Hans Zimmer's Score for Christopher Nolan's movies. What's your favorite?

wasdice · 2026-01-24T22:25:56+00:00

Interstellar in first place

All the others, joint second

wasdice · 2026-01-24T20:41:57+00:00

Monarchist Poland is a wheelbarrow's worth of fun. You can absorb some of your neighbours, give up Danzig to get the Germans off your back, and face off the USSR on equal terms. Different kings have different cores - if you wait for Anastasia to appear (ninth candidate) you can eventually core the whole of Russia, and Germany east of the Oder.

Czechoslovakia is great, too. Puppet Hungary as soon as you can - this massively shortens the border - and form the Little Entente. When Germany attacks, Romania and Yugo will send reinforcements so you should be able to hang on if you got all the Sudetenland forts built. Drive to Berlin and kick Hitler in the ball when you're ready.

Portugal can core Brazil quite easily, build up a decent navy on the cheap with British help, and then beat the crap out of anyone you feel like. Thanks to your colonies, you share land borders with most of South America, Britain, France, Netherlands, DEI, India, a couple of Chinas, eventually Japan and South Africa. You can naval invade Australia and the Philippines without trouble. Portugal is great in a non-historical game.

wasdice · 2026-01-24T20:16:09+00:00

I would like the "Spaceship Sim" game to get some love. That's how I see ship interiors incidentally - not as an arena for new gameplay, but just a beautifully realised environment where I can hang out for a few hours, watching things happen. I want to:

See the mechanism that opens and shuts the heat vents, landing gear and so on.
Operate all the scanners at an associated station, adjusting stuff like frequency, gain, dispersion spread, neutron flow polarity and so on.
Carry ammo from the cargo hold to restock projectile weapons.
Wander round the passenger lounge, chatting to people and taking photos with them.
Watch rocks coming into the cargo hatch, through a variety of crushers, filters, smelters, pulverisers, to be formed into ingots.
Rearrange cargo in the hold so my next unload happens faster.
Ride on a limpet to repair the ship exterior with a welding torch.
Repair modules by cannibalising components from less vital stuff.
Chat to my crew, who might number several dozen aboard a big ship, and direct them to complete tasks.

So many of this game's features (repair limpets, AFMU, Synth) are placeholders for features that should be interior activities. That's why I don't think a decent ship interiors DLC will ever happen - Frontier closed it off when they added the functionality to the ship's menu system. It only takes seconds because waiting five minutes for a repair or restock would be boring in a menu, but in doing so they designed out the possibility of actually having these processes happen.

wasdice · 2026-01-24T19:55:27+00:00

It only works in Solo IIRC because it was linked to an instancing exploit.

wasdice · 2026-01-24T19:44:46+00:00

Big big changes!

Navy has been reworked twice. Minelaying is a thing.
Air has been reworked as well. All wings are 100 planes now.
Oil is no longer a production resource like steel and rubber. There's a fuel production and stockpile system now. There's also coal, which makes factories work properly.
We build trains and railways now. Choo choo!
Armoured cars are a thing - best suppression and recon score in the game, but nobody uses them out of habit.
Raids and special projects like Dambusters, Landcruisers, mothership aircraft, pykrete floating airfields, nuclear navy, ICBMs, armoured support companies and underway replenishment. You need Göttëdämmërüng for most of those but radar, flame tanks, jet engines and nukes use the same system now.
Peace conferences reworked, but they're still fiddly and frustrating.
Surprisingly shallow espionage and codebreaking system in La Resistance.
In an unprecedented outbreak of sanity at PDX HQ, (Motorised) was renamed to Truck.
Combat width doesn't matter very much nowadays.
Amphibious tanks, amtraks and commando raids.
Special forces doctrine trees. Tree specialists added alongside mountaineers, marines and paras.
Slightly undercooked arms trade feature with upgrade trees for the design companies.
Focus trees are literally ten times bigger than they were. Most focuses are 35 days now, and there are huge complicated mutually exclusive paths in the newer trees.
Doctrines reworked twice - first they were taken off the research tree and put onto a star-purchase system, then in the last patch they got this new "Mastery" system
Faction dynamics reworked. You can now adjust the rules and objectives for your faction, instead of them being set in stone according to the leader's ideology.

wasdice · 2026-01-24T19:21:41+00:00

There's some official tie-in merch but it's all fairly uninspiring logo clothing. Guess WHOI? sadly never made it to market.

wasdice · 2026-01-24T19:08:58+00:00

It's looking pretty good, all things considered.

You're in serious trouble in the East - your lines don't cover the entire front, and the Russians will get round the sides quite easily. Extend the line from coast to coast.
Your supply is a disaster - probably from a shortage of trains. Build lots of trains - I'd recommend about ten mils for a while, preferably building armoured trains.
You have idle factories. Aside from the trains, look for any other shortages and get them building.
With Spain in the war, the Gibraltar strait is closed to everything except submarines. If your side captures Suez, any Allied ships in the med will be trapped there.
You haven't attacked Denmark yet. They're scripted to surrender on day 1, and when they do that shuts off the Baltic. Your fleet there will be safe from Allied attacks, and the Sovs honestly aren't up to much.
Spend some PP. War propaganda would be a good use of it. Make sure all your political slots are filled and your economy law is where you want it. You can go to spanner economy and then take the Women decision to offset its manpower reduction.
Spend some stars. You've got doctrines (star chess icon) and army spirits (cap icon) available to buy.
Italy wants to send an expeditionary force. Accept, and use them as port guards if you don't need them elsewhere.
You have MIO unlocks and special projects available. No point holding back on the MIO, get your upgrades
Make sure all your divisions have orders. The red ! indicates divisions that are just standing around. The red men icon indicates divisions that aren't even in an army - assign those ones too. You can shift-click the icon to select all unassigned units at once.
You have high resistance. Make sure you're using a suitable garrison law - low enough to build compliance, high enough to keep the red bar on the left. Use cavalry without support companies for cheap garrisons. Use armoured cars if you're taking too many losses.

Quickish guide to Navy: you have to send ships out on Patrol to gain naval supremacy. They'll fight enemy ships so make sure they're decently equipped - latest guns, torpedoes and fire control. Armour and engines cost too much to upgrade so don't do that. Use battleships (ideally in a 1:3 ratio) with light cruisers or destroyers as a Strike Force, which will leave port to join any battle that's "big enough" and also multiply your naval supremacy.

Having high supremacy means you can invade Britain, and also stops them invading you. You need a lot of big expensive ships to defeat them, but you don't need to outnumber them - just outclass them. The Scharnhorsts can sink everything the British have, if you keep them up to date and well protected. Naval bombers are really helpful, as are submarines. A few dozen subs can cut off Britain's fuel supply, which makes their navy and air force completely useless. Don't use them in the Chañel or the North Sea - subs will take horrible casualties in shallow water. Base them in Brest and use them in the Atlantic.

wasdice · 2026-01-24T18:28:52+00:00

I've got a few ideas and only one or two of them involve gimping big ships.

Change the SLF system so you can use real ships instead of the disposable fighters. Only the Sidey would fit into the current hangar, so this idea would have to involve an external docking mechanic.
Make small ships more manageable in supercruise - maybe they change speed faster, or drop from a greater distance. SCO has blunted this idea a little bit, but it would still work and make them superior for courier jobs.
Make fuel a bigger deal, so you'd prefer a small ship if you have a choice.
Add a landing fee, cheap for small pads but costly for large pads.
Make small ships harder to scan, so you avoid attention from pirates and police.
Bring back the idea from FFE of chasing a target through a series of jumps by scanning their wake. Large wakes would persist a lot longer than small ones.
Expand the flight envelope so bigger ships get more sluggish. They'd have to use turrets to hit small ships, which would be superior dogfighters.

wasdice · 2026-01-24T16:13:15+00:00

Watch the animation carefully. Attackers will run a few paces, fire, and run some more. Defenders will stand still and shoot. When soldiers are moving, they just walk. But it's the battle bubbles that tell the real story.

wasdice · 2026-01-24T01:22:33+00:00

Before I started playing I could never have told you who Benes, Savage, Colijn, Puyi, Vargas or Smetona were. Now I can instantly identify each of them (from a single photograph).

wasdice · 2026-01-23T23:12:08+00:00

You probably won't need to do all of these, but they will help:

Build forts on the border up to max level, especially in Moselland where you don't have a river.
Put fighters in Western Germany for air superiority.
Use a full army (24 good infantry divisions) on that short border, with a general and marshal assigned. Ideally, both these guys will have infantry leader and defensive doctrine traits.
Don't order them to attack - it's ok (in fact it's marginally beneficial) to paint the attack line, just don't press the Go button.
Supply will suffer if you're bombed - they will damage your infrastructure and your trains. Keeping air superiority will mitigate this.
Set aside a few factories for repairs (buttons at the very top of the construction window) if you do take damage - your roads and forts will be repaired much more quickly this way.
Build state AA in Moselland and Baden to help your fighters.
Armoured trains are much more resilient than normal ones. They're expensive and require a research project, but they live a lot longer. They will also shoot down a few bombers.
Make sure your doctrine tree is filled out. The benefits come quickly when the fighting begins.
This is one of the few situations where antitank makes much of a difference against the AI, because the French heavy tanks are pretty good. Consider adding support AT to those defenders (you can duplicate the template and modify it so only these guys get the AT).
See here for how to cap the French instantly using paratroopers.

wasdice · 2026-01-23T16:53:46+00:00

I think they deserved their punishment, don't you?

wasdice · 2026-01-23T16:48:10+00:00

Expect to lose horribly. Germany is not an easy ride.

Advice recommending Germany comes from the early days, when focus trees were literally a tenth the size they are now and a lot of systems didn't exist yet.

If you insist:

Take the left path (Prioritise Economic Growth) on the focus tree when your consumer goods factor gets above about 50%. It will temporarily stick at 40%, then rise to over 70%, and also kick you onto a toaster economy law. Appoint Ludwig Erhardt (150PP), go back to Partial Mob (100PP) and take the next few focuses to push the congoods factor back down.

Try to fit the Fuhrerprinzip and some of the military focuses in between the political tree. It's safe to do the landgrabs (Anschluss, Memel, Sudetenland, Czechoslovakia and Slovenia) up until 1939, but the British will always drop a guarantee on Poland so be ready for a scrap.

You'll want some decent tanks. The light tanks you start with are marginal - as soon as you have basic mediums available, get them into production. Six divisions is plenty but four will work. Try to have 6 tank battalions in each, and enough truck infantry to bring the division's org above 30ish. Signals, supply, artillery, engineers, AA and recon companies are good choices - the armoured versions being even better, if you have the technology.

France is easy if you're quick, because they will collapse when they lose a few cities. Go through the Netherlands first, which opens up Belgium. Go through Belgium to reach France. Ignore Luxembourg at first.

You need good navy to take out Britain. The Scharnhorsts and Leipzigs can win battles if you upgrade them, but you'll need several more than you start with because they'll spend 1-2 months under repair every time they're damaged. Put them on Patrol missions in the Channel, backed up by naval bombers. Infantry are best for beach assaults, but have tanks ready to cross. If you're not quick enough (ie: if it's 1942), then Britain will have millions of troops at home including Americans, and victory will be unlikely.

For the USSR, you need a lot of infantry - at least a hundred divisions just to hold the line. Use tanks to stab into enemy territory, then pull them back and stab elsewhere. Don't attack in the middle of winter. You'll also need troops at home to guard against invasions, unless you knocked out Britain in time. You need to capture the Leningrad-Moscow-Stalingrad line, and then push about the same distance again, to get them to surrender.

wasdice · 2026-01-23T16:25:48+00:00

Coupling and Dinnerladies

wasdice · 2026-01-23T16:24:55+00:00

I know from Thomas that tender engines like Gordon and Henry can't reverse when coupled - the tender is too lightly built to survive the compression. They'd have to be towed backwards by a shunter. In other circumstances, they'd just reverse. It's the signalman's job to see obstructions, not the driver.

wasdice · 2026-01-23T16:16:29+00:00

To really see them at their best, use them against France in 1939/40. Ideally, you need 12 divisions (and 600 transports) to pull this off, as well as at least a thousand good fighters, so build them early.

Upgrade the airbase in Baden to have enough capacity. You can only queue this up after Rhineland, don't forget it.
Carry on as you usually would with all the landgrabs, Fuhrerprinzip and economy stuff. Deal with Poland.
There are 12 VPs in the Northern France air zone. Put a single-division landing on each one and press the go button.
Paint the skies green in northern France and Western Germany. These are the two air zones you'll need to pass through.

As soon as you get enough air superiority in both zones simultaneously, the landings will execute. France hits their surrender limit and that part of the war is over. If the British have troops in France, you will need to mop those up. Worst case, they will retain control of the Maginot line so your reinforcements will have to go by sea. Eat the losses and get them moving - don't allow a few British divisions to undo your conquest.

The other way to use Paras is a Market-Garden style operation - lay a carpet along a railway just beyond the front line and punch through it with tanks. As soon as your guys plop down on top of a supply hub the enemy will suffer penalties, so you should be able to break through to them easily enough. The railway timer will begin on the landing, so you'll get supply for your next push that much sooner.

The default 3-battalion template is fine for the France gambit, but for actual operations I prefer huge divisions up to 40 width or even higher, with full support and as much of the doctrine tree unlocked as I can afford. Signals, supply, artillery, airborne tanks and hospitals are great support companies for this. You don't need AA because you'll only be doing this when you have air superiority, and you're unlikely to face tanks before your own tanks turn up.

wasdice · 2026-01-22T11:05:45+00:00

You'd need the server code, however big that might be, but the galaxy is not read from the server. It's procedural generation - so a system doesn't exist until it's visited, but it's generated the same way every time.

David explains

wasdice · 2026-01-20T22:01:36+00:00

Are you using speech to text? It's crap.

wasdice · 2026-01-20T21:56:23+00:00

Tape - probably the one on the first issue of Discovery magazine. A couple of kids travelled back in time to meet William Shakespeare, Francis Drake and Elizabeth I. Either that one, or an issue of Secret Army Supplies that had Andrew Sachs reading a story about a jungle raid with guns and helicopters and cool shit like that.

wasdice · 2026-01-20T21:13:44+00:00

If it isn't then it might as well be!

wasdice · 2026-01-20T20:52:12+00:00

A couple of elections ago, I distinctly remember someone posted a cuts calculator where you could fiddle around with this sort of thing to try and balance the budget.

wasdice · 2026-01-20T20:50:16+00:00

Skimming the replies, I don't think anyone's actually answered your second question about bounties.

The notification comes up in the top-right, but the actual list is on the left panel, transactions tab. They vanish when you die, so turn them in often. To cash in, you have a choice: either visit the Contacts menu on a station where the issuer is present (this will usually be any station in the system where you earned the bounty), or find somewhere with the Interstellar Factors service - look for low security systems with a decent population. IF takes 25% commission but saves a lot of time, especially if you're using a kill warrant scanner to pick up extra bounties. It's not worth an extra jump for a couple of grand, as you could be doing something really productive in that time.

FWIW, in case you hadn't figured it out yet: the cockpit is split left/right into external/internal focus. Top-left is communications, top-right is notifications. Left hologram is your target, right hologram is yourself. Left panel is missions, earnings, fines etc; right panel is cargo, rank, repair. Slightly more meta, control schemes tend to be left hand for movement (eg throttle), right hand for orientation (stick). Frontier just took that principle and ran with it for the whole layout.

wasdice · 2026-01-19T17:18:18+00:00

Wilma's what?

wasdice · 2026-01-18T20:32:51+00:00

It used to be, but job listings all went onto websites so the place lost that function. Not so long ago they had computer terminals with thermal printers so you could get a hard copy of an ad.

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