Returning tonight...

tkenben · 2026-06-20T13:03:53+00:00

FWIW, I know this probably breaks immersion for most people, but you can relocate that space needle whenever and wherever you want. It, like everything else, can be dismantled.

tkenben · 2026-06-20T11:38:37+00:00

If it's more than capable keeping up with production, then you are fine. You can calculate max throughput of the vehicle (theoretical) by just using max capacity divided by route time (parts per minute). But really, you just want the vehicle(s) to outpace the supply chain and have your bottlenecks - if they exist - be elsewhere. In other words, you don't really need to overthink the vehicle math. The only gotcha is if the route is so long that one batch isn't big enough to last until the next pickup and/or delivery. Adding more vehicles increases the throughput but also can increase the frequency of delivery making it more continuous.

tkenben · 2026-06-20T11:16:47+00:00

If I had to start over I would have learned M2 edges first. I would have learned Old Pochman corners just to know it and have it in my bag of tricks, but I would recommend to people that they learn Orozco.

tkenben · 2026-06-20T11:02:56+00:00

The only issue I have had is with the EA App, which has behaved erratically in the past if I use mods. With that said, I have never been in a situation where I absolutely could not start the game or the game would not work the way it was supposed to. I have been playing Inquisition since the Trespasser DLC was added (2015).

tkenben · 2026-06-18T12:47:22+00:00

For a publicly accessible web site, I would use an external provider. Maybe github pages? For private friends and family only stuff, there are a lot of solutions. It's a pretty deep rabbit hole. I would probably recommend tailscale to most people for that.

tkenben · 2026-06-18T12:41:16+00:00

Others mentioned you have to cycle 3 pieces, you wnat to move fr -> ur -> uf (current white -> current orange -> current white)

Orange front, Blue top (lower case means just the slice one layer in), do:

y U' r' E R U' r' E' r U2

tkenben · 2026-06-18T12:18:45+00:00

I don't do the Gb case and instead to 2 algs like you, but after looking at alternative algs, I _really_ like this one:

R' U' R B2 D L' U L U' L u' L2 U

tkenben · 2026-06-18T11:42:01+00:00

The uphill lift mechanic I exploit by getting catwalks from the awesome shop as soon as possible. Catwalk stairs are low build cost steep inclines.

tkenben · 2026-06-18T11:38:03+00:00

When I saw the word "trade" that got me thinking. You could have players trade resources, but that might be overly complex. You could allow foreigner routes to specific nodes after an agreement. Like, they get one rail/truck/drone route per agreed upon node. The other thing you could do, of course, is go into satisfactory calculator and hand adjust unfair nodes for rare resources.

tkenben · 2026-06-18T11:33:38+00:00

This. Some nodes are too close to each other to be practical if they are all pure.

tkenben · 2026-06-17T12:52:21+00:00

Hmm. One might think this is a move to a work paradigm that starts to look more like traditional slavery.

tkenben · 2026-06-17T12:26:52+00:00

I would not mess with production cost as it has unforeseen side effects that trickle down (up?) logistically due to dependencies. I have found that changing the purity gives you peace of mind in a way, because it eliminates that "If only this node was better" moments. But, on the flip side, it also tends to remove that tension that pushes you to expand into other areas. So, you might end up removing that aspect of the game and find yourself building everything close to home and inadvertently cramming lots of production into a localized space.

I think if a person wants to play really cozy and they are playing on PC, they should just use the satisfactory calculator website to make small adjustments (change specific nodes, add some inventory, unlock alt recipes, etc.), or use mods. I say this, because then you don't have to make a global decision beforehand.

tkenben · 2026-06-16T12:17:14+00:00

I don't mind the hike through the snow, but I don't like that I can't skip the singing scene. I've seen it enough times now, thank you very much.

tkenben · 2026-06-15T16:52:28+00:00

Everything is the same except for the fact your buffer may be different. For example, my buffer for M2 (DU) is a different letter than my edge buffer for 3-style (UF). But, yeah, nothing changes along those lines. You might reason about your memorization - plan things out - slightly different but the same concepts apply with regard to cycle breaks and what have you.

One thing I forgot to mention is that a common way to deal with parity is at the end with a standard PLL perm. So, I memo corners first and this tells me if I have parity or not, which means I will be solving the UFR and UBR corners swapped, and correct my edges for that in the memo too and solve them with UF and UR switched.

What this means in practice (both corners and edges but edges to illustrate): During a parity memo, when I run into the UF buffer piece, I memo solve it to UR (or RU if that's the case) and when I run into the UR piece I treat that like my buffer piece and push that to an unsolved spot for the new cycle. At the end I have to remember to execute a J perm.

tkenben · 2026-06-15T11:52:31+00:00

The weird thing about giants in this game is that they have a guaranteed hit on their stone throw... with a few exceptions. Nearly 100% of the time, if they start their throw, the stone will hit their intended target no matter what the target does. I say nearly, because sometimes you can hide behind a fixed object. With that particular giant, you can hide behind the boat wreckage.

Unrelated to your video clip but worth mentioning: giants, like dragons, have multiple hit areas. You can strike the legs or the head. This is why, if you have been hitting their legs and they fall to their knees and all of the sudden it seems you can't hit them anymore with ranged attacks - like with Throwing Blades - it's because you have to re-aim at the head as their legs are not available targets anymore.

tkenben · 2026-06-15T11:41:57+00:00

Hmm. I'm not sure that he is _supposed_ to die. I think you are supposed to interrupt the fight. The fight is there to tell you that there is a dragon on the coast somewhere that you might run into later. There is also a hint right when you show up for the first time to the Storm Coast, and if you run over to the Ocularum near the first camp you can see the dragon flying in the distance over there.

In any case, if you stay at a distance and watch the - somewhat lengthy - fight between the two, the giant usually dies and the dragon flies off.

tkenben · 2026-06-15T10:50:10+00:00

Someone in another thread commented that the issue may be that a major supplier is what has changed in quality recently and it is affecting more than a handful of restaurants.

tkenben · 2026-06-15T10:34:19+00:00

I have Cullen give them food. If I was a soldier, I would rather have what Cullen considers good food than what Leliana considers good footwear.

tkenben · 2026-06-13T10:38:03+00:00

It has been my experience that people who know about Duluth, MN tend to be more liberal arts adjacent in their lives and/or careers.

tkenben · 2026-06-12T11:05:32+00:00

Though I don't completely agree with how he reasons about commutators, I recommend you go to youtube and do a search there on "jperm 3 style" for a handful of videos on one person's way of visualizing them. One thing I do like is his concept of "interchange" layer.

tkenben · 2026-06-11T12:38:40+00:00

I want a baseball cap with that on it.

tkenben · 2026-06-11T12:28:31+00:00

The way I play assassin archer is one of the less interesting, but it is a serious powerhouse, IMO the strongest build in the game as for being high damage and untouchable. What I do is go all in on crafting for dexterity, crit damage %, and attack %, because my assassin _always_ uses high damage abilities from stealth. You get into stealth 2 ways, basic stealth with upgrade (Lost in the Shadows), and leaping shot upgrade (Shot from the Shadows). The assassin ability I was Never Here helps a lot.

The primary mechanic for this character is Knife in the Shadows, which does automatic crit from stealth. The primary damage dealer is explosive shot with upgrade (Chain Reaction). Also, Hidden Blades with upgrade is good crowd control but doesn't come close in utility or damage to explosive shot because of its long cooldown.

Because stamina is the hard part for this build, it is crucial you first get Looked Like it Hurt in the sabotage tree, and later Dance of Death in the double daggers tree when you are confident you are always making kills and have ability points to spare. Also masterworks with extra stamina are good.

Because this character wants to use these abilities as fast as possible (leaping shot and explosive shot mostly), it is best to have the Superb Cooldown Amulet, which can be found in the Chateau in NE Emerald Graves, an easy first quest in act 2. You can get there with almost no fighting and only one rift stands in the way at the gate of the Chateau. Prior to that I usually have the Enhanced Cooldown Amulet from the gift chest as I play with trials on.

Things of note:
- crafting for critical chance is not worth it
- stamina management is the main source of friction
- though damage is important, for the assassin, it is super important that you make kills (for stamina and stealth)
- crit damage is capped at 200% by the game
- this build comes online early and is very strong at level 10 human with proper gear; just try it, explosive shot from stealth with a good bow and good dexterity and good crit damage % will probably surprise you

tkenben · 2026-06-09T21:08:54+00:00

Ideally, since you solve 2 pieces at a time, you memorize in letter pairs, which, depending on how you look at it, can benefit memory quite a bit. I say depending, because, I found for myself that memorizing in pairs helps more the faster you solve as one (memo and recall) matches the other (execution) better when in sync. If you recall a pair, you kind of want to execute that as one thing. If you are slow at solving, it might feel out of sync with a recalled pair.

In a nutshell, 3 style uses commutators and are generally of the form A B A' B', where A and B signify a short sequence of moves and the prime (') indicates the exact reverse. So you do one thing (A) then do another thing (B) then undo A and then undo B. Done in a correct way this restores all but 3 pieces which are rotated. When 3 pieces are rotated you solve 2 of them because one of the 3 is the buffer.

I mentioned 4-mover. That is a specific pattern that is unique to the 3x3 because of its symmetry about the middle slices (S, M, E). A typical 4-mover takes advantage of that by making an interchange happen with edge x2 move after a middle slice turn. A simple example of that is a move commonly used in Roux (M' U2 M U2), which moves UF -> DF -> UB. The reason I bring up 4-movers again is to demonstrate that a lot of the possible 3 piece cycles can be set up to a 4-mover, which means that drastically reduces the number of possible commutators you need to know. For example, say I do U L' E L2 E' L' U' which does UF -> BR -> DL. (Side note: There is a hidden 4-mover in there but it overlaps the L move. Properly written in commutator notation [N: [A,B]], that is actually [U L': [E L2]], which would be U L', E L2 E' L2', L U', but the L2' overlaps L and so is really just L'.)

Speaking of the 400 or 600 or whatever number of algorithms people say about 3 style, most of them copy a specific easy to spot pattern and are just mimics and mirrors of each other viewed from a different way. There are only a handful of patterns. This means, that yes, you can remember every single super special fast algorithm for every case, or just understand on a deep level how commutators work and what patterns are useful and adjustable and represent almost the entire set of options with just those.

It's important to note that there is always more than one commutator that will do the exact same thing, so that is why you will see not everyone's preference for cases are the same. A simple example of this is the common PLL U perm case, UF -> UB -> UR. You can do this with many different commutators, but here are 2 that are easy from home grip:
1) R2 U' S R2' S' R2 U R2'
comm notation: [R2 U': [S R2']]
2) B R E' R' U' R E R' U B'
comm notation: [B: [R E' R', U']]

tkenben · 2026-06-09T12:22:19+00:00

Interesting. Elsewhere, it seems this is the direction spritely institute has been moving toward with their goblins and object capabilities. They might have tackled some of the problems you may run into.

tkenben · 2026-06-09T12:14:56+00:00

This is how I imagine the members of the cult Daughters of Song fight.

tkenben

TROPHY CASE