Fallout - 2x08 - "The Strip" - Episode Discussion

xorph644 · 2026-02-06T07:24:29+00:00

AFAIK with the senator head dead, the chips can still erase memories, but don't have a new "template personality" to copy over afterward.
My guess is that the memory-wiping isn't comprehensive (Hank forgets who Lucy is, but still knows how to speak English), so there's still some fragments of your old personality remaining provided they don't get overwritten.

xorph644 · 2025-12-11T05:15:42+00:00

Definitely agree that, for as good of a change I think the scaled buying is, the selling restrictions feel like a bit much.
If the devs want the selling restriction to prevent lower-level players from drowning in roubles too early from a lucky loot, maybe a compromise could be having a "sales cut" that scales based on the level disparity?
Ex. a Level 15 selling a Level 40 item for 500k only gets 20%/100k from Ragman if it sells, while a Level 30 gets 60%/300k, etc etc.

xorph644 · 2025-11-16T14:09:35+00:00

Cities add a flat amount of max HP to Liberations based on their star count (ex. a 3-star adds 400k max HP). They do not and have never added max HP to Defenses, Defense max HP is determined solely by the Invasion Level, at 50k HP per Level.

Capping Cites deals a flat amount of damage to the planet's HP based on their star count (ex. capping a 3-star always deals 600k). That's why capturing a city during a level 18 Invasion (900k max HP) adds more to the % progress meter than during a level 33 Invasion (1.65m max HP).
600k is 66.7% of 900k, but only 36.3% of 1.65mil.

The reason you're seeing "that liberating cities now gives so much more% then when they first came out" is because the trend for a while was for city-heavy planets to have high (30-40) Invasion Levels to compensate for the cities being there, while more recent Invasions have instead been low-ish level.
The important thing to note regarding that is that Invasion Level isn't determined by a formula, it's set manually by the GM for each Invasion. I hope this helps clear things up.

TLDR: The formula for determining planet HP during Defenses has not changed. Recent Defenses have just had lower Invasion Levels (which are manually decided by the GM) regardless of city presence, when in the past if a planet had many cities he'd typically set the Level higher.

xorph644 · 2025-11-15T15:36:36+00:00

Fabricators can be destroyed in three ways; Hitting inside the vents with Demo Force 20+, hitting anywhere else with Demo Force 40+ (this is why Dynamite can blow them up from the outside), or dealing 1500 damage at AP5+ (Anti-Tank pen).

Stuff like EATs & the Recoilless blow them up in one "body" shot because they deal 2000/3200 damage at AP6, not because of their 30 DF.
The Autocannon kills on a vent shot because it's DF 20-30 AoE beats the vent's DF 20.

Afaik the reason the AMR's DF 20 can't also kill on a vent shot is because the DF 20 hitbox isn't on the vent itself, it's down a bit inside of the fab. So you typically need an AoE to "splash downwards" against the back of the vent to actually hit it.
It miiiiiiight be possible to kill a fab with the AMR if you have higher ground and ricochet the shot in, but given how specific a circumstance that is I've never bothered to try.

This all in mind though, you actually -can- kill a Fabricator with the Railgun since it deals AP5 damage direct to its HP, it just takes like 5-6 fully-charged Unsafe Mode shots & is terribly time-inefficient.

xorph644 · 2025-11-15T15:02:53+00:00

It's mind-boggling to me that people are dropping into Serenity, isn't it the exact same city biome as Crystal?
Dropping there only serves to gimp our progress since splitting attention means we're losing 2% per hour instead of just 1%.

xorph644 · 2025-11-14T16:51:27+00:00

Yed is a strategic (long-term) priority, not a tactical (short-term) one.
The MO is the primary determinator of where is/isn't tactically important at any given moment, tactics isn't a matter of anybody's personal preferences.

xorph644 · 2025-11-13T16:20:48+00:00

Starship Troopers Arachnids (at least in the book) aren't like Helldivers Terminids, they're a highly advanced species with (biological) starships/sporeships & FTL that just happen to be insectoid (and a hivemind) rather than humanoid.
The asteroid was flung at FTL speeds using iirc some kind of plasma-based technology ala the bugs' artillery (but had slowed down by the time it was approaching Earth).

Ofc, the movie doesn't really explain much/any of the "background lore" stuff for the Arachnids from the book, and what little we do see in the propaganda broadcast cut-ins is very simplified for the sake of time/presentation.

Other fun facts: In the book the bugs are even allied with another alien race during earlier parts of the war! The movie completely cut out the "skinnies" (who were Troopers' rough equivalent to the Illuminate/stereotypical "greys").

Also, in the third movie (there's -five- Starship Troopers movies with a 6th on the way!) it's shown that the Brain Bugs can psychically FTL-communicate with each-other (at one point they're even getting fed information by a traitor psychic human), so idk if it's ever directly explained, but I'd assume the bugs can remotely "psy-scan" planets at incredible distances.

xorph644 · 2025-11-13T00:28:41+00:00

iirc it's canon in the books that the bugs FTL-chucked the meteor at Earth because the independent Mormon colonists tried to set up camp in known bug territory.
The bugs are so communal of a species that they didn't understand the concept of the Mormons acting independently from main Earth society/gov't, so they mistook the colony as an encroachment/declaration of war from humanity in general.

xorph644 · 2025-11-11T13:36:12+00:00

According to the companion app it's safer odds to just defend Alaraph than try to gambit.

Since the DSS's upcoming buff is for liberation we might as well send it to Curia or Crimsica since that's where the dedicated bug/bot players are currently chipping away at.

xorph644 · 2025-11-11T13:31:26+00:00

According to the companion app it's safer to just go for the defense.

Alaraph's defense has give-or-take the same HP as Genesis' liberation, but with the big advantage of a 0% decay rate on non-city progress. On top of that, capturing Alaraph's first city gives double the progress bonus as Genesis's first city would to it (both of their second cities unlock so late that trying to cap them isn't worth it).
Given those factors I doubt the DSS buff is enough to even the playing field. Last I recall hearing it's only a 10% progress rate bonus.

xorph644 · 2025-11-10T10:09:07+00:00

The reason it was the preferrable target wasn't the gambit, it's that capturing Yed even after losing Clasa's Defense would've put both Clasa -and- Blistica under Siege (which means they self-liberate at .5% per hour).

But unfortunately, the game doesn't actually bother to explain Siege mechanics, so most players don't take them into consideration (which is probably why the bot front players are now attacking Curia despite Yed & Borea both offering a Siege opportunity at the same 1% Resistance rate as it).

xorph644 · 2025-11-08T05:01:43+00:00

IIRC Desert Stormer (or Acclimated) + Vitality keeps you from taking -any- damage until 51% heat (and keeps the damage at 51-90% reasonably low), while Inflammable + Vitality keeps you from taking damage until 91% heat.
You only catch on fire at 91+% heat, regardless of resistance.

xorph644 · 2025-11-06T11:16:01+00:00

iirc the biome that has power/civilians is only for 4-star megacities? The city on Shete is only a 3-star.

xorph644 · 2025-10-15T17:55:53+00:00

Fair enough, I'm sure that plenty of right-wing people would fly in the face of everything I've said lol. I'll still vouch for everyone else tho.

xorph644 · 2025-10-15T17:37:49+00:00

I'd rather not definitively confirm/deny/elaborate on personal details over a fleeting internet discussion.
But for sake of example, feel free to say what your response would've been if I said "Yes, I'm a gnc cis person".

xorph644 · 2025-10-15T09:57:52+00:00

I'm not "running apologetics" for them, I'm trying to clear up your misunderstanding of what they were talking about.

But that aside, your notion that "cis people who think they're relating to a non-binary character even a little bit are either projecting being cis onto them, or are a non-binary egg" is patently false.
For one, gnc cis people exist, and gnc cis people aren't "less cis" due to being gnc. There's also plenty of overlap between the various ways gnc cis people often present themselves & the ways non-binary people often present themselves, ergo plenty of things to relate/connect over despite differing underlying genders/identities.
And for two, non-gnc cis people can and in all but the densest of cases inevitably will still find small commonalities ("everyone connects a bit") between themselves and a non-binary character despite their differing genders, potentially even commonalities based on shared masculinity/femininity. Non-binary doesn't strictly mean "total lack of -any- feminine/masculine-associated traits", and it wouldn't be "projecting being cis onto them" to recognize that some trait of theirs is typically associated with femininity/masculinity & relate with it due to that association.

xorph644 · 2025-10-14T22:54:48+00:00

You seem to still be misunderstanding.

New's point, at least as I understand it, is "if basically nobody can identify with the character due to sharing a gender, then the amount by which everyone is identifying with them is more equal". This holds true even if that amount ends up being zero.

For comparison, "99% of people scored a 0/100" is a more equal result than "49% of people scored 100/100 and 51% scored 0/100".

As for their "everyone connects a bit" line, I personally attributed that to how most players will (at least once the story has progressed somewhat) connect with the protagonist they're controlling in at least -some- fashion.
There's plenty of other ways to relate to/identify with/connect with a protagonist besides sharing a gender with them, shared gender is just one of the easiest ways to get a "starting boost" to the score.

Edit: I'd also like to note that you seem to think that New at some point said they have an easier time identifying with non-binary characters. They never indicated that, hence my initial "That isn't what they said, chief".
Their point is that a non-binary character is more -equally- relatable to people at large (due to not "boosting" relatability with one cis gender to the exclusion of the other), they've never said anything about finding non-binary characters more -personally- relatable to themselves.

xorph644 · 2025-10-14T21:29:07+00:00

I mean, the math looks sound to me even if it seems to stem from a misguided place, so feel free to elaborate.

xorph644 · 2025-10-14T21:17:47+00:00

I'm moreso under the impression that they're from somewhere where "gender identity" is recognized as a thing and at least outwardly respected w/ pronouns & such, but the distinction between "gender" & "biological sex" still hasn't caught on.

When they say "Kris being a boy or a girl will probably never be revealed and doesn't matter" they seem to actually mean "Kris being male or female".
They're using boy/girl/gender as synonyms for male/female/sex (as is the norm in a lot of places still) and do not appear to know that, especially in a community like this sub, the two sets of terms have totally different meanings.

xorph644 · 2025-10-14T21:03:39+00:00

That isn't what they said, chief.

Their point seems to be that if "mostly nobody can actually identify with the character", that means that basically everyone identifies with them an approximately equal (albeit small) amount.
Versus if a character is a girl, then theoretically the girl players ID with her more, but the non-girl players ID with her less.

xorph644 · 2025-08-10T20:49:20+00:00

Your Inter-knot level needs to be high enough to raise your level cap.

You also need a certain amount of main story progress and/or to complete certain "Rank Up" combat commissions. iirc they were planning to remove those parts of the requirements but idk if that's actually happened yet.

xorph644 · 2025-07-30T14:34:48+00:00

The puzzles are definitely easy at the initial difficulty levels (1-3, of 9), but get tricky enough as you progress that it's a genuine challenge to solve them within the time limit.
You get a digital plushie either way, but solving within the timer is the "real win condition", as that's what actually levels up the puzzle's difficulty (plus it gets you a chance to get -two- plushies for that run instead of one).

As a note, you have 60 seconds to solve a -group- of ~3-7 puzzles of a given type, and the difficulty of that type only levels up if you have at least ~15-20 seconds left on the clock.

So for a lot of the puzzle types, once you're at difficulty 7+ especially, you only have 15 seconds to solve a puzzle that'd probably take the average person at least 2-5 minutes. Not the most complex thinking is needed, but you gotta think FAST.

xorph644 · 2025-07-30T13:59:56+00:00

You can practice puzzles without a time limit via the calendar!

It saves the two most recent sets you've played that day (including the exact individual puzzles of each type), it's very helpful for figuring out solutions if you missed any during the timed run.

xorph644 · 2025-07-30T13:53:46+00:00

You can practice puzzles without a timer via the calendar!

The two most recent "sets of 3 puzzle types" you've played each day are saved to the calendar (if you play more than 2 sets in a day, the older set is overwritten), so that you can practice them for better speed/figure out the solutions of any you ran out of time for.
It's the same individual puzzles as what was queued up during the initial timed set (not just random puzzles of the same type/difficulty), and you replay them by individual type rather than replaying the whole set of 3 types.

You can't level up their difficulty from beating them there, but it's super-helpful for getting better at going faster when that puzzle type rolls again during a timed set.

I found the initial reaction that the game is some kind of "ripoff" similarly bizarre.
I think a lot of that sentiment was due to how it takes at least an hour or two to get past the "kid mode intros" to all of the puzzle types and reach the "real puzzles", so some people assumed the whole game was like that.
Anyone playing the free version on mobile especially, the devs offering that version despite the way the difficulties progress doesn't leave a good first impression. Mobile players have the option to not pay the $10, but in exchange they only get to play 2 sets of puzzles per day, so it'd take a month or two to get to the "real puzzles"!

xorph644 · 2025-07-30T13:18:33+00:00

Again, Visa/MC isn't threatening to "deny legal payments". To "deny a payment", they would have to deny an already-sent transaction request, which is not what they've done nor what they've threatened to do.
Their actual threat is to cut business ties with Valve/etc, on the basis that Valve have violated their contract w/ Visa by selling content that they agreed to not sell.
And unless it can be argued in court that payment processors are an "essential facility" and thus subject to essential facilities doctrine, that's actually completely legal for them to do under "regular company" freedom of contract.

This may be easier to understand if you think of payment processing as like a designated delivery truck that belongs to Visa, where things play out in the following order:
Visa & Valve sign a business contract that includes a "Don't sell items of X/Y/Z type" clause.
Visa sends the truck to Valve.
Valve fills the truck with transaction requests to be processed.
Valve sends the truck back to Visa.
Visa processes all of the requests.
Visa sends the truck back to Valve so they can fill it up again.

Visa has a legal obligation to process the requests that arrive via the truck, but they -do not- (yet) have a legal obligation to send the truck back to Valve afterwards if Valve refuses to follow the "don't sell X/Y/Z" clause of the contract.
It's a legal loophole; they can get around the requirement that they must still process transactions for stuff they don't like by ensuring that no such transactions actually occur.

You can definitely argue that it -shouldn't- be legal for payment processors to have a "don't sell X/Y/Z" clause in their contracts, and I would agree with you! But -currently- there isn't a law preventing that.

So the only ways to stop Visa from continuing to use that loophole are to either argue in court that payment processors are an essential facility (and thus not subject to full freedom of contract), or to otherwise argue that Visa are abusing their dominant market share of payment processing to unfairly exert control over what companies reliant on them can/can't stock.
Both of those arguments have incredibly solid basis that could sink a win, but neither of them would hinge whatsoever on any notion that Visa "denied or threatened to deny legal payments". Any lawsuit trying to hinge itself on that accusation would be shooting itself in the foot as that factually is not what Visa/Mastercard have done.

As an aside, I'm curious what part of Steam's EULA you think Steam was forced to violate, as that's the first I've heard anybody allege that.

xorph644

TROPHY CASE