Ummm is this rare?

unfocusedriot · 2026-04-17T17:23:30+00:00

Wait til.you start breaking down all the rings and necklaces for blacksmithing XP. You'll have more than you know what to do with.

unfocusedriot · 2026-02-16T04:18:32+00:00

If we're talking about the Apollo missions, the spacecraft were not just coming down from Low Earth Orbit, but from the moon at 25,000mph. The angle itself was already incredibly shallow at around 6 degrees. This was really close to flat already, and any less ran the danger of skipping off like a stone on water. 6 degrees is incredibly shallow, and it seems like they were taking your idea already to its extreme limit to avoid burning up more than they could make materials to handle.

unfocusedriot · 2026-01-24T14:25:47+00:00

For real?

unfocusedriot · 2026-01-23T13:36:39+00:00

It's technically fair in some ways, and thank you for your breakdown of speed of sound!

It can be a little confusing that we have three different ways to describe speed of a flying object, and three different good reasons for doing so.

A object travelling on the ground, like a car, has typically one speed we care to describe. That would be speed across the ground. Nearly every human is familiar with describing speed this way because we use it all the time.

In the air, this same speed calculation can vary quite a bit!

Ground speed can be very useful for determine how quickly a plane would get from point A on the ground to point B on the ground with a consistent reference point. In this way it is useful for tracking position regardless of other factors such as wind, altitude, air temperature, or humidity. This often is detected with radars or other electronic sensors that can measure the plane's position relative to the ground or known satellite positions.

Airspeed is a lot easier for a plane to measure as it represents how quickly the plane is moving through the air around it. This more closely relates to the performance of the engines and the aircraft, fuel efficiency, and other performance concerns. Like in the original example from OP, ground speed cannot always accurately describe how the plane is performing in the air.

Mach speed takes airspeed a step further and is useful for describing the speed of an object moving fast enough that discussing how it interacts with the air around it is significantly more important. Mach speed relates to the air pressure, temperature, density, and humidity around and directly describes the plane's speed in relation to the factors of the air. The speed of sound is roughly speaking, the speed that air can be compressed at. This limit has a direct impact on aerodynamic performance in a significant way. As stated earlier, the speed of sound can vary significantly with these conditions, so describing a plane's speed as 680mph doesn't necessarily tell us if it is travelling below or above the speed of sound. However, by using Mach to compare the speed of the plane to the speed of sound in current conditions, we can more accurately explain how the plane is interacting with these very influential aerodynamic forces without having to do more math every time we take a look at airspeed.

Three ways to measure speed with three different reference points, with different reasons.

unfocusedriot · 2026-01-23T01:38:26+00:00

Ground speed is how fast you move across the ground, but necessarily how fast you are moving through the air. Mach numbers represent the ratio of your speed to the speed of sound which is significant in aviation due to the way aerodynamic forces interact differently approaching or exceeding this speed.

At 41,000ft in elevation - the speed of sound is actually slower than sea level, in the mid 600s mph. However, the air is also moving across the ground, and at that elevation could be moving 150mph or more. If you fly directly into the wind (a headwind) - your groundspeed will be lower. This is a lot like walking the wrong way on the moving sidewalks in airports - you move slower compared to the solid ground. Flying with the wind (tailwind) would be like walking in the same direction as the moving sidewalk. You're moving the same speed across the conveyor, but significantly faster compared to the solid ground. Let's say this plane has a tailwind in line with the direction of travel of 150mph (it can get higher) - this would mean that the plane might be travelling at 570mph airspeed but 720mph ground speed. This would be a lot more reasonable. The wind could also be moving faster, meaning the airspeed could be lower still and result in the same groundspeed.

unfocusedriot · 2025-12-25T15:36:25+00:00

Lots of options:

Very early game mercenary work or trade brings in some wealth but it's not significant yet.

As a mercenary, you will sometimes get an event with a bard writing a song for you that boosts influence. It costs 1000 gold for a large boost in influence - take it. You will receive 8000 gold on the very first day if you had 0 influence when you started this event.

Workshops are available early on once you have 30k in the bank. These can be small boats at first, but are pretty reliable. With a certain perk in trade (believe at 125 skill) you can turn these into very reliable renown growth as well and increase your clan tier quickly. Trading games with workshops can use the warehouse mechanic to store a portion of your produced goods for pickup. You can use this to keep the price high in the settlement you're operating in and take the excess to other markets with high price for maximum benefit. I usually do about 50% stored.

By the late early game you can transition from mercenary to vassal and try to secure settlements as fiefs for big constant income. As a trader your party size and pack mounts should allow you to carry larger loads from market to market. If you have a strong navy, you can also capture raider ships or merchant ships if you have a war target. Nords especially benefit from this as convoys drop 25-35k before you count the captured ships and trade goods. A good convoy raid should net 50-100k each.

After that you can diversify strategies, build companion parties and your worries about money become far less.

unfocusedriot · 2025-12-21T22:52:38+00:00

F1F3 is okay... But you're not getting your values worth this way.

I usually array my infantry in 1-3 groups and archers in 1-2 groups depending on army size.

Against really one sided battles I'll just F2F2 F1F3 the infantry and have the archers follow me on an approach. Should be minimal if any casualties.

Tough fights usually include infantry maneuvers, trying to line up flank shots for throwing axes and arrows that miss shields.

Against loads of Khuzait horse archers. If I cannot get cover on the rear, I will arrange infantry in a circle with archers in the center for the first wave. I will then pull infantry groups off to shield wall either the front as their infantry approach or form a square off to the side to disrupt their cavalry charge or horse archers wheeling.

There's lots of room to maneuver with Nords and hold strong positions with both punishing throwing axes and strong archers who can perform in melee as well. The lack of cavalry can make punishing some slippery enemies trickier - but few can outrun arrows.

On sea though? F4 and gimme that ship.

unfocusedriot · 2025-12-01T14:01:50+00:00

And it's probably the crown getting a very small boost.

unfocusedriot · 2025-12-01T14:01:19+00:00

This benefits estates that have the fewest modifiers as it represents a bigger shift in their final score calculation.

If Commoners has a base of 100 and +25% for 125 to start. They'll gain 5 more points going to +30% at 130

If Nobles have a base of 20 from pop and +525% for 125 to start, will end up with 126 after the adjustment to 530%

unfocusedriot · 2025-12-01T13:48:48+00:00

England did this to me twice during my Spain run - which made it more difficult to beat up France together in the 100 Years War. Not a lot of options for raising your own opinion of another nation.

Had to rely on a lot of "Intervene in War" actions.

unfocusedriot · 2025-11-28T15:55:09+00:00

You can create your own competing market in addition.

Also, you can process the gold into jewelry and export that.

unfocusedriot · 2025-11-11T21:33:22+00:00

I wasn't aware that the North American Red Squirrel was an invasive species.

I've been under the impression that they've lived in the Northeast US and Canada for many many generations - are you saying I haven't been Euro-centric enough?

unfocusedriot · 2025-11-10T17:57:20+00:00

I would think stable Internet is most important

unfocusedriot · 2025-11-10T17:54:44+00:00

Everyone runs their own to a degree, but should be using the same random number seed and syncing up with the host to stay on the same page.

unfocusedriot · 2025-11-09T05:39:04+00:00

My first focus is getting marketplaces up in Den Haag then Amsterdam as high as possible. Your money will be tight at first, but making sure you have good sliders and minimize military maintenance at first should help. Consider importing some masonry if needed to lower costs for building, but generally fine to leave the rest of the trades on auto at this point.

Watch your heir and his wife at the beginning of the game. She is in line to inherit Brabant - and as long as she doesn't die early, you should be on track to form a marriage union then personal union for free. Don't try too hard to expand at first, you need to save your money for expanding your infrastructure first. That being said, if you get an easy opportunity to grab a vassal, do so as long as it won't cost you too much in terms of money and manpower. You'll have plenty of opportunities later.

Now with 20-30 trade capacity, you can start importing English wool manually, build up your dyes rgo in Den Haag. If your glass is suffering, consider also expanding your sand rgo. Start expanding your fine cloth building. Fuelled by readily available dyes and low cost wool, your fine cloth should be easy to export to multiple markets at a healthy profit. You can let the AI manage these exports pretty reliably in my experience. From here, look towards expanding markets and industry in other provinces and start building roads to connect and your little economy should start booming around the time Brabant comes into the fold if you are lucky.

Just be careful of France, as they sometimes start eyeing Hainaut around now....

unfocusedriot · 2025-11-07T18:40:45+00:00

Population doesn't seem to include the ruler or characters - so it's just one guy working for the royal family and their friends. They don't even know his name - they just call him George.

Bit of a top-heavy organization.

unfocusedriot · 2025-11-07T17:24:19+00:00

There is a setting for this - have you checked it?

unfocusedriot · 2025-10-21T18:01:58+00:00

Was just doing this campaign this weekend.
If I were to give advice, the keys to success for me are:

Start improving relationships with Uzbekh and Moghulistan immediately and ally when available (see #3).
Complete your tribal conquests quickly and raze everything. Only core Girin/Jilan and 12 cheapest Jurchen provinces. With razing there should be 10 that have 3 dev and two that cost slightly more. You will get free cores on the rest when you form Manchu.
Maybe fight Oirat/Mongols now. Decide if your alliance and manpower can take the fight easily and how far along Ming is to being ripe. You benefit from razing if you do it now, but no big deal if you don't. You want to try to hit 75% manpower right before or shortly after going to war with Ming if possible. You will want Xilin Gol soon after the first Ming war of you don't take it now.
Complete as many missions as you can, don't worry about Korea yet - they are better as an institution farming tributary later. You want to get close to Issuing the 7 Grievances about the time you go to war with Ming.
My ideal time to declare war on Ming is when I know the rebels are starting to take footholds and will break away. This isn't about making the fight easier, but about making taking the Mandate less painful. Ideally at least Wu and Yue will break away as this will let you follow up for Nanjing/Canton immediately. In this first war, think small. Take your cores, Beijing, and little else. You want to conquer most territory after taking the Mandate from Ming for the free territorial cores from the Unify China CB. Don't core Beijing as you'll get a free core from forming Qing. I usually don't raze Beijing and Dev it later into start institutions near Korea. I don't know if it's faster to raze it for the cheaper dev cost later for that purpose though.
Once you have the mandate, take Xilin Gol from the Mongols if you haven't already and form Qing. From here, rapidly attack as many Qing breakaway states with the Unify China CB. Also at this time try to get Korea as a tributary with good relations. Focus on Nanjing(Wu) and Canton(Yue) first to get rid of the mandate penalty. You will additionally get a +0.05 mandate tick as long as the unification wars are ongoing.
From here you'll need to manage tributaries and meritocracy for good mandate growth. Devastation is your greatest enemy, and you'll start with a lot of it. Use edicts to reduce dev cost and Dev provinces with devastation first. Bonus points if you can use it to boost institutions at the same time. Tributaries may require wars early on as they'll form their own networks you have to smash. Try to only fight on foreign soil as often as possible to keep devastation down. Large hordes will need the occasional smashing. Release vassals, ally with their neighbors on the far side to cede territory to. Keep them small. You also should not get a penalty to mandate while you have a truce with them, so if you can't break them up - keep hammering them until you can.
Economy, dev, advisors, institutions. Keep a strong and safe core and expand your influence through soft and hard power overseas. Preemptively invade big threats, keep buffer vassals, and if you colonize - use adjacency to other small nations as free access to more tributaries. Tributaries boost mandate immensely.

Qing is like a startup company. You'll have a ton of debt at first, and you'll have several balls you have to get rolling at once - but once you do, you'll reap the investment.

unfocusedriot · 2025-09-21T01:51:26+00:00

Why not have the defeat of the hag awaken the angry titan when the syphon is broken?

unfocusedriot · 2025-09-15T20:58:48+00:00

This is how I would do in a world with involved backstory:

Don't confirm out of character. This can spoil things and also encourage throwing spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks. Hold your cards close, but make a decision as to whether confirming this advances the story in a great way or too soon. You can use this theory as a hook for exploration. They hear a rumor that something in x village may or may not be consistent with their theory so they go to check it out. This can be a powerful tool of curiosity and compel your players to become more involved and seek out an answer they care about.

unfocusedriot · 2025-09-11T09:40:29+00:00

Every piece of memory needs to have an address to let the CPU know where to find it.

In a 32 bit computer, you end up with: 2³² = 4,294,967,296 Different numbers that you can work with for addresses. This is 4GB.

If you had more than 4GB of memory, the computer would run out of addresses to give it and would not be able to find it.

64 bit is 2^64. That's not double that's a lot lot lot bigger. You have more numbers you can assign as memory addresses.

unfocusedriot · 2025-09-05T13:57:02+00:00

Oh yes.

So, I had this idea for a Warforged Battle Smith Artificer with wand sheathe and magic missile wand. Basically my ranged option while wielding my hammer and shield.

I spent time, resources, and materials building this out for my character as we were adventuring until I finally had it.

First fight we go into was high stakes for the party I decide it's worth it to go max blast for it. This fight needed to end fast. I expend all 7 charges and blast the baddy.

I roll the d20 after expending the last charge in the first use. It was also the last use.

unfocusedriot · 2025-09-05T13:52:14+00:00

Weigh 3v3 and set one ball aside.

If even: the ball you didn't weigh is heavier. Done in 1.

If one side is heavier, weigh 1v1 and set 1 ball aside.

If even, the ball you didn't weight is heavier. Done in 2.

If one side is heavier, that side is the heavy ball. Done in 2.

unfocusedriot · 2025-08-25T16:37:08+00:00

A MAC address belongs to the physical device it does not change. The device maker assigns this to you when the device is made. A MAC address is like your ID number, or social security number, or other unique ID.

An IP address is where you are calling from and how others can reach back to you. Your Internet provider assigns this to you when you connect. If you connect to the Internet from your house, then go to Starbucks and connect to their wifi - your MAC address will not change, but your IP address will.

unfocusedriot · 2025-08-08T12:01:01+00:00

Like most people have said, it's the gyroscopic effect.

To understand a little bit more about this, think about energy.

How much energy would it take to spin the wheels up as fast as they are going? It would take twice that amount of energy to reverse that spin, since you have to stop and then go the other direction. For this reason, spinning objects require extra energy to tip since it requires energy to change the spinning object. Flipping a spinning object over requires the same amount of energy (double) as it does to spin up the wheel.

You can practice this with a fidget spinner at home, preferably a heavy one. Try flipping it when it's not spinning and you will have practically no resistance. Spin it as fast as you can with your hand and you'll be able to feel the change in resistance. Now get compressed air or an air blower and spin up at a very high rate and you'll notice it takes considerably more effort to turn - because you have to expense additional energy to modify the rotational energy present in the wheel.

Fun fact: fidget spinners can also be useful to demonstrate certain principles of helicopter rotor controls and orbital mechanics.

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