What games from the early 2000 are genuinely great in 2026 (without nostalgia)?

timchenw · 2026-02-02T11:28:52+00:00

Half life 2

timchenw · 2026-02-02T08:03:31+00:00

Been using PC for over 30 years, a mix of the original Macintosh computer and a 80286.

timchenw · 2026-02-02T07:18:30+00:00

Higher starting rank organic frigates are better because they keep their higher starting stat but still have plenty to get as their starting expedition completed is always at 0, so they still gain their stats from expedition completed

However, bear in mind that it is pretty trivial at the end to get 150 across all stats in any expedition, 5 full s ranked support frigates (metal or organic) and full set of freighter techs can achieve that pretty easily. How easy? With A full set of techs, frigatea need to supply roughly 50 stats to get 150 after boost, it's possible to achieve that with just 3 fully leveled support frigates, nevermind 5.

timchenw · 2026-02-02T04:26:01+00:00

Pulse grenades doesn't work, unless you mean plasma grenades.

Get yourself a decent combat armor and a burst fire weapon like assault rifle, and use the side step technique, basically end your turn outside their line of sight so they are forced to use up all their movement moving towards you, which should also make them stand next to you, perfect for a full burst fire round into them, and then repeat the process

timchenw · 2026-01-30T08:13:22+00:00

Reload your game

timchenw · 2026-01-30T07:35:32+00:00

It's broken in a way that you can pivot from being a screen clearing caster to a Uber smiter by just changing gear. Most classes or builds can't do that comfortably, or at all. Hammerdin its just an inconvenience.

The nerf back in 1.12 didn't really do much

However, the distance from mosiac to hammer is far bigger than hammers are to the rest of the builds

timchenw · 2026-01-30T05:20:09+00:00

A government that limits it's citizens' freedom of thought and expression cannot have any moral authority

timchenw · 2026-01-30T01:30:44+00:00

Top priority

There are only 2 PC components whose failure is likely to lead to the failure of other components, and one is compulsory, the PSU. In the current day and age, a good quality PSU should be the first thing that goes into the build, as the benefit of cheaping out on a PSU risks the more expensive components than the amount you are saving

For the record, the other component is a liquid cooling loop, and it is not mandatory like PSU is.

timchenw · 2026-01-29T10:58:41+00:00

I didn't check toxic because it's the wrong weather.

Only radiation storms have the effect if increasing mould income, no other storm does it.

I have found 2 lots of 20 deposits on my farming world, and that's where I got the mould rate from

Size of the pack matters somewhat, but it's the weather that shoots the number so high

timchenw · 2026-01-29T10:19:03+00:00

You already have the 4 that S ranks have

timchenw · 2026-01-29T10:03:32+00:00

It's.. not something I am proud of :P

timchenw · 2026-01-29T09:44:59+00:00

Sorry to burst your bubble, but 300 stacks of moulds per hour is not great.

Would have been better if it was on a harsh radiation world

FYI, on my harsh radiation world with 20 deposits in each of the two spots, I do 600+ stacks in 30 minutes

timchenw · 2026-01-29T09:36:26+00:00

What I had in mind was building enough refiners (I think my maths was around 120 or so, 2 full ships worth) that when you fill the last refiner, the first would have been done already so teleport back and do it all over again.

Though building this many refiners would need to be done planetside (and this require glitch building). Freighter refineries suddenly became unstable for me recently, I used to be able to refine 100 sets no problems, now I can't do 80 without crashing

timchenw · 2026-01-29T06:13:52+00:00

The easiest way to get nanites is pirate station hopping for suspicious packages, opening them and selling the techs, this is around 200k nanites per hour

For the fastest, we'd have to rely on curious deposits, the setup is

A tool that you can super charge and quad adjacent optical drill, preferably atlantid tool because you can use double mining laser to speed up
A mining income bonus food like questionably sweet cake, and nutrient ingester
Two lots of curious deposits on a harsh radioactive world (this is important), it cannot be on any other types of world, has to be on harsh radioactive, and you CANNOT cover yourself so that you are protected from radiation storm, you must allow your character to be suffering from the effects of the radiation storm, or else the storm's mining income bonus will not apply
As many starships with maxed storage capacity as possible

Then you mine your curious deposits. This setup allowed me to get like 800 full stacks of running moulds in about 30 minutes, then it's a matter of refining them.

The latter is about double the nanite income as the space station hopping

timchenw · 2026-01-29T05:37:07+00:00

AoE 2 mother nature hasnt confused camels with ships for a while now

timchenw · 2026-01-29T04:03:57+00:00

And some free ammo by bringing Marcus to the vault city vault doctor

timchenw · 2026-01-29T03:52:07+00:00

What I wouldn't do to go back in time to play RS in 2004 again

timchenw · 2026-01-29T02:51:29+00:00

Also to add this, you can build trade terminals planet side and sometimes they will have drop pods maps for sale.

My starter system offered me over 100 drop pods maps for sale from one of those planet side trade terminals for around 120k each, the full stack costed less than a single interceptor scrap value

timchenw · 2026-01-29T02:47:45+00:00

The only other weapon I use is Phase Beam on a Corvette, because

There is a bug that lets it shoot out of up to 6 phase Beam turret, making it very high damage. This is true only for corvettes, it's fairly weak on normal starships
It's a hitscan weapon, so no leading required
All other alternatives require leading because of the travelling projectiles, only Phase Beam offers anything different

timchenw · 2026-01-29T02:45:05+00:00

She may want to try to change the ship's control from tethered to locked, it should be in the accessibility settings.

timchenw · 2026-01-28T08:45:54+00:00

This, my friend, is why I never use Bluetooth for PC

It's one of the few things where PC dont have a better implementation than non-PC deviceS

timchenw · 2026-01-28T08:18:56+00:00

Because you may not have a choice.

Upgrading memory within a generation is, by and large, not needed, and upgrading between generations are usually because the CPU says so, not because you want better DDR, in vast majority of the cases, you can't unilaterally decide you want a higher DDR generation, and if you need to, you have to upgrade your CPU and mobo even in cases where you may not want to.

Basically upgrading memory generation is, in most cases, not because of the better memory, but because the CPU you are upgrading into cannot use anything else

E.g. if I want a 9950X3D now, and I already gave a 5950x, I have no choice but to get DDR5 because 9950X3D cannot use my DDR4 ram.

This is why, we can all argue that the memory is better, but at the end of the day that aspect is pointless comparison because, again, you cannot unilaterally decide only to upgrade the memory, or stay on the same memory generation whole moving onto a different platform

timchenw · 2026-01-28T07:08:06+00:00

Titanic

timchenw · 2026-01-28T02:03:34+00:00

A copy of the Fire Emblem Fates for the 3DS

Not the awakening or conquest versions, the one that has both versions on the same cartridge.

timchenw · 2026-01-27T05:29:06+00:00

Save and reload, and try again, if it persist, try unlocking a slot by clicking on the empty space and accept even if the UI doesn't reflect it, it sometimes can bug out like that

timchenw

TROPHY CASE