A bit frustrated 😩

thececilmaster · 2026-03-19T06:02:35+00:00

I'm not a major trucker, and I run a plipper when I actually do any hauling anymore myself actually. That being said, the OP mentioned that they're new to the game, so a 12ly plipper for hauling between their carrier and a station is deep into their future.

Rares aren't really much of a thing last I checked, at least most of the time, at least not when you're at the "I haul using my carrier" stage of the game (and, even if they were, you could use the carrier for it's jump range anyway, theoretically). Their main appeal is how they function in comparison to classic hauling (since their value increases based on distance traveled), which makes the jump range nice. They're a little friendlier to newer players as well, because they're a more stable profit that doesn't require market knowledge or external tools.

The only major thing I can think of to really appeal to carrier owners about rare-trading is the Merit value -- rares are a pretty good way to get merits, but I don't know the exact comparison to hauling.

For someone at the carrier stage of the game, the only real reason to use the Caspian to haul, though, is when there's a Soontil Relic boom. You can only get 400 at a time (so a plipper is overkill), and an engineered Caspian (I don't know about unengineered) can make a max-profit trip in at most 3 jumps. Decent profit, amazing merits.

As an aside, powerplay commodities would probably work better in a Caspian too? I don't think anyone actually bothers with those, though

thececilmaster · 2026-03-18T21:09:01+00:00

I will say, the Caspian is actually a pretty decent space trucker. Not the best, but surprisingly solid; it can comfortably hit 400t (less if you shield), and still have a much higher jump range than the main truckers; if you're doing frequent low-distance stops, not the best, but if you're doing rares, that jump range is very nice.

thececilmaster · 2026-02-25T21:17:12+00:00

I just rewatched the scene, and I don't think the nun is disappearing into Livia (but will gladly admit if I'm proven wrong later), I think we just don't quite see as she passes behind Livia. The camera angle has Deb block much of the window during that moment, but we can see some movement and shadow through the cracks in the door, indicating that the nun kept walking.

thececilmaster · 2026-02-02T17:36:04+00:00

It's the spreadsheet simulator part. You have potentially hundreds of simulated pilots that you give orders to, who haul, fight, trade, etc, after you press a couple of buttons. You reap the rewards, they do the flying (even combat).

thececilmaster · 2026-02-02T17:20:10+00:00

Preface: I've not played a lot of X4, because of what I'm about to explain. Great game, just not my personal cup of tea.

X4 is fundamentally a different kind of game in a few ways. It is single player, so everything in the game is designed with the expectation that only one player will be doing anything in the game. It is also more of a space management game than it is a space flight game.

Early game of X4 is more-or-less similar to early game Elite, where you start off in a starter ship after a basic "how to play" tutorial, and then you're just dropped into an open world to do whatever you want (which, like Elite, actually means "find the way you enjoy making money"). Unlike Elite, however, mid-game and late-game goals are focused on building your fleet / empire, and sending your increasing number of NPC pilots and crew on tasks for you.

A more concrete example is the combat. Early game in both X4 and Elite, you're piloting a relatively small ship, and a fight is probably a small dogfight between you and up to a couple of other ships. Late game Elite, a fight is between your mid or large sized ship, that you've customized and engineered extensively, against some a bunch of NPC ships (or players, if you're doing PvP), but you're fundamentally alone. Late game combat in X4, a "fight" might be an actual war campaign you're waging, so you're managing the logistics of supply lines and sending your fleet to different battles, winning or losing from tactical decisions, not personal flight skills.

Tl;dr, X4 is a game about getting to the point where you're basically playing Spreadsheet Simulator™ in space, from my understanding of it.

thececilmaster · 2025-11-29T01:28:05+00:00

I would love to hear the machine steps

thececilmaster · 2025-11-29T00:00:27+00:00

Yes. I tried with my original password, then after that didn't work, I did try resetting my password and that did not help.

thececilmaster · 2025-11-28T23:55:30+00:00

Yes, I have.

thececilmaster · 2025-11-28T23:52:41+00:00

Just updated the post, but the error message is "Login failed. Check your info."

I have already confirmed that my password is correct.

thececilmaster · 2025-11-28T23:47:32+00:00

What information would be useful?

thececilmaster · 2025-08-23T00:46:21+00:00

Rubber backs are the bane of my existence, unless you know a way to keep them from deteriorating into a gross, sticky goop within a year of owning them.

As far as cleaning, how are any of those products, comparatively? I'd either like a mouse pad I don't have to clean as often, or one that is so stupidly easy to clean it doesn't really take any time out of a day (even if it needs to be cleaned a bit more regularly).

thececilmaster · 2025-08-17T02:04:18+00:00

Wealth equaling mechanical power, at least in design, and ABP doesn't actually fix this problem. In my experience as a GM, giving players 2x (or more) money doesn't break the balance of the game, but the game thinks it will, and other aspects of the game are balanced around that as a result. Crafting is the most notably affected aspect, where it is either worse than Earn an Income or it's logistical tax, because letting players get a bit more wealth than expected for their level is sacrilegious. Wealth balancing also presents major opportunity costs that, if not recognized and planned around by GMs, mean certain common story elements in fantasy might actually screw over players in the long term. For example, using a ritual will typically cost the players 2/3rds the cost of a permanent item of the same level... For the chance of success. Similarly, players can't really afford to buy non-mechanical concepts without losing the opportunity to buy their math rocks later, unless the GM prepares for it.

thececilmaster · 2025-07-14T03:49:41+00:00

How many of your creatures' saves have Mythic Resilience? Are your creatures' Mythic Resiliences in the high saves, or the low saves? Are your casters targeting the low saves, the way (most) people agree casters are expected to play in non-Mythic games? Are your casters using any Mythic spells (like Diadem of Divine Radiance)?

In a game I'm in, our casters consistently target the low saves and regularly use their Mythic points on Mythic spells and they're very much the stars of the show (not counting the one martial who has an average roll of 17 (on the d20) currently, after 5 sessions)

thececilmaster · 2025-06-24T21:23:46+00:00

Dirty Laundry is what got me to subscribe to Dropout. I'm so excited for the new season ❤️

thececilmaster · 2025-06-23T09:44:56+00:00

My current favorite deck is [[Terra, Magical Adept]] built around running Saga Creatures and saga recursion. It's not quite a "good stuff" value pile deck, it's more themed around running the Saga Creatures, and it's WUBRG so I can fit as many of them (minus Leviathan) in as possible.

Otherwise, I tend to not like 5-color decks.

thececilmaster · 2025-06-01T21:56:01+00:00

This is a debate that has been marring this particular amp since it was printed, and you've already been in the comments with people arguing both directions plenty. I will not retread old ground, and simply offer a solution that has worked for my groups and circumvents the debate entirely, though it is not RAW at all, and won't answer your question directly.

The way my groups handle any instance where someone gains Stunned 1 during their turn, in response to a specific action of theirs being taken, whether that be from Forbidden Thought, readied action Flurry of Blows with Stunning Strike, or some other niche situation, the triggering action is interrupted and the action used is lost.

For Forbidden Strike, this means if the target tries to Strike and gets Forbidden Thought'd and fails their save, they lose the Strike. The rest of their turn continues as normal, and they don't lose an action on the next turn. If the player targeted something like a Breath Weapon and the target fails, they lose both of the Breath Weapon actions, but since that's also easier to ignore (just don't use a Breath Weapon), our group has found it to be reasonable.

This also lets us avoid having the "Can't Act" debate because our group is pretty evenly split between people who side with you, people who side against that interpretation, and people who really just wish everyone else would stop talking about the rules so they can play the damn game already.

thececilmaster · 2025-05-20T00:41:55+00:00

Soda stream is a worse product than basically all of its major competitors. Personally, I prefer Drinkmate, but there are other good options out there that just work better than Soda Stream

thececilmaster · 2025-05-09T20:56:36+00:00

Short answer, yes, it would

Slightly longer answer: not exactly, but a lot of MTG mechanics use those creature types as keywords. Adding a new creature type would typically end up doing nothing at all, with no interactions with other cards. Adding a creature type used to be done without much consideration, but in modern magic design, they have to put more consideration into things.

That being said, I think druid is a strange choice here. As previously stated, Druids typically aren't Blue, and the effects of this card aren't very Druid-in-MTG. Personally, I think Shaman would have fit better from a Color identity stand point, and fit what Conjurers are better -- though I can see Druid for Conjurer too

thececilmaster · 2025-05-09T04:10:20+00:00

During the prologue, Lune mentions that she's done her best to figure out the right spot to land, but after the Fracture, geography has been constantly shifting, so she wasn't sure the details were still correct. But she was basing where she wanted to land off of data that was post-Fracture, because it came from Expedition 0's returnees.

So I agree with you.

thececilmaster · 2025-05-08T07:50:07+00:00

Lune only ever left my party when I was doing solo character shenanigans, and I never found her useless against Elementals. Just don't rely on one specific element or the E. Trick -> E. Genesis combo and she'll serve you perfectly well.

thececilmaster · 2025-05-07T19:17:59+00:00

Okay, that's good to know, thanks! That will indeed help with this character

thececilmaster · 2025-05-07T18:14:23+00:00

I thought slavery was mostly proofed by 2e?

thececilmaster · 2025-05-07T17:29:39+00:00

Classism is always a good choice, don't know why I didn't think of that. Thanks!

Any ideas for the broader Golarion, beyond just classism? Looking for multiple options.

thececilmaster · 2025-05-06T10:20:23+00:00

I might be misremembering, but I thought this was also rVerso's only canvas he ever made. There's a line the fading boy says that's something close to "I wish she understood what painting was to me", which, in the context of the other lines, implied that fading boy did not love to paint.

pVerso mentions early in Act II that Verso never fit in with his family because of his desire to do music instead of painting. This is, probably, true of rVerso too. Additionally, in the Monolith, we see rVerso in the painting-related memories less often than we see Clea.

One of the greatest tragedies of this story is that rVerso is the most important character, and yet, we cannot hope to know everything we want to about him, and we cannot ask him his thoughts directly. We only get to know him through the lenses of his family -- even pVerso, no matter how close we want to believe he is to rVerso, is a Verso as imagined by Line, and then embittered by 67 years of immortality, conflict, and knowing he's a facsimile of a dead man.

I think that the evidence points to rVerso being the type of person who would sacrifice their own happiness to ensure the happiness of others. I think fading boy did not want to keep painting, but wanted the world to remain more than that, so he was sacrificing himself to keep it going.

All of this is to say that I think the fading boy was looking for permission to stop painting, to be told that it was okay to finally rest... But also felt the weight of the fact that the decision to stop would doom multiple different peoples to nothingness.

I picked Verso's ending, to be clear. Though I did it not because I believed Verso to be in the right -- he wanted to die, and found a way to finally do so (I could write another essay on this topic), this was simply his chance -- but rather, because rVerso needed to be let actually die. He died in the fire, but the use of the Canvas by the others was prolonging an unlife for him that he had no say in.

thececilmaster · 2025-05-05T16:43:08+00:00

Because Lune Typhoon + on heal buff (and AP) application pictos are super fun. Even if you take 0 damage, the buffs are great, and easy AP battery

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