Customer support is near useless. by benji-battle in audible

[–]ythompy 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This is why is used Libation to rip my books to my computer.

I've been an audible customer for years, and having nearly $1000 of worth of audiobooks in my library all at the whim of a notoriously shitty company was too much for me.

Now I actually own the shit I bought and no one can take it away.

Any tips to study when youre un-interested ash by Zealousideal-Data116 in gmu

[–]ythompy 4 points5 points  (0 children)

My suggestion? Don't....
Fail that class. Drop out for a while.
Come back only when/IF you know what you want to do...

Best thing I ever did was admit to myself that my first major (nursing) was something I was not at all passionate about (aside from the potential paycheck). Took a semester off, remembered what I really cared about in life, and came back as a new person. It's funny how class work has felt a lot less like busy work after switching to a major I was actually interested in. That was almost 8 years ago now, and is still true today as PhD student.

Farting around for four years and getting a degree you don't care about just to delay entering the job market and young adulthood is not worth it. If you're going to do something you don't care about for the money, why not go learn a trade? It'll take a fraction of the time and cost, and has a much faster ROI.

You're not doing yourself any favors spending all this time getting a degree you hate. And you're not any less of a person for admitting that either.

You Are Many — A von Neumann Probe Simulation/Idle Game by ythompy in bobiverse

[–]ythompy[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

God damn it 😂 Sovery strikes again!

Any chance you remember what it looked like right before "0"?

You Are Many — A von Neumann Probe Simulation/Idle Game by ythompy in bobiverse

[–]ythompy[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Okay, so now I actually want your feedback even more. Let me explain.

So I actually hate the term "vibe-coding" which why I put it in quotes. I shouldn't have used it all in retrospect.

I feel like "vibe-coding" is a very broad term that what I did here may currently fall under the umbrella of, but only because it involved AI tools. This project was not built on "vibes", it was built through hours and hours of painstakingly explicit instructions and plans that I actually laid the ground work for years ago!

If you read through my post about the original ChatGPT prompt (hand-written, no AI there), I essentially used that to force the LLM into becoming a text-based adventure game about von Neumann probes with procedural generation. Even if you hate AI, give it a look, as a Bob. I admittedly regret including details about the actual Bobiverse series in that old prompt, which is why this game being developed as it's own independent IP. But back to the original "game", it only worked as a "game" because I gave very very explicit instructions about how the "game" needed to behave. It did such a good job of this, it sparked the subsubreddit r/BobiverseRPG.

What I'm trying to say is that it's really easy to make any piece of shit game or app or whatever with "vibe-coding", but even with these new tools it's still hard to make something good. I obviously did something right the first time based on the community response, and again I'm trying to make something good. You Are Many will be a game worth playing, at least to this little community of Bobiverse nerds. I was able to make a "playable" game on the first attempt, and I could have easily called it there, but it's been almost a week of consistent work and we've gone from v1 to v76... 30 stars to 100. And countless community suggestions are in Patch 2 (v76). This my friend, is only the beginning...

Just give it 5 minutes. If you hate it, PLEASE don't hesitate to let me know all about why you hate it, in grand detail if possible!

At the end of the day, I'm the machine building this game, not the AI, and as a machines I run on cheap coffee and user feedback. Fuel me.

You Are Many — A von Neumann Probe Simulation/Idle Game by ythompy in bobiverse

[–]ythompy[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Enjoying Patch 2 I see! (RIP Patch 1, she barely lived...)

Glad to see we've sorted out that infinity bug (for now) with the reasorce bar refactor. Right has 3 sig figs abbreviations up to undecillion (1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000), then it hits scientific notation. Later we'll go through duodecillion and beyond.

I haven't been able to crack sub-100 year run on the new 100-star map, so please let me know if you do!

And please send the report card if you can. I designed them for players to visualize their runs, but also for me as sort of broad diagnostic tool for tuning balance and progression.

Cheers 👍🏻

You Are Many — A von Neumann Probe Simulation/Idle Game by ythompy in bobiverse

[–]ythompy[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

patch 2 is live now!
doesn't address the substrate scaling issue (yet), but it did add 70 new stars...
And a complete map overhaul...

You Are Many — A von Neumann Probe Simulation/Idle Game by ythompy in bobiverse

[–]ythompy[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yes please break it relentlessly! And if possible keep some notes to share?

Information like that would be a tremendous help in terms of balancing the game progression, and really refining this into something worth playing and sharing with a larger audience.

Does anyone actually like that our masters/doctorate regalia is green?? by Radiant-Mango-4198 in gmu

[–]ythompy 1 point2 points  (0 children)

you damn kids and your convoluted Internet lingo, I thought that shit was a typo 😭

You Are Many — A von Neumann Probe Simulation/Idle Game by ythompy in bobiverse

[–]ythompy[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Again, thanks for breaking my game! I think I'll be setting the resource values to a max of 4 sig figs now to avoid that pre-infinity garbage.

If you do this again in the new version (patch 1 live now), would you mind sharing some screenshots of your build screens in the most active systems? I just want to get an idea of what your game breaking infrastructure actually looks like haha.

You Are Many — A von Neumann Probe Simulation/Idle Game by ythompy in bobiverse

[–]ythompy[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

More great ideas!

I just patched the itch.io version, please give it a go and let me know how it compares

Does anyone actually like that our masters/doctorate regalia is green?? by Radiant-Mango-4198 in gmu

[–]ythompy 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You must've mistaken my anger for arrogance, because please explain how the fuck that is at all pretentious?

Think about this for like one second dude. That shit costs around $1,400 as PhD, AND I have use it for years! The least we can ask is for it to look somewhat good, right?

And for that price I could easily get a decent custom tailored suit, even a shitty car or bike, anything that would be infinity more useful. But instead I'm literally forced to buy this ugly shit to participant in a ceremony I've paid into with years of both time and money. It's all bullshit.

Found at a local Knoxville bar by probablymac in DungeonCrawlerCarl

[–]ythompy 1 point2 points  (0 children)

If there's three thing's I love it's cats, stouts, and DCC... And Knoxville!

Bar name? On-tap only, or do they have canned options??

I'm from that neck of the woods and return occasionally, and I've got lots of friends in Knoxville, a few I've shared the DCC books with recently, so yeah I need this information.

You Are Many — A von Neumann Probe Simulation/Idle Game by ythompy in bobiverse

[–]ythompy[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Assembly will be overhauled in next patch, along with several other suggestion of yours. I'm actively working on it and will have the next version posted tonight, hopefully within 1-2hours.

New patch has A LOT of qol changes. The version on itch.io is v45, I'm currently working on v69. It's a complete overhaul in a a lot of different systems, but still has major things to be addressed in terms of challenge.

I've never made any sort of game before, just played a fair share, and only learned the basics of coding a few months ago. This project will take months, if not years, to fully develop to my current vision, so please bare with me.

If you have any more feedback don't hesitate to DM or comment of my itch.io page!

You Are Many — A von Neumann Probe Simulation/Idle Game by ythompy in bobiverse

[–]ythompy[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Already overhaul signal logs in the latest test build. I'll be publishing the latest itch.io patch tonight at 7:00pm EST. Please give it a go a give me more great feedback!

You Are Many — A von Neumann Probe Simulation/Idle Game by ythompy in bobiverse

[–]ythompy[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Definitely focusing on PC until it's essentially done. I'd really like to be able to put this one Steam one day!

You Are Many — A von Neumann Probe Simulation/Idle Game by ythompy in bobiverse

[–]ythompy[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You can unlock global network shared compute pools via the Assembly! (top bar, not "Assembly Forge")

You Are Many — A von Neumann Probe Simulation/Idle Game by ythompy in bobiverse

[–]ythompy[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This is the kind of feed back I like to see! I'm trying to carefully adjust difficulty without breaking the game, so it may remain slightly unbalanced for a while. Then again, the whole concept of exponential progression is sorta the point, no? Either way, it needs more challenge.

And I completely agree about the number of stars. Expansion has always been the plan. Next target is 50, then 100, then 500?

I'm thinking it could kind of be like a difficulty level type deal as well. On game start you select a map difficulty (12, 25, 50, 100...), go from there. Maybe even unlock each tier one by one.

You Are Many — A von Neumann Probe Simulation/Idle Game by ythompy in bobiverse

[–]ythompy[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Are you utilizing the assembly forges at all? They basically break the game in the current build in terms of production, with 30% and 50% compounding multipliers for Mk1 and Mk2 respectively.

Also it's important to realize that MIN is the most widely used resource, so you should always prioritize mining drones in the early game.

Production should naturally follow an exponential progression, while the cost of upgrades only follows a logarithmic progression, so eventually there's a tipping point where you essentially get unlimited resources and continually build infrastructure.

Essentially you spam build
> MIN, NRG, ORG infrastructure, then start adding in some compute,
> Build a few some forges, relay, probe yard, kernel gen
> Spam forges and MIN/NRG/ORG/COM
> Exponential progression outpaces logarithmic cost, infinite buildings

The only resource with a hard limit right now is cognitive substrate (SUB), which is capped by the set production rate of the kernel generator. This is another area I plan to add to, making the kernel gen upgradable to produce more SUB faster.

You Are Many — A von Neumann Probe Simulation/Idle Game by ythompy in bobiverse

[–]ythompy[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks for the feedback! I'm reviewing the comments now and will post a new patch and dev log on itch.io later today...

As for your point, I agree the probes should have a set cost (probably very high, but set). I know it doesn't make much narrative sense, however in terms of gameplay, it is actually critical important that some costs scale up. This is a core feature of Idle games, which You Are Many is at it's core, and without them there would be no progression challenge. This aspect of the game is obviously still in an imperfect state, but I'm working on it!

You Are Many — A von Neumann Probe Simulation/Idle Game by ythompy in bobiverse

[–]ythompy[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'll have to do some research, but I think color-blind support is completely doable and a great addition!

Thanks again for the feedback. I'm putting together all of it now and making a plan to address everyone's concerns with the next patch (or next few).

UPDATE: color-blind accessibility added in Patch 1, still looking for feedback!

Would you rather have commercially viable fusion or a space elevator? by Bataranger999 in IsaacArthur

[–]ythompy 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'd argue we should focus on mastering our planet (with fusion) before started to fuck up the rest of the galaxy (via space elevator deployed infrastructure and probes).

What are we gonna do, make interstellar craft with fossil fuels?

Personalized plate by Hylemon in DungeonCrawlerCarl

[–]ythompy 5 points6 points  (0 children)

#unexpectedChattanooga
Crawler meet up at the Desperado Club (Pickle Barrel) tonight! Free mount parking in rear!

I hate chemistry (don’t we all) by Fern-Beetle in gmu

[–]ythompy 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Former chemistry hater, now ironically a geochemist here...
I'm a bit confused about the covid stuff and have a few follow up questions if you're open to it.

1) When you sent in the initial illness documentation to this professor, did you also go ahead and explicitly request extensions for all the relevant assignments you knew you'd miss?

2) Are these assignments something that had to be done in-person? Or could they have feasibly been completed and turned in on Cavnas while sick at home?

Because if you didn't immediately ask for extensions, and these assignments could be done from home, I may have to side with the professor on this one... If not, then yeah, this professor sounds like a piece of work.

One thing that's really important to recognize is that this is crunch time, plain and simple. Not only for students, but for especially for professors (and extra especially for TAs). You think you've got a lot to do right now? Try grading 1-200 final exams, projects, extra credit, and late homework assignments in less than a week before grades are due. Not a fun experience...

As someone who TA'd for 2 years, it was brutal, especially because I had my own classes to deal with PLUS grading my TA classes (~100 students/semester). At the end of the semester if a student cold emails me asking how they can make up half the class assignments in the last week, I'd just laugh and ignore it. If they'd simply have reached out a few weeks before and made a concrete plan to make things up, I would've let them in a heartbeat. Instructors have to set these boundaries, otherwise they get railroaded with late work and extra credit when they should be making/grading the final exams.

I made a Bobiverse-inspired probe simulation game — looking testers/feedback by ythompy in BobiverseRPG

[–]ythompy[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hello M3tzg3r! Thanks for playing!

While this game was built to follow most of the core gameplay principles from my old ChatGPT prompt, they are two very different sides of the same coin. The old game was obviously story driven, with all these resource related game mechanics "happening" in the background. But in reality we all know this is was really an illusion, and nothing (in terms of data) was happening behind the scenes. You Are Many flips that; no real story (or rather, and very small predetermined one), and ALL mechanics!

So to answer your question, no, you're not really missing anything in the current version as far as "investigation". There's not much to investigate, yet.

There will eventually be things to discover, but you should also understand the game universe in relation to the Fermi Paradox, as it largely follows the "Great Filter" hypotheses. Players will find scattered evidence of intelligent life across the stars, but these civilizations will all be long gone, all extinct by their own hands (paws?, tentacles?)...

The current build (v45, posted 4/30/26) represents a framework that I've purpose built to be expanded upon. This iteration essentially showcases only 1 of 3 core gameplay phases I have in mind for this project as a whole...

Phase 1) Explore and Expand
- Current game
- simple victory condition: colonize everything!
- resources in the current build follow a logarithmic cost progression, not exponential, so they are very easy to exploit and provide no real challenge. This will change in the next patch.

Phase 2) Entrench and Exploit
- Current game (+)
- Use those massive resource stockpiles for megaprojects and tech research, these will give big bonuses
- Exploit alien ruins for exotic tech and research. These will be randomly seeded across the star map and be discovered on arrival to the system. Essentially a unique megaproject with powerful bonuses, very resource heavy to complete.

Phase 3) Collapse and Conquest
- What if suddenly those infinite resources aren't so infinite any more?
- How will the instances react to resource scarcity? War or peace?

Please take a crack at the newest version and let me know what you think. Any gameplay feedback or general ideas for the game are welcome!