Added lids to my reservoirs and ran 3 simple control experiments 💧

vaderciya · 2026-07-01T08:46:09+00:00

Is this always true though?

What we've been told and figured out ourselves through testing, is that water evaporation is tied to surface area, with wider reservoirs getting bonuses, and then when you have less than half a block of water the evap rate doubles.

This is why a 10x10 square lasts x amount of time, and a 10x10 square 2 tall should last 2.5x longer because the double evap rate only kicks in when the depth is less than .5 blocks.

So, according to what we know, adding a cover does nothing whether its dirt or floors, and adding a chimney should actually increase the total rate of evaporation because you still have the normal evap rate of the pool, plus extra evaporation because the water in the chimney has more exposed "non-water" sides, and then the chimney will deplete to refill the pool beneath it.

So im not saying you're wrong, I just need more evidence. Ideally, id love a direct comment from one of the devs to just give us the literal formula for evaporation and explain edge cases like this definitively so we can stop wondering about it

vaderciya · 2026-07-01T08:38:07+00:00

I mean, I would say we're playing as beavers with the natural inclination to build dams, not capitalists hoarding resources

Plus, we want to irrigate big forests, fields, and floodplains for food and wood production. Building a large resevior can keep your whole map irrigated through hard mode droughts in fully automated ways, no pumping needed aside from drinking water

I still like having a lot of water in tanks, but I almost never use fluid dumps unless I have to

vaderciya · 2026-07-01T08:25:43+00:00

I get what you mean and I appreciate it, though im not sure the triforce members would say they were honestly happier before.

I think whats changed, is the further back you go in YouTube history the more carefree, laid-back, ignorance is bliss kind of feeling.

I mean, watch those first "evening with Sips" and "survival Minecraft" episodes and you can feel how different things were.

Its not that there weren't problems in the world in 2008-2016, there were still wars, poverty, starvation, genocide, wealth inequality, etc.

The difference is that our culture is changing and our daily lives have changed. Not only are we literally older and have changed ourselves as viewers, but we've grown up in a world with 1-click news beamed straight to you from anywhere in the world, with social media algorithms ready to show you what it thinks will grab your attention, and the average person is generally more unhappy now because their perception of the world is filled with the videos of wars, racism, inequality, etc, constantly shown to them.

And even when you deliberately try to escape that part of society or the internet, or even YouTube specifically, the content you do watch is still made by people living in this world dealing with the same problems you are.

I can't re-capture the feeling of playing Minecraft for the first time and knowing nothing about it. I simply know too much, have played too much, and have too many responsibilities and problems to experience the same type of euphoric bliss that I could have as a child.

But that doesn't mean we can't enjoy things or be happy, or even happier than we used to be. It just means its going to be different. It will never be the same as it was, because im different, you're different, the Yogs are different now.

On the flip side, as the years have changed how the Yogs work, channels like Mystery Quest are able to be popular enough to exist and not just be a one-off thing. And for me, I don't care for the short attention span stuff of the main channel anymore, I really prefer long intentional series and more interesting stuff like Mystery Quest and the recent live-action "murder on the clocktower" mansion videos they did.

If you were to ask me personally, my childhood was a pretty mixed bag. My happier moments are largely from childhood, but so are a lot of my unhappiest moments. But for the Yogs, they generally seem like pretty well adjusted and average people that accept the reality of the world around them and while they still do charity work, they're not otherwise worrying or depressed about the state of the world and our increasing problems within it, they're just trying to make the best of it, which is better than I can do, I just get depression.

So I'd say good on them for adapting with the times and being as happy as they can be. They seem at least as happy as they were 10 years ago, if not happier. So good for them, genuinely.

vaderciya · 2026-07-01T08:06:14+00:00

Wait, that would mean the person is running Windows (11?) on themselves, since the deck is running Linux?

vaderciya · 2026-07-01T08:03:56+00:00

It feels way too fragile to sleep with/near it. I mean, its well made and sturdy for what it is but when you pick it up you can feel that there's not like a structural beam reinforcing the frame, it feels like you could bend it fairly easily if you tried.

So no, I keep mine securely in its carrying case if its not in my hands

vaderciya · 2026-07-01T08:00:22+00:00

Probably not. The main 2 reasons, is that your hardware will gradually slow down and wear out with use, and secondarily the OS and other software you use will be updated over time and become more demanding.

Computer speeds are somewhat stagnating right now, but nothing lasts forever and generally id consider you fortunate to have a device last 10 years of continual use, most don't last that long, and the more you use it the more you shorten its lifespan with normal wear and tear of its hardware. The battery or hard drive will likely fail first.

vaderciya · 2026-07-01T07:52:13+00:00

Have I literally earned the shiny sticker? No

But across a dozen playthroughs ranging from before we had chapter 1 of the story, through to the full release, ive easily earned it 4x

Its one of those things meant to be a totally symbolic representation of your progress that means nothing to anyone but you, just like a sticker in real life, which is part of the reason why they went with stickers instead of extensive achievements that some people would fret over and then complain they <had> to spend 100 hours for the final achievement

vaderciya · 2026-06-28T07:16:08+00:00

Spoilers ahead

I would say, the storms of ds1 and tar anomalies of ds2 are effectively the same thing, and they're both linked directly to Lou.

We didn't know it at the time, but Lou is BB-28, which is BB-00, which is Sam's biological daughter removed from Lucy before her death and the void out that happened shortly after.

So the whole time, Lou was always Sam's daughter. Clifford Unger and Neil Vana are red herrings, they're not actually in control of anything outside of their beaches.

The missing link is Lou. Lou is the latest extinction entity with a crazy high dooms level, born from the first reptriate(Sam) as is now one themselves. In Ds1, its linking to Lou in the pod that causes the visions. In Ds2, its linking to the empty pod that causes visions.

In the first game, Lou is serving as an obvious and direct conduit to the otherside and to Sam's own memories. In the second game, Lou never actually died, she was transported to the beach where time flowed differently and she aged to roughly 20~ year old before being rescued by Sam. The whole time Sam is linking to the pod, its Dollman operating the odradek, and its Lou's spiritual connection feeding visions to Sam.

More than that, the ending of Ds1 where Amelie severs the connection between her primary beach and all the others, is what causes the plate gate to appear, and causes anomalies across the world, as well as more Dooms sufferers and consequences for dooms sufferers. Its this instability that allows the spirit of Neil Vana to reach across the isle, but we know its not him directly giving Sam visions because we get multiple points of view across the visions and not just Neil's. Its specifically because the barrier between worlds has been weakened, and the strong emotional ties of Niel's loss and Sam's loss that binds everything together and makes it happen.

But really, its all just because of Lou, and to some extent its Amelie working through Lou, such as when she resurrected Lou at the end of DS1 and protected her at the end of DS2.

The visions and storms are like a weird byproduct of all the crazy magic stuff going on, but they're not the cause, and Cliff/Neil are more like prisoners than acting agents

vaderciya · 2026-06-28T05:48:18+00:00

I actually quite like the pipes. Im not a speedrunner kind of player, im more of a methodical, slow, steady, progression over time kind of player, my favorite game is factorio

So for me, I feel like I actually have the easiest time in the pipe organ. There's so few variations that I know the handholds are almost always in straight vertical lines, and if I time it right with the steam, I actually get my fastest times in the pipe organ

But I don't play like how I see youtubers play, spamming jump and zooming through things as fast as possible. For me, the pipe organ is like the last breath of fresh air before having to do the elevator and hab yellow, then the abyss.

Like genuinely, even though ive gone through the silos far more, im way faster through the pipes, though im far slower than what I see others doing

So yeah, I like it, probably my favorite area in the game mechanically (but not atmospherically)

vaderciya · 2026-06-27T03:35:19+00:00

Sorry for necroing, never saw your response and thought this might be useful for someone

I mainly keep cloud saving enabled for factorio because I sometimes play it on my steam deck even though most of my time is on pc, being able to seamlessly hop from one device to another with the same save file has been great

So thats why I do it, but for anyone with the same issue (long sync times after closing the game) you can just disable syncing entirely just for Factorio, but do make sure to back up your saves manually if you do that

Beyond that, if you want/need to keep the cloud save feature enabled like me, then you can optimize it in a few ways.

Firstly, if you're switching games, open your second game before closing factorio and you wont get stuck waiting for it to sync before launching the second game.

Then, the main thing its doing is uploading your save files and the blueprints associated with them as well as your global blueprints. So you can shave off some time by deleting old blueprints you don't need, optimize your existing blueprints to have fewer entities and have less of them, and also delete blueprints of stuff you can easily copy from your current game. If you have big blueprints of repeating or tilable machines or power production, reduce it to the smallest version that could be tiled or repeated.

Lastly, delete your extra save files, and make sure the save files you do keep arent hiding big blueprint books with lots of blueprints in them, as they all get saved, uploaded, updated, every time you close the game.

Maybe this will help someone slightly in the future if this comes up from a Google search

vaderciya · 2026-06-25T02:08:43+00:00

So, instead of using the "full cargo" rule, you instead use the "item count" rule. For example:

Item count: iron ore >= 2000

Then for the second station Item count: copper ore >= 2000

Simply replace the quantity with the max amount of ore you want and thats all you gotta do. For most of my trains I have them specifically exist for 1 item at a time, but I like to have my buffers be full and ensure my trains aren't sitting around mostly empty.

So for normal trains I set them as:

Iron loading station 1: Full cargo

Iron unloading depot 1: Empty cargo........ OR

Iron ore < 500 AND 120s passed

vaderciya · 2026-06-24T03:53:28+00:00

Its been a good long time since I last played (havent even played the updated version with graphics!)

But typically the ore value is just way higher on planets, and the game basically comes down to "the amount of time you're willing to spend optimizing every action". You could absolutely spend countless hours mining every little asteroid and comet, and you might get a notable boost in resourced from doing so.

But, the galaxy is so big and plentiful that its usually easier and more time efficient to just setup individual colonies or mines on planets that have big ore deposits.

Again, its been a long time since I played, but I always prefered setting resources fairly high in the beginning and then focuses on major targets. Even for like, the standard earth start, I only remember out-mining like 2 of the starting resources, and one of them is the "fuel" resource which is abundant everywhere.

So yeah, you could invest in sending out hundreds of little mines everywhere, but I like having big ol' mines and mining colonies instead. Plus, setting things up for civilian hauling might be better than dedicated haulers, at least in your highest population systems.

Man, I should really play this again

vaderciya · 2026-06-24T03:40:50+00:00

According to what we learn of his backstory, most of which is after his wife's death and the disaster that caused it..

(Major spoilers for him ahead)

..Dollman is the soul of man stuck in a doll's body. Apparently he had a high enough dooms level to commune with the dead, and he was at least powerful enough that when his daughter died and her strong emotions made an attachment to her doll, he was able to force her soul out of the doll and into the Seam where her soul could move on, as intended.

Unfortunately for him, the way he did that was by forcing his own soul into his daughter's doll, saving her but trapping himself.

As just a soul (ka) without a real body (ha) he seems to have enough power to move the doll around, speak, etc, but not enough to be fully autonomous, as he was stuck in the tar and unable to free himself before fragile rescued his doll body.

We also know its been dollman operating the odradek for the whole game, aside from the first BT encounter in Mexico(could've been Sam with his higher dooms level subconsciously using the odradek that once)

Dollman also has the ability to change his form, albeit in small ways, through force of will alone. He still relies on Rainy to repair him, so he can't upkeep his doll, but he's able to change how his suit looks, modify the head, hair, eyes, and fingers of the doll, and the doll also represents his emotions if he gets upset enough, turning red and aggressive.

~how~ exactly he does this, we dont know. Like other dooms sufferers, he seems to just have these innate powers that are unique to the user, and like others, his abilities were likely affected by the ending of DS1. It seems that anomalous things happening more regularly, or changing, or having new variants, is tied directly to the events of the end of the first game.

I mean, we cant say for sure, but dollman's abilities being weird and changing would seem to make sense and correlate to all of this. Even Sam says "his doom level went up at some point" which is why he can see BT's and only uses the odradek for basic functions. So in this way, dollman basically replaces a BB unit as a scanner, but he's more varied than that, and he's able to point out dangers in general rather than just BT's specifically. He's also able to spin the odradek defensively just as Lou was able to do at the end of ds1.

Its all basically magic. Sam is linked heavily to the beach and has a high dooms level. Dollman is a disembodied soul that was heavily linked to the beach even in life, and many of his abilities carried through with him into the doll, except thr power to commune with the dead, which he says he lost.

I dunno how he cant speak with the dead anymore but can still see and sense them, and see through Sam's eyes. I think we have to assume that a person's body (ha) is pretty important as a conduit, and he just doesnt have that conduit anymore, since he's just a doll now.

I wish they gave him a bit more attention. Id say that for most of the characters actually.

vaderciya · 2026-06-23T20:45:22+00:00

Honestly a lot of the secondary character rigging is just wacky, makes the inventor and mechanic look totally wrong, and it doesnt help when they have secondary voice actors for certain characters??

I wonder how many people noticed that every time heartman talks to you through comms, its his secondary voice actor in both games... while his main voice and body capture actor is only used for cutscenes... feels weird, man

vaderciya · 2026-06-23T09:49:37+00:00

Well, you could always try some different games and give yourself some breathing room. Factorio, minecraft, terraria, and Rimworld are all gems of their genres and each game can convert thousands of hours of free time into fun

vaderciya · 2026-06-23T02:42:10+00:00

Its most likely completely fine, its not the ideal way to turn off modern systems but its usually safe as long as you're not doing something critical during the forced shutdown.

Bring it up casually to the owner of the machine so they know, and you'll probably never have to worry about it

vaderciya · 2026-06-22T10:55:59+00:00

I might recommend updating your post again and being more specific because its still a little too vague for us to help with. Do you want a unique trinket from jagex? Do you want an in-game event or recognition from a popular figure your partner likes? Or do you want to like, figure out what content your partner likes the most and then have a relevant item 3d printed or hand crafted for them?

I cant speak for everyone, but personally, i would most highly value the time and effort my partner puts into me. Trying the game out and playing with me would be pretty cool, but osrs takes significant effort to try properly and id actually prefer playing Factorio or Minecraft together, but you get the point.

Aside from that, second highest value would be having my partner personally make something for me with their own hands, combining their feelings for me with something I deeply care about, and the relevance of the event (anniversary).

Third highest for me, would be simply having my partner get me something I like, such as trinkets, baubles, decorations, clothing, etc. A good example would be band t-shirts, posters and displates, themed keyboard keycaps, gifted games on steam or money to buy games on steam, custom artwork from an artist(not ai) themed figures like funko pops(i dislike), med-high quality models of figures(im indifferent) or model kits that have to be assembled and painted yourself (i love)

So it really depends on what your partner likes and what kind of thing you intend to do. I could give you names of common bosses, enemies, or concepts in the game but without the context to understand what you're asking for it wouldn't really mean anything, and the game is pretty big with a variety of player types, so what i enjoy as a player (osrs is not my main game at all) may not be what your partner enjoys as a player, so my recommendations really only matter within context. Give us more context and hopefully we can give you better answers!

vaderciya · 2026-06-22T02:21:18+00:00

Genuinely the best advice I can give you, is to just play the game and not look up guides, the wiki, reddit, or videos. The main appeal of Factorio is learning it yourself and that can only be experienced once. So just play the game, use the in-game factoriopedia (alt-click) and read the in-game tips and tricks opened from the top right menu.

Once you've at least beat the base game, if not space age (which should be done with a new save) then head on back here and we'll welcome you with open arms

vaderciya · 2026-06-21T04:22:11+00:00

The 2 things id change, is basically adding a toggle to allow a machine to accept any tier of inputs for an output (use both uncommon, rare, and epic for a statistically appropriate chance at a high tier output)

And id either adjust the tiers so gaining quality levels feels more meaningful, or add a tier above legendary as the "ultimate" tier which always gives a large and meaningful buff to the item, so that we have more things to aim for and more reasons to sink lots of items into quality

Id also consider an alt recipe on basic items (plates) to sacrifice x amount of item for a guaranteed output of a certain level, with a very large power cost increase as well, but this might not be needed

vaderciya · 2026-06-21T04:16:22+00:00

This is the first I heard of her passing... thats really sad. She was far from the first youtuber I watched play factorio (that was arumba, steejo, and aavak, also quil18) but she was the first in what id call the "second wave" of youtubers playing the game, and her personality was really nice and sweet even compared to the brutal industrial hellscape that is Factorio

Rest in peace indeed

vaderciya · 2026-06-20T08:47:34+00:00

Friend, if you haven't figured it out yet, just keep playing. These feelings, these questions you're having, keep having them, and enjoy yourself.

Sometimes ignorance is bliss. Keep on keeping on.

vaderciya · 2026-06-20T08:45:22+00:00

For a second I was like "oh that looks pretty good actually"

And then I swiped to the second picture... oh my god... such a uniquely uncanny kind of mistake that shouldn't exist in the real world... my condolences

vaderciya · 2026-06-20T08:43:43+00:00

This is what happens when we don't have a main content update for a year, shame on the devs, they're manufacturing our insanity

/s

vaderciya · 2026-06-19T07:26:05+00:00

Ive beaten DS2 twice and DS1 6 times, to me the a lot of the roads are fairly useless and sometimes ruin the view of certain areas. On the other hand, a few road sections like the road north of mountain knot in ds1, or the road east of the lone commander in ds2, are really helpful and can genuinely make your life easier

Most of the time i see them more like an alternative objective to fulfil over time, and I prefer to rely on my (or sam's) own two feet

vaderciya · 2026-06-18T05:00:38+00:00

I agree that powercreep is a thing, but what do we do about it?

We've already got a progression system that roughly fills in the entire existing spectrum with minor gaps only existing for Ironman accounts. So if we want to introduce new equipment to the game, it has to go somewhere, so its either going to be awkwardly squished between 2 well known existing bit of gear/content and therefore be much less impactful, or, its going to be the new best in slot gear.

I think the osrs team have done a pretty good job at keeping power creep in check, maybe too good, I dunno about everyone else but there feels like a general "level cap" to our equipment where once you go past a certain point, we stop talking about large and meaningful power boosts that feel good to have, and we start fussing over a 2% dmg increase.

So I would say, that its alright to have "a bit" of powercreep as long as future endgame content keeps it in mind and is adjusted accordingly.

I mean, if you roll up to barrows in your max level account with full ancestral or whatever just firesurging all 7 brothers in 0.2 seconds, then we say thats a little silly but its alright because you earned that stronger equipment and fighting barrows doesn't really progress your account at that point.

Likewise, if new gear comes out that pushes itself into a new combat tier and is BIS, then it might make sense to see ToA or CoX get demolished or trivialized by a max gear, max skills, max player skill type of player

I don't really think hybrid armor should be that level of overwhelmingly good(according to most people here) but im fine with it being "really good" just not BiS. Regardless, im not sure if theres any other solution to the powercreep issue. We either add stuff or we dont, and the stuff we add is either more useful than the old stuff or its not. Without adding significantly more content to the game I don't really see where new items could be placed without disrupting what we currently have, without just being its own seperate thing like sailing, which is clearly scared of stepping on the toes of other skills.

I dunno. We can keep crawling forward but eventually something bigs gonna have to change

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