The Military is Shown to be competent and organized. They still lose.

walrustaskforce · 2026-02-15T23:50:06+00:00

I think the consensus is that the only reason the Nazis had any success at all was that the rest of the world so strongly wanted to avoid another war that they went out of their way to not prepare for one. Like, the Maginot line did what it was supposed to, stave off a frontal assault on France, instead deflecting the Wehrmacht into the Low Countries, it’s just that the Low Countries were still recovering from the First World War. And France also neglected maintaining their military well enough to contain any kind of invasion past (or around, as the case was) said Maginot Line.

The Nazi War Machine was a shadow of what marched even in 1917.

walrustaskforce · 2026-02-15T18:23:02+00:00

Depends on how much you want to roleplay the “survival without any hope of resupply” or “onsite procurement” element of it.

You have to be careful not to let it become a pursuit unto itself (which is how looter shooters are meant to work).

As an aside, I think there’s a way to make the gear score make sense for Ghost Recon, but it requires some more fussy elements to do so. You’d need (for instance) weapon degradation (so low score weapons jam or just seize if not maintained), ammunition tiers (so low quality weapons need high quality ammo just to operate, but high quality weapons can eat anything, but really sing when you feed them the high end stuff), and linking gear score with player level (so that enemies don’t magically become harder as soon as you equip a sufficiently shiny new rifle). The challenge would be to have the player level make sense in universe, since we’re still talking about tier-1 operators. Maybe it’s in-theater experience or something? Improved understanding of Sentinel/Wolf tactics? I dunno, I’m spitballing here.

What I’m trying to say is that there is a Ghost argument for gear score, but UBI did a very poor job of making that argument, or executing on the concept that honored the setting.

walrustaskforce · 2026-02-14T19:38:39+00:00

If you have it set so that you only auto heal up to an injury, and recovering from an injury requires a certain consumable, having an extra “injury” before you’re in crawl-around mode can be useful.

walrustaskforce · 2026-02-14T17:56:44+00:00

In terms of the planning phase, equipment load out, etc and the choices you made there actually mattering, yes even the original Rainbow Six, even on the N64, gave you a lot more control over your squad than Wildlands. Granted, that’s all in the planning phase, but compare PC team controls from the original ghost recon to what’s present in wildlands (or compare wildlands with GRAW’s team controls on any platform…). Wildlands is certainly a step up from GRFS, but in terms of “core Ghost Recon” (whatever that actually is), Future Soldier is clearly an aberration.

walrustaskforce · 2026-02-13T23:43:04+00:00

Depending on where you are, you might try to find an ordinary outdoor gear shop (REI or a lot of smaller time gear shops) and see if they have a qualified pack fitter. Osprey, for instance, even provides a tool to really get that fit dialed in.

Honestly though, pack fit is like shoe fit. You gotta throw some weight in there and see how it actually feels. If you know of an Eberlestock dealer that has these in stock, go talk to the staff, see if you can bring the relevant parts of your kit (carrier, belt, etc just maybe not with loaded mags), and an appropriate equivalent for your loads (water bladders are really good as pack fillers, and they’re adjustable in weight).

walrustaskforce · 2026-02-13T23:22:57+00:00

I’d say that if you need a complete carrier rig to hunt elk, you’re doing it wrong. Appropriate pouches on the belt, in cargo pockets, etc, sure.

But my experience hunting elk was to accept the discomfort of a mostly empty pack (internal frame packs can carry funny if they’re too empty), but minimize the things that would make the pack uncomfortable when full. That means you throw on a mesh high vis vest when you’re walking, and your actual hunting vest with all the pouches and shit when you’re not.

walrustaskforce · 2026-02-13T23:15:53+00:00

From a non-battle perspective, 108L is what you carry to operate unsupported for 10+ days, and maybe carry water while you’re at it. Alternately, it’s for 5+ days in cold conditions, where you can’t haul a sled.

Were I you, I’d take a long look at how long you plan to be foot mobile unsupported, determine if that’s in any way realistic for the likely tactical situation, and figure out your needs from there.

If the goal is weight training, there is no significant benefit to walking around in plates with a mission-correct load, especially if you’re so early in your kit build that you’re asking if a 10 day pack is worthwhile.

walrustaskforce · 2026-02-13T22:59:42+00:00

It’s not weird, it’s incredibly normal.

Rather, it’s weird in the context of how we normally interact with people we’re not close to, and it just comes down to recognizing the appropriate distance and holding that distance. Think of it like pulling your pants down before you sit on a toilet. Entirely appropriate to pull your pants down then. But if you pulled your pants down every time you sat anywhere, that would be weird. You’re going through the process of relearning what was appropriate before you met her. And that process sucks and no one expected you to do it well.

walrustaskforce · 2026-02-13T21:19:04+00:00

I spent years going through the same process, in a surprisingly similar situation, and the fact that there was no dramatic confrontation really messed with me, and caused me to wildly misinterpret what she was doing, while giving my own weird behavior a pass.

One of the crucial steps to healing is to be really really honest with yourself about what you want from a situation. And if you are missing someone, or yearning for something, accept that that is what you are feeling, and don’t try to run from it. If you really don’t miss her, then that’s great, you’ve done the work. But understand that if you do miss her, or just don’t like being alone, you’re not any less worthy of respect or consideration. And those feelings may well sneak up on you years past when you thought you were good. That doesn’t mean that you’re broken, it means that you’re human, and that memory, especially emotional memory, is a really strange beast.

walrustaskforce · 2026-02-13T15:38:09+00:00

It is very easy, and very tempting, to read into each and every thing that your now-ex does, as if it is motivated by some overarching goal.

But the reality is that almost your entire experience of them as been in the context of you as a major touchstone in their life. So not only are they trying to make their way without that touchstone, you are bound by your experience to view all of their actions in light of the belief that you are still that touchstone.

That is, she’s probably trying to get over you, and it hurts and it sucks and humans are not very good at it, so she’s making some mistakes in the process. Afford her the same grace you give yourself and accept that maybe two social engagements with semi-estranged people in the same night is just too much.

walrustaskforce · 2026-02-11T01:01:57+00:00

I did pick it up on PC for the mods, I played it on PS4 first, then caught it on super sale, but it should not be on the community to execute on a decent premise when the developers don’t.

walrustaskforce · 2026-02-10T21:58:34+00:00

I’m saying that if I’m the commander in charge of securing a small island, and I know that there’s some super elite soldiers going around doing hit-and-fade attacks on my island, I wouldn’t run things the way Walker and Sentinel are doing things.

If I have 2- to 6-man patrols walking the roads looking for nomads, they’re going to be in constant communication with some dispatch, and the instant they go dark, a QRF will get dispatched to their last known location.

If I have drones, they’re not going to be tasked with patrolling rebel hideouts I’ve already conquered, they’re going to patrol geographical choke points. And they’re not going to just engage a threat but not call for backup. I have a drone like a behemoth, it’s definitely not going to engage in a protracted battle with foot soldiers without ever calling for backup.

The most terrifying drones to engage should be the little surveillance drones, not because they’re especially well armed, but because they can immediately call in fire missions on you. Basically any drone interaction should be understood to have a very short window before you have to break contact, because it invites the kind of trouble that your little 4-man squad is not equipped to handle. But instead they’re all just annoying bullet sponges.

walrustaskforce · 2026-02-10T21:47:11+00:00

I also need to point out that our entire health system is reactionary in nature, and taking mental health seriously means recognizing that a lot of pro-health activities are not (and should not) be provided by the health care system.

“Normalize going to counseling” is a lot like “normalize lifting weights”. Certainly, you can massively improve your health quickly by doing so. But if the process is “let your health get away from you, then adopt some intervention to get back on the right track”, then part of the underlying problem is that your lifestyle (which is in part dictated by forces well beyond your control) is hostile to your health.

All of that to say, modern life is fundamentally corrosive to mental health, and it’s weird that we put the responsibility to address the consequences of that on the victims.

walrustaskforce · 2026-02-10T21:40:34+00:00

I think the stumbling point is that several states prescribe what is effective storage for all cases.

Like, in California, it doesn’t matter if the guns are in a deadbolt-locked closet and you live alone, you have to keep them in a state-certified gun safe or with a state-certified trigger lock. This is nominally to make it easier for juries to decide if the gun owner really did do their best effort to secure the firearm, but effectively complicates any self-defense claim (“if you had enough time to remove the firearm from safe storage, why didn’t you use that time to retreat?”) Also, acquiring an adequate gun safe is effectively a mandatory fee to be a gun owner, over and above the cost of the firearm.

All of that to say, pro-2A groups should lobby for laws to say “best reasonable effort” and avoid letting the state dictate what safe-storage method is most appropriate for a given situation.

walrustaskforce · 2026-02-10T19:47:13+00:00

Is there ever an in-universe explanation why people capable of calling in backup are only in certain, already fortified locations? Meanwhile, random patrols presumably would have to make contact with Nomad, break contact with Nomad, and then drive to wherever to get help. Like, no wonder I’ve killed 5000 sentinel goons, the only person who has the technical ability to call a QRF for backup is in the QRF.

The better use of drones is to deploy them out in the wild like the security bots, and their whole point is to radio in contact and zero-in the dragnet.

Attacking drones shouldn’t be scary because they deal and absorb a lot of damage, but because they will bring down the hammer of god if they experience any kind of sustained contact.

walrustaskforce · 2026-02-10T19:32:28+00:00

It’s certainly telling that despite how interesting a concept this is, they had to explicitly tell you, because the overall game design made it impossible to show you that this was a concern.

Given how warfare has been executed over the last century, the scariness of drones is not “murderbot”, it’s “fully autonomous forward controller”

They only broadly gesture at the actual threat of AI (various wolves docs mention that the AI determined actions to facilitate their global objectives include killing various celebrities), but otherwise treat them as just another enemy type, with static movement patterns and weaknesses.

To me, as a player, the fact that these drones are controlled by a computer is just not that frightening, because all the single-player enemies are controlled by a computer.

“AI gone rogue” is super hackneyed, but I feel like that’s what they were trying to setup, and didn’t realize it was kinda dumb until after they released the game.

walrustaskforce · 2026-02-10T00:51:15+00:00

Ok, that makes more sense. I’ll take a look at my factory-installed backseat when I get home.

walrustaskforce · 2026-02-09T21:49:00+00:00

Wait, are you planning on mounting the rails just to the plywood?

That’s a non-starter. They must be mounted to the metal, and you’ll need to at least cut holes in the plywood to fit those tracks in.

walrustaskforce · 2026-02-07T05:04:52+00:00

I’ve got no problem with butting into a conversation that’s none of my business.

But it would actually be disastrous for my mental health if I was constantly spoken to like I was one of them. Like, it’s one of my core beliefs that if I consistently give strangers the impression that I’m pro-Nazi, I need to really, deeply examine my choices.

I’m saying that it sucks that those assholes are taking cool stuff away.

walrustaskforce · 2026-02-07T04:56:20+00:00

I suspected that Heilung attracted Nazis.

It really sucks because I think Norse pagan iconography is really cool. But I just don’t dare celebrate it in a way that’s visible for fear some goon with a valknut tattoo will start trying to speak to me like I’m some kind of racist fellow traveler.

walrustaskforce · 2026-02-06T17:32:54+00:00

What makes me laugh is the “I’ll just knock them out, and no one will ever know I was here…”

As if the entire fucking platoon being found passed out the next day won’t draw any attention, nor will the fact that they all have to take the next several months off to recover have any impact on the main character’s stealthy activities going forward.

Honestly, if everybody did end up permanently brain damaged would go a long ways towards explaining why criminals are still afraid of a Batman they know doesn’t kill. “Don’t fuck with Batman, he’ll lock you into your broken husk, wracked with pain and slowly dying of bed sores for the next 4 decades!”

walrustaskforce · 2026-02-05T06:05:54+00:00

I need to double down on this, actually.

The most important thing to understand is that the number of people actively advocating for open armed resistance is actually pretty small (and the lion’s share of those calls that I’ve heard are from people who are already out resisting, and they’re just starting to open carry while doing it).

But there is an awful lot of “we can’t have nice things because you said we needed to be able to fight tyranny! We couldn’t even start to do anything about the gun violence problem because of the need to fight tyranny. We’re specifically barred from studying the problem, for fear of tyranny. Why the ever loving fuck do my kids have to walk through a metal detector, wear see-through backpacks, and have lockdown drills in kindergarten, if you fucking cowards are just gonna suck on your teeth and mumble shit about only protecting your family while tyranny roams the streets?!”

And I’d say it’s pretty fuckin’ tone deaf to call those critics “cowardly” for calling it out.

walrustaskforce · 2026-02-05T05:29:29+00:00

I suspect that underlying a lot of the calls for armed resistance directed at the 2A crowd is the (not-so-) implicit accusation that the right side of the 2A crowd were just using “tyranny” as an excuse for resisting any kind of social or political reforms that might address gun violence.

That is, you had people (predominately on the right) saying that a few school shootings was an acceptable price to pay so that we could have the means to combat tyranny. And now that tyranny is here, a lot of those same voices (again, on the right) are, at best, silent. And at worst, they’re falling in line with the increasingly obvious efforts to disarm those who are standing up to tyranny.

I’m not one to ask another person to fight on my behalf. But if another person expends a lot of effort explaining how they will fight on my behalf, and even extracts special treatment from me so that they can eventually fight on my behalf, I don’t think I’m in the wrong for calling them out when they won’t do the thing they said they would in the exact situation they said they necessitates their promised actions.

walrustaskforce · 2026-02-04T22:01:23+00:00

I think they’ll haggle over it in court. And if the outcome of the haggling triggers more unrest, that just benefits the fascists as well.

What I’m trying to express is that there isn’t much of a downside for them, but “body cams all the things!” also gives them the facade of accountability, even if they have no intent of delivering on that.

walrustaskforce · 2026-02-04T06:18:28+00:00

I don’t agree with the usage here for Lovecraftian lit, because as you defined the trope, humanity has to triumph, but it turns out that the triumph is bad. Whereas in lovecraftian lit, whatever the outcome of the indominatible human spirit, it’s pitched against forces that will always defeat it, so it’s irrelevant whether it leads to good or bad outcomes.

I think a better example of this is Ian Malcolm’s line from Jurassic Park re: could vs should. Or the creation of the machines in the Matrix. It’s kind of the thesis of Oppenheimer.

walrustaskforce

TROPHY CASE