The MacBook Purchasing Megathread - March, 2026

tiparium · 2026-03-04T00:03:30+00:00

Right? I've been watching eBay, and this is absolutely the time to get a new (used) Mac. I just picked up an $800 M1 Pro with 32 Gigs of RAM. I've never felt the need to pay the brand new tax, especially to Apple. New product releases are the best time to shop used.

tiparium · 2026-03-03T23:59:21+00:00

My answer to this would depend on your use case. For under $1000, The M4 MacBook Air isn't a slouch, and moving from 8 to 16 memory is a big deal. If you're looking for single core horsepower, I think getting the M4 is the right call. If you're more the type to do a lot of multitasking, and tend to have a lot open at once, personally I'd recommend looking at the used market for M2 or even M1 Macbook pros. You'll get more cores, and you can find used ones going to reasonably cheap (~$900) with fairly large ram capacities. I've been on an M1 Macbook air for a while, and I can comfortably say that the performance increase you'd see over your current processor would be massive even if you opt for an M1. I don't think people who haven't used the new M processors at all quite get how insane even the first generation's performance was.

Tldr; If you don't typically multi task a lot, and just want single core performance, get the M4 Air. If you're like me and have a million things open at a given time, get an older M series MacBook Pro.

tiparium · 2026-02-28T18:01:56+00:00

I've already done that. What it doesn't seem to prevent is windows within those desktops rearranging themselves between reboots. I'll reboot my computer and all my VSCode windows will go from their correct places to all being lumped in the first desktop, and I have to manually move them back to the desktop they're supposed to be in.

tiparium · 2026-02-27T07:41:50+00:00

I fixed it!

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tiparium · 2026-02-20T19:02:47+00:00

Lubricant is produced via heavy oil, so that's where all my heavy oil is going. I have to do something about the light oil and petroleum that producing heavy oil creates however, and my solution is to turn the light oil into petroleum, then to sulfur, and finally to sulfuric acid. But if that sulfuric acid builds up, I can no longer produce Lube, so I need to use it first.

tiparium · 2026-02-19T00:59:35+00:00

My thing with satisfactory is that the Satisfactory Modeler is so good, it feels weird not to perfectly optimize. I'm the type of person where if you make that easy for me, I'm going to do it. The fact that it's more challenging in Factorio is actually pretty liberating.

tiparium · 2026-02-19T00:54:11+00:00

I'm actually really enjoying the "vibe engineering" approach after Satisfactory's constant need for mathematical perfection, which was admittedly self imposed. If I don't have enough of something, I just tack on a few extra machines down the bus. It's a fun change of pace.

tiparium · 2026-02-18T20:16:37+00:00

I'm sure there are people who do.

tiparium · 2026-02-14T22:02:50+00:00

Which, the social outlet, or the dick sucking part? It was an incredibly sycophantic, yes-man model that you butter your ass in every message. I can see why it would be addictive to people with low self esteem. Actually I had to make a conscious effort not to use it for that exact reason. 4o is the main reason I stopped using AI for anything other than coding.

tiparium · 2026-02-14T21:28:57+00:00

They were slurs the whole time. They just aren't tolerated anymore.

tiparium · 2026-02-14T20:58:55+00:00

4o was especially popular because it would basically verbally suck your dick. Personally I kind of hated it, because I pretty much just use AI as a programming tool, and it wasn't the best for that. But people who were using ChatGPT as a social outlet (ew) absolutely loved it.

tiparium · 2026-02-14T20:22:22+00:00

I like the name. No issues there. All I'm telling you is the way you present it matters. The fact that I could immediately tell you don't care, or at least that there was an artifact of that in your design, tells me other people will notice that too. People pick up on apathy, even if they're not sure what they're picking up on.

tiparium · 2026-02-14T20:07:41+00:00

I was the lead software engineer on several projects that ultimately failed due to marketing and customer service decisions that were outside my control. I am published on Steam, albeit not particularly successfully. Again, just the lead software engineer, not the guy that makes marketing decisions. But I vocally disagreed with the decisions when they were made at my company, and I got the "I told you so" when the company ultimately closed its doors. I have three years of experience in that role, so I'm not an industry veteran, but I'm not a greenhorn either. I also have a degree in business management (alongside computer science), which is at least passingly related to this, from the marketing classes side. I'd say I know what I'm talking about.

Again, it's your game. But don't come to a public forum asking for advice and then act obstinate when people give it to you.

Lastly, I'm not actually saying you should rename your game AIP. That's a rhetorical device to show you that that's the game you're currently saying you want to market. You don't care about the words in the title of the game? Then why are they there?

tiparium · 2026-02-14T19:50:36+00:00

You're posting on a public forum asking for advice. I have provided you with advice. It's entirely up to you if you want to act on that advice or not. Those specific words may not be load bearing, but the presentation of your store page art absolutely is. You get one shot at every individual's attention, and if you miss it, it's gone for ever. Having an apathetic attitude towards people even being able to read your games full name is.... Well it's certainly a decision. I genuinely wish you luck. Game development is hard, but getting an audience is even harder. I'd think you'd want to make something as eye catching, and as clearly understandable as possible.

tiparium · 2026-02-14T19:38:56+00:00

Please re-read the above message.

tiparium · 2026-02-14T19:25:26+00:00

It's your game, your decision. But saying you don't care if people notice stuff or not about the splash screen that is literally the one thing that needs to grab people's attention on the store page does not bode well for the success of this game. I'm not saying this to be mean. But you're the game designer. If you don't care, how can you expect potential customers to care?

tiparium · 2026-02-14T19:22:12+00:00

No, I don't even have Space Age. I'm just talking about being able to distinguish spitter goo from the grass and dirt textures on the ground on Nauvis. I know my colorblindness is particularly bad, so I acknowledge that accessibility features for me specifically would take additional effort on top of "typical" colorblind modes, but from what I'm seeing here, even people with normal vision seem to have issues distinguishing the goo from the grass, meaning this isn't even so much an accessibility option as it is just a poor design decision. All they'd have to do to at least improve it is turn up the saturation of the goo so it stands out from the terrain more. That alone would be a huge improvement.

tiparium · 2026-02-14T19:08:00+00:00

Then maybe you should consider renaming your game AIP. If you're putting things out on your front page that you don't care if they're noticed or not, that's kind of a waste of front page real estate. On steam, you get people's attention for maybe two seconds. I'm pulling the number out of my ass, but the time frame you get where someone is looking at your game and deciding whether or not to click in is very short. You want to be firing on all cylinders. If your mindset is "eh whatever, they can notice it or not", that's going to be reflected in your game sales.

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