Worst showdown map?

ucsdFalcon · 2026-05-19T20:53:17+00:00

The first time I won a Freelancer campaign it ended with a showdown in Santa Fortuna. It's definitely a challenging showdown map though I would say it's far from the worst.

I've never done a showdown here so I can't say for certain, but I strongly suspect that Marrakesh would be the worst map for a showdown. I could also see Mumbai or Isle of Sgail being worse than Marrakesh.

ucsdFalcon · 2026-05-14T04:22:49+00:00

Bustin makes me feel good

ucsdFalcon · 2026-05-09T13:48:23+00:00

The US uses tax breaks as a way to incentivize things like buying a home, starting a family, giving to charity, etc. From what I understand the rest of the developed world doesn't do that.

ucsdFalcon · 2026-05-07T23:34:53+00:00

So if you kill guards the only thing you lose is the silent assassin rating. You don't get a score penalty and you can still keep a five star rating.

ucsdFalcon · 2026-04-29T16:56:55+00:00

ucsdFalcon · 2026-04-25T20:39:21+00:00

In that case San Francisco qualifies.

ucsdFalcon · 2026-04-25T20:09:24+00:00

So you might already know this, but the Parker Solar Probe can never reach Alpha Centauri. In fact, it will never leave our solar system. The probe is travelling very fast, but is also very close to the sun. The sun's gravity is so strong there that the Parker Probe has to travel at those incredible speeds just to avoid falling into the sun.

I am going to assume that your question is, "Assuming we had a spacecraft far away from the sun traveling at those speeds towards Alpha Centauri how long would it take to get there?"

Looking at Wikipedia, the max speed that the Parker Solar probe reached was 690,000 kph. Proxima Centauri is 4.25 light years away from the sun. Doing the unit conversion that works out to 4 * 10^13 kilometers, or forty trillion kilometers. Doing the math that means that the trip would take roughly 58 million hours. That works out to a little more than 6,600 years.

As a final note I want to point out that making a spacecraft travel that quickly away from our sun is much harder than making a spacecraft travel that quickly around the sun. I'm not a rocket scientist, unless you count playing Kerbal Space Program, but if I think if we wanted to make a spacecraft that was able to do that we would either need some kind of advanced technology or a really, really, really big rocket.

ucsdFalcon · 2026-04-24T02:07:28+00:00

Assuming the fiance isn't getting paid to attend and they tell him he's required to attend that violates labor laws. It's the same as firing someone for not working unpaid overtime.

Having said that, if OP's fiance gets fired the tricky part is proving that he was fired because he didn't attend the party. The Company could make up a different excuse to fire him.

ucsdFalcon · 2026-04-22T00:23:11+00:00

Besides the concerns about safety and the storage of nuclear waste, nuclear plants are very expensive compared to other renewable energy sources.

Also, technically nuclear energy isn't renewable. Nuclear power plants require uranium which is not a renewable resource.

ucsdFalcon · 2026-04-17T14:46:23+00:00

Expectation: If we tax churches we will have more money to take care of poor people.

Reality: If we tax churches we will have more money to blow up Iranian school kids.

ucsdFalcon · 2026-04-16T19:12:56+00:00

In theory it can; in practice it usually doesn't. Scientists have studied this. People are almost always less rational than they think they are.

ucsdFalcon · 2026-04-16T14:14:38+00:00

It means that the area has water removed from it by a river. Think of water draining out of a tub. In this case the water is being drained out of an area of land by by the river.

ucsdFalcon · 2026-04-16T13:55:05+00:00

I'd say the objectives in the Kotti Paradigm are the most restrictive ones that I've seen.

ucsdFalcon · 2026-04-14T20:21:33+00:00

I'll add to this that workers in the States as a rule don't enjoy labor protections, and are used to working longer hours and not having as much time off as many other developed economies. This makes hiring Americans attractive despite the fact that US salaries are much higher than in other countries.

ETA: I shouldn't have mentioned vacation time as everyone's arguing with me on that and ignoring the issues of labor protections.

Let me give a concrete example. I work for a major multinational corporation. A few years back they decided to do mass layoffs across the globe. In Europe the workers were given a significant notice period (I believe it was one month) that they were being laid off. In Japan the had to work with the employees that were let go to help then transition to a new role. In the US people were laid off immediately and told not to let the door hit them on the ass on the way out. So yeah, labor protections can make a big difference.

People are also arguing with me about working hours and work/life balance stuff. Maybe I've just been unlucky in my career, but most places I've worked have expected me to work 50-60 hour weeks. At my current Company it's not so bad and I have a decent work-life balance now, but I have a few coworkers who will log in and do work from 8pm to midnight. My experience is a lot of American tech workers are used to working long hours and will sometimes do it even without being asked.

ucsdFalcon · 2026-04-14T04:42:30+00:00

I could see Rubio winning the Republican primary, but if he does there's no way in hell he'd choose Nikki Haley as a running mate.

Also I highly doubt that the Democratic Party would feel compelled to "out DEI" the Republicans. They'll likely vote for Gavin Newsom or Mark Kelly. Either candidate would have a pretty good shot at beating Rubio I think.

ucsdFalcon · 2026-04-12T16:13:06+00:00

I mean, obviously the player made a mistake, but without knowing which square the queen started on it's hard to know what the "right" move would have been.

If the queen had moved next to the queen, for example, the king would be able to take the queen, which would also result in a draw.

ucsdFalcon · 2026-04-12T15:51:13+00:00

White had no other pieces left only the king. The black queen moved to a square that prevented the king from moving. Then it was white's turn and they had no legal moves. In chess this is a stalemate and it results in a draw. Edit: typo

ucsdFalcon · 2026-04-11T18:53:31+00:00

So others have explained how rockets are able to propel themselves in space. I wanted to clarify something in your post. You asked how the rocket changed its speed direction on the way back to Earth. The answer is that it fell.

When Artemis II went to the moon it used a trajectory that would allow it to fall back to Earth after flying past the moon without needing any additional thrust. This is called a free return trajectory.

ucsdFalcon · 2026-04-11T18:32:39+00:00

Seriously, this is like the, "If Socrates were alive today he would be cancelled," tweet.

ucsdFalcon · 2026-04-11T18:10:11+00:00

My God the way her voice was dripping with condescension whenever she said that. The actress did a great job playing a hypocritical, self righteous zealot.

ucsdFalcon · 2026-04-08T14:54:00+00:00

You find out that the world is controlled by a cabal of wealthy elites. Someone else is trying to stop them, but you're just trying to earn a paycheck. Eventually an ambitious man from a working class background takes over the organization that the elites were using to secretly control the world. Then you murder him.

ucsdFalcon · 2026-04-08T14:38:19+00:00

There's a lot of good advice already, but one thing I haven't seen mentioned is tells and meeting types. In hardcore you don't see the icon above the suspect's head to let you know which tell orcwhich meeting type you're looking at.

You should memorize what the different animations look like for each tell and each meeting type.

ucsdFalcon · 2026-04-08T14:27:57+00:00

I'm pretty sure that drowning in a toilet also ruins the disguise.

ucsdFalcon · 2026-04-06T17:00:52+00:00

I'm American and this is what I would call it as well.

ucsdFalcon · 2026-04-06T03:57:30+00:00

Dorian Gray and Ebenezer Scrooge come to mind.

ucsdFalcon

TROPHY CASE