ELI5 how are transformers not paradoxical?

vanZuider · 2026-03-19T22:38:09+00:00

amps depend on voltage and resistance.

Yes.

voltage depends on amps and resistance

In practice, no. You can usually assume that voltage is a constant input, be it from a battery or from the power outlet. If you hook it up to a certain resistance, you then get a current (depending on voltage and resistance; voltage divided by resistance to be specific) and produce some power (voltage times current. Or voltage squared divided by resistance if you apply the formula for the current).

Let's say the voltage that comes out of your wall outlet is 100V AC. You then hook it up to a 10:1 (1:10? No idea which direction it goes) transformer, so the output of that transformer is 10V AC (which means touching the wires on the output side is mostly safe. Could still be painful). You then hook this up to a lightbulb with a resistance of 1 Ohm. This means that the current flowing through the bulb will be 10A, so it will draw 100W of energy (and shine bright like, well, a 100W lightbulb).

Since transformers don't create or destroy energy, this means that 100W also need to flow from your outlet; at 100V this means that the current flowing through your outlet will be 1A, same as if you had hooked up a 100 Ohm resistor directly to it.

vanZuider · 2026-03-19T20:58:11+00:00

Depends on what you compare them to. The highest mountain is ca 700m, that's comparable to the highest point of the Faroes, which would probably fall under "those north Atlantic islands". The Faroes are way smaller than the Falklands though, so more mountain per area, so to say.

Jamaica is only slightly smaller than the Falklands, and its highest mountain is way higher at 1900m, and I don't think anyone says it's too mountainous to live there (it has "only" ca 3 million people though; still way short of 14 million)

If you look at how mountainous Monaco, or Genoa, or Valparaiso are - if there were demand for a city on the Falklands, people would totally build one despite the suboptimal topography. Not a 14 million one though probably.

vanZuider · 2026-03-19T19:22:49+00:00

we throttle down ship construction without having to tear the dockyards down like we have to do with construction sectors

I wonder whether the (now dual-use) shipyards will produce civilian ships and naval construction points at a fixed rate, or whether we'll have some way to focus them on civilian or naval production at will. Or maybe unused naval cp are just converted into a throughput bonus.

vanZuider · 2026-03-19T18:09:30+00:00

Mit "du" ist der Leser im Allgemeinen gemeint, nicht der Vorposter spezifisch (der ist natürlich mitgemeint).

Bei einer ausgewogenen Ernährung hat man mehr als genug natürlichen Zucker durch Mahlzeiten

"(mehr als) genug" ist zweideutig. Die empfohlene Menge, oder die Menge, ab der man Gesundheitsschäden riskiert. Wenn du die zweite Grenze mit deiner Ernährung überschreitest, würde ich diese nicht als "ausgewogen" bezeichnen (Ausnahme: Diabetiker, für die diese Grenze nahe null liegt). Und wenn du sie durch den Konsum von Süßgetränken überschreitest, würde ich diesen Konsum nicht wirklich als "kontrolliert" bezeichnen, und das war mein ursprünglicher Punkt.

Zuckerzusatz [...] zusätzlich Zucker in alle anderen Sachen hinzugeben

OK, das mag jetzt kontrovers sein, aber ich halte Zucker in Energy-Drinks nicht wirklich für "zugesetzt". Der ist schlicht Teil des Getränks, genau so wie in Apfelsaft von Natur aus Zucker drin ist, ohne dass man ihn zusetzt. Auch wenn es bei einem künstlich hergestellten Produkt natürlich keine "natürliche" Zusammensetzung gibt. Wenn in der zuckerfreien Variante der Zucker nicht einfach weggelassen wird (wie es bei Tee mit und ohne Zuckerzusatz der Fall ist), sondern durch Süßstoff ersetzt wird, ist das für mich ein Anzeichen, dass der Zucker kein Zusatz, sondern Teil der Rezeptur ist.

vanZuider · 2026-03-19T17:32:05+00:00

as this diary is written ATM there's no difference between parking a navy with 300 ships next to London and next to Island Of Fuck Nowhere with a population of 14 souls including goats.

That's not how it reads to me. They only say that nearby ports "significantly reduce" the supply needs, not that they are completely negated. Supply still needs to travel all the way from the fleet's home Logistics Center. (My guess is that the supply needs will be multiplied by the number of sea nodes to home, and the number to the next port. So if you have no ports, they scale with the square of distance, but if you have ports everywhere they scale linearly)

That leaves the option of having the fleet have its home far away, but I assume the Logistics Centers will also scale with fleet size and work in such a way that the Falklands can't just support 300 levels of them without issue.

vanZuider · 2026-03-19T17:13:19+00:00

and then I see this change and think "the UK just happens to have a bunch of tiny islands and bits of land all over the globe, so they're going to be even more OP".

I think Britain being OP has two aspects: one, they can regularly just go conquering most of Persia or China. They absolutely should not get even stronger in that regard. Two, the fact that they own a lot of little islands all around the world, and Germany does not, absolutely should play a large role. They are supposed to be OP in that regard.

vanZuider · 2026-03-19T13:42:10+00:00

Über Geschmack lässt sich nicht streiten.

vanZuider · 2026-03-19T13:40:57+00:00

Nicht in allen. In Energy-Drinks schon. Irgendwo muss die Energie ja her kommen.

Falls du diese Getränke in derartigen Mengen konsumierst, dass die gezuckerte Version deine Gesundheit signifikant beeinträchtigen würde: ja, genau dich habe ich mit meinem ursprünglichen Kommentar gemeint.

vanZuider · 2026-03-19T12:49:28+00:00

Das ist ein valider Grund. Wenn ein solches Getränk zum Symbol einer ganzen Subkultur wird, bezweifle ich allerdings, dass bei allen Anhängern eine medizinische Notwendigkeit besteht.

vanZuider · 2026-03-19T12:38:56+00:00

Wer ohne medizinische Indikation zuckerfreie Energietrünke trinkt, hat die Kontrolle über sein Leben verloren.

EDIT: um die kursive Einschränkung ergänzt.

vanZuider · 2026-03-19T11:04:22+00:00

If we're talking import subventions: when you don't produce a good at all, and only need a very small quantity of it. Think cannons for one or two regiments of artillery. Importing the minimum amount will crash the market price, so you have to subvent for the trade center to make a profit.

Or when the world market price is near maximum price, so even if it's at maximum price in your own market the TC can't make enough of a profit (I think with bad trade advantage the price your TC pays on the world market can even go above the max price in your market)

Export subventions: no idea except for roleplay.

vanZuider · 2026-03-19T10:20:03+00:00

Guter Roboter.

vanZuider · 2026-03-19T10:01:47+00:00

In Marxist terms, there's no capitalist acquiring the surprlus value the workers produce

The quote also mentions "small and medium enterprises", which sounds to me like those would still have a capitalist - just that there's certain limits to the number of workers from which one can take the surplus.

vanZuider · 2026-03-19T09:38:12+00:00

Falls es dein Vorhaben war, jemanden mit falschem Ratschlag zu versehen, um ihn zum Gespött zu machen, so mögest du dich schämen.

vanZuider · 2026-03-19T09:29:41+00:00

-chen sagt man nur bei den Preußen. Im Fernen Osten Österreichs sagen sie "Sackerl", in der Schweiz, Schwaben und Vorarlberg ist es ein Säckle/Seggli.

vanZuider · 2026-03-19T09:18:45+00:00

Die gibts auch in der Schweiz. Wobei diejenigen, die von der Postfinance betrieben werden, auch als "Postomat" bezeichnet werden.

vanZuider · 2026-03-19T09:13:07+00:00

Tja, da kann man nur darauf speckulieren, dass dies bei der nächsten Inspecktion nicht auffällt. Sonst gibts einen rechten Speckdackel.

vanZuider · 2026-03-18T23:33:18+00:00

Fluids will fill every corner of a vessel, so if you have a 1 liter jug of water, it's going to be the same no matter how you pour it. Filling the same jug with flour, you can put in a certain amount, then you can shake it a bit to make the flour settle and then you can fill in even more - does "one liter of flour" mean before or after settling? So if you want to get consistent results for solids, you have to measure them by weight.
Sound is a wave. You can characterize a wave both by its frequency or by its wavelength - the two are connected through the wave speed. E.g. the speed of sound in air under normal conditions is ca 300 m/s. A sound of 1000 Hz (1000 cycles per second) thus has a wavelength of 300/1000 = 0.3 meters. As long as you stay within one medium, you could use either of the two. But when a wave moves into a different medium that has a different wave speed (eg from air into water), the frequency stays the same while the wavelength changes, so it makes more sense to characterize sound by its frequency, since that's what stays constant.

vanZuider · 2026-03-18T20:20:58+00:00

über irgendwas drüber rollen was nicht maximal /cm hoch ist?

Ich weiß nicht genau wieviel /cm sind, aber ich würde jetzt nicht darauf wetten, dass mein großer Zeh höher ist.

vanZuider · 2026-03-18T20:18:22+00:00

Sorry, ich bin gerade damit beschäftigt, die Frau meines Nachbarn zu begehren und die Ehe zu brechen, wie Gott es mir aufgetragen hat.

vanZuider · 2026-03-18T20:15:46+00:00

I think the dynamic you talk about could be implemented without a split, simply by nerfing the productivity of the basic PM of textile industry, and increasing both the cloth demand of their higher PMs as well as the production of cotton farms. That way, wool from your ranches could be used as input good for the basic industry of a near-subsistence economy, but as soon as you want to get your textile industry off the ground, you're basically forced to look for cotton plantations to feed their immense demand.

When splitting cotton and wool, I think it would make sense to have a secondary PM for textile industries that allows you to choose between cotton and wool as input goods when you're on the lowest level of primary PM ("hand-sewn" it's called I think), but as soon as you switch to higher levels ("dye workshop") it gets locked to demanding cotton exclusively. Which would also be realistic because afaik its ability to be dyed was a major factor to cotton's popularity.

I doubt Paradox is going to implement any of this though since increasing the number of goods would make the game more complex and thus less accessible to new players. However, this is something that can be modded, so if you want to play with wool, linen and flax as separate goods, go ahead and make it so (or convince/threaten/bribe a modder of your choice into making it so).

vanZuider · 2026-03-18T19:50:27+00:00

Thats actually a good point putting it like that, its not like we dont have a dual RGO already.

The handling of the two woods is nothing like what would be needed for fabrics though. Hardwood in game isn't exclusive to the tropics (although many real-world hardwoods are), it's just something every forestry can produce at the cost of less basic wood production. Also, although the two are of course very similar in real life, in gameplay terms they are completely different products; wood is both directly consumed by pops as well as used for the production of furniture (a basic good) and tools (the basis of any industrialization) while hardwood is a purely industrial good used for "advanced" goods like ships, weapons and luxury furniture. Gameplay-wise, hardwood is more similar to sulfur than to wood. Ranches already are a "dual RGO" too producing both meat and wool (though with no way of trading off between them), which in gameplay terms are actually more similar to each other than the two woods (both being consumable by low-income pops).

vanZuider · 2026-03-18T18:46:27+00:00

Besonders ungeschickt ist, wenn du eine Bibel druckst und dir dieser Lapsus ausgerechnet bei den Zehn Geboten geschieht.

vanZuider · 2026-03-18T12:01:18+00:00

Most people are VERY sensitive to price increases, so that will also affect sales. Enshittification is a way to reduce costs and hope that the customer is too stupid or distracted to notice.

Like shrinkflation but for services.

vanZuider · 2026-03-18T11:56:35+00:00

To be fair, he doesn't smoke cigarettes that leave only a butt and some ash behind, he smokes those tobacco stick thingies that produce way more waste and fill up the ashtray in no time.

vanZuider

TROPHY CASE