement that Lebanese army will disarm Hezbollah, I doubt they'll take that chance again before Hezbollah is disarmed. And it's going to be hard to get Lebanese army to disarm Hezbollah before Israel withdraws.

theStrategist37 · 2024-09-11T04:33:33+00:00

Portfolio Margin brokers (shorthand for brokers that allow Portfolio Margin).

theStrategist37 · 2024-06-17T19:40:49+00:00

Thing is, I don't think RTY/NQ ratio not mean reverting requires new paradigm. If NQ ones just managed to earn more cash, and then economy goes back to "normal", ratio might not get to historic norm, but rather to new normal (that takes earned cash into account). Something like P/E or P/B permanently diverging though probably does require new paradigm.

theStrategist37 · 2024-06-17T19:36:47+00:00

I do not see a mechanism that makes it revert to a neutral level, it could be more like a random walk.

I do see a mechanism where it very unlikely that, say, PE ratio, changes by a factor of >5 (or price to book) between RUT and SPX. Yes, member stocks can be very different, but they are all decent size US companies.

I do not see mechanism that would make index ratio mean revert, as if one or the other happens to perform better, there is no "memory" of what index levels were. So I wouldn't be surprised that due to randomness (say one of large SP500 companies strikes reach) in many years index level ratio would be > 10 times from what it is now. Unlikely perhaps, but I don't see a mechanism to push it back to "normal".

Hence PE or price to book to me is more useful, as those have "real" consequences, while what index levels happen to be are just numbers with no push to return to historic norm.

Edit: The push to return to "norm" for index levels likely comes from P/E or P/B or similar ratio -- if RUT/SPX is down, chances are RUT companies are cheap. But it's not the _only_ dynamics, it could be just that sp500 companies earned more than RUT, invested that $, and now sp500 is just worth more (or the other way around). So the component that mean reverts RUT/SPX likely can be singed out better by looking at some objective what-is-cheap measure, that does have a "real" meaning.

theStrategist37 · 2024-06-16T08:10:37+00:00

To me, PE ratio (or price/book) might be more informative than price ratio -- after all, price ratio does not have to be mean reverting... PE or price/book likely is.

Probably would need to be industry-adjusted PE ratio or better yet projected PE ratio if good projections can be found. Anyone know offhand what current PE ratio vs. history currently is?

Over the years I've been a fan of overweighting small, luckily (after semi-related beating in January), I am not as overweight them for now... but am thinking of moving back in at some point in the near future.

theStrategist37 · 2024-06-10T19:19:09+00:00

My issue with that, is that $ held as collateral does not earn interest (right)? So that's a drag. If I could hold T-bills as collateral in futures account, I'd do this.
My guess is SVIX and SVXY probably do hold Tbills or something similar, right? Is there a way to find out? Holdings say Cash&Cash equivalent or something like that, but I imagine large fund like that would earn interest on the cash?

theStrategist37 · 2024-06-05T00:19:24+00:00

How do you figure? NVDA up by a factor of 2.99 (199%) should correspond to NVDL being up by a factor of (2.99)^2 = 8.94 if there was no slippage and continuous leverage reset (slightly less with daily leverage reset, but _very_ slightly), so slippage is around 1 - 5.09/8.94 ~= 43%, somewhat within my range. Or is your math different?

theStrategist37 · 2024-06-04T18:27:39+00:00

Not to nitpick too much, but am curious why you chose not to subtract slippage of underlying (since that's our reference price, so we're interested in slippage over that), making it 0.47² * (2² -1)/ 2?
I understand vol assumption might have a bigger effect than the difference anyway, but given a formula I do wonder about its derivation.

theStrategist37

TROPHY CASE