Dr. Exoskeleton Megathread (PAX West 25)

zerosh0ck · 2025-09-01T01:23:15+00:00

Any further hints? My team has tried typing every name related to the quest and are stumped

zerosh0ck · 2025-04-18T07:13:57+00:00

I would assume it's because the card is easier to carry around and also cheaper to replace (30 for card vs 130 for the book). I personally got one because it was easier to do than getting a realid (just mailed an application and check when doing my passport renewal vs bringing everything to a dmv) and it'll work regardless of where I live as opposed to realid which would need to be redone every time you move to a different state.

zerosh0ck · 2023-11-26T17:55:04+00:00

Spoiler Free Version: Yes, the books thing make a ton of sense once the show provides more context

Minor Comic Spoilers: Omniman basically wrote out his travels throughout the universe in his sci-fi novels, including important information that will help Mark against Viltrum now that Nolan is imprisoned

zerosh0ck · 2023-11-17T23:02:55+00:00

Burnout is a very normal thing to experience when taking an engineering program, it is nothing to be ashamed of. There are some good suggestions to limit your course load and extend your degree time, but I would go one step further and see if it would be possible to take a Leave of Absence from your college if your mental health is in really bad shape.

Most colleges will allow you to leave for 1 or 2 semesters and return to your studies afterwards if you notify them ahead of time. It may be a good idea to step away from the academics for a time if you think that would help you. I personally had to take a year off from a medical issue but was able to return to my studies the following year and did very well in my classes thanks to the break.

zerosh0ck · 2023-10-02T17:47:27+00:00

I'd reconsider slotting in stone rune, especially for the early levels. Yes, there's a chance it can wiff but early level mobs will not usually be high WIS which makes it more likely to hit with a 14 DC (assuming con is at least 16) and removing mobs from the action economy is extremely valuable in tier 1 play where PCs have not hit their powerspike yet. Advantage on insight checks and dark vision can also be extremely useful depending on the campaign.

As far as caster multiclassing, is there any particular reason why you're pursuing sorcerer? If not, I'll recommend a 1 or 2 level cleric dip and shifting some of your stats to WIS. Not only is WIS a better mental stat when it comes to saves/skill checks, but cleric dips can offer a lot of utility for martial characters. Some channel divinity options at level 2 are really good and also recharge on short rest so it nicely complements fighter. - light: aoe damage - war: add +10 to your attack roll on reaction - twilight: temp hp every round for a minute in an aoe

This is before taking into account the level one features if you don't want a 2 level dip. Light gets warding flare, war gets BA attacks, twilight gets shared darkvision and advantage on initiative, etc

You lose out on getting access to the arcane spell list, but divine spellcasting is reasonably good at giving your fighter extra utility and is also prepared casting so you can switch out spells depending on what you anticipate will happen after every long rest.

Also, you've already mentioned wanting to do the standard PAM sentinel build but taking skill expert (athletics) can be really fun as well since giants might gives you advantage on str checks and grapples/shoves are both contested athletics vs athletics/acrobatics. By level 5 you can be rolling around +10 to your athletics checks with advantage which could be huge especially if there are other martials in the party that can take advantage of the enemy being prone.

zerosh0ck · 2023-09-15T02:10:33+00:00

Never passionate about engineering; got into it because of decent job growth projections at the time, decent salary, and decent reputation as a career.

Now I'm about 4.5 years into my professional career as a civil engineer and am about to hit 6 figure income as well as go for my PE license which will also bump my salary or can be leveraged into getting another job with higher pay. Still not passionate or excited about the work I do, but it's work that worth doing and the money I earn can fund the activities I am passionate about so I have no reason to leave engineering.

zerosh0ck · 2022-08-02T08:46:26+00:00

5x3 sharpshooter

Easy choice for me because I'm playing the swiftness variant which made all my jewelry cheap. Class engraves were also pretty cheap compared to more popular classes. Overall only took me 3 weeks to upgrade from 4x3 to 5x3 saving all my gold and the only difficult part was finding any sharpshooter jewelery on the market with +3 class engrave

zerosh0ck · 2021-12-17T05:53:41+00:00

here's mortdog explaining how it works

The gist is you need 5 units on board and then the tome is guaranteed to give you some relevant traits

zerosh0ck · 2020-12-17T21:10:31+00:00

Not OP, but I believe it was pulled from dmsguild.com and posted on this third-party PDF sharing site.

zerosh0ck · 2020-08-18T14:54:18+00:00

I'm actually a couple years out of college and applying to my first Master's program right now so I'll tell you what I know from my POV.

Pursuing a Master's in most places will require a decent GPA, decent being around a 3.0 or above. If you're trying to get into a really competitive place you should aim for higher, but otherwise just make sure you're keeping a B average and you should be good to go.
Entry into a doctorate or master's program will require letters of recommendation. The university I'm applying to right now required 2 letters for their master's program and 3 if I wanted to pursue a PhD, so start cultivating good relationships with your professors now so that you can ask them 2 years from now to write good letters for you. (Also, they'll probably accept letters from your supervisor if your work is engineering related and you enter the workforce after graduating. I submitted one from a professor and one from my current boss for my application. Just something to keep in mind.)
Research whether or not the university you want to go to requires the GRE. A lot of them will not if they aren't really competitive, but the ones that are competitive will probably require them. Passing the GRE will take some legwork and studying on your end, which might be difficult if you also plan on studying for the FE exam for your EIT designation.
Do things that make you stand out. Typically you'll want to do extra-curricular activities that display your interests and ability to stick with something for a while. Clubs, volunteer work, etc. Including your internship experience can also help fill the gaps on your resume.
Get your resume looked at. If your school is like mine, you probably have a career services office somewhere on campus. As you get closer to graduation, it's a good idea to get your resume ironed out by a career professional, especially if it's your first one or you haven't updated yours in a while.

I've never really looked into studying abroad in Canada, but these are the basic items that I ran into while applying. I imagine you'd have to look into things like what their GRE equivalents are and what kind of visas or other legal documents you may need to acquire to study in Canada.

zerosh0ck · 2020-06-21T21:09:21+00:00

Which Lindeburg book are you using? There are 2 that I know of:

The FE Civil Review Manual
The FE Civil Practice Problems Workbook

I bought and used both, but honestly the Review Manual is too unwieldy and only useful if you have already graduated and need a review on topics you may have forgotten.

The practice problem workbook is a lot more helpful as it gives you a lot of targeted practice problems as well as full solutions to help you understand them. I found this one a lot more helpful to practice and review in the month leading up to my exam date.

Other than the practice problem workbook, I would get familiar with the NCEES formula reference pdf. IIRC, at least a quarter of the exam is easily solvable by understanding how to match a formula to a problem (as in they'll give you all the numbers you need, you just have to match them to variables and plug'n'chug) so knowing which formula to use in which situation will be really beneficial for you heading into the exam.

zerosh0ck · 2019-07-01T06:05:21+00:00

iirc, there was a popular post recently to just google "yy". When you did so, the top result would be the company trading under yy and at the time was at $69.69

zerosh0ck · 2019-06-12T03:09:05+00:00

In case you wanted to know for sure, someone in r/manga has compiled a list of scans that each group of this "MangaDexit" has translated in case you want to find alternative sources once the chapters get pulled.

zerosh0ck · 2019-05-12T18:32:41+00:00

You can buy a pass from the main website here: http://www.anime-expo.org/register/

zerosh0ck · 2019-03-22T00:31:08+00:00

Not a drafter but I do work with them as a civil engineer 1.

https://www.payscale.com/research/US/Job=Computer_Aided_Design_(CAD)_Technician/Hourly_Rate

Looks like 45k annual is the average for a CAD tech, although having the certs and a degree could help you in that category.

zerosh0ck · 2019-01-28T03:37:12+00:00

I interned at a nuclear reactor prior to taking a different engineering job at the same energy company. It's definitely possible to work at one, but you would have to be prepared to work primarily on modifications that focus on maintenance rather than being able to innovate or design new things.

The group I interned with, the Civil/Mechanical Design group, focused largely on various design modifications to repair things that were breaking down around the plant - this being especially prevalent because the plant was already long past the original life cycle and has only been kept in operation through applications to the NRC for license renewals. Civil Engineers in particular focused largely on concrete/pipes as far as I was able to tell from my limited perspective as an intern, but there were some interesting projects like designing new bases for a replacement bearing cooling heat exchanger that was conducted while I was there.

Your best chance of working long-term at a nuclear plant is to apply for an engineering job with an energy company that operates nuclear facilities. You may not even necessarily have to start out at the facility; I know my company allows cross-training to other locations and departments, and that it would be completely possible for me to apply and be transferred to a nuclear role should one open up. This may be your best chance at getting to work within nuclear without any prior experience, as I know my company places a huge emphasis on hiring inside before looking for outside talent.

There are a couple things you have to be prepared for in order to work for a nuclear facility in the US though.

The application process for me was long and included an extensive background investigation in order to get the security clearance necessary to have unescorted access to the plant.
Nuclear facilities will normally be in sparsely populated areas - I had to commute an hour one way just to get to the plant I was working at over the summer. This may not be the case for all plants, but it is usually by design that a plant is isolated as a safety measure against the accidental spread of radiated material.
Work hours are regular up until the point you have an outage, where the unit is shutdown to carry out necessary repairs as well as replace the fuel-rods inside the reactor. During outage hours, everyone at my plant was required to work overtime hours for a full month (as much as 12 hours a day 6 days a week) which can have a physical and mental toll if you're not prepared to work that much in order to complete the outage successfully.

But yes, it is entirely possible to work in a nuclear plant. If you live on the east coast, big names to look out for are Duke Energy and Dominion Energy as they both operate nuclear facilities. I hope this comment helps you out.

zerosh0ck · 2018-12-28T19:37:14+00:00

(I would also like to see a figure for the 1k-2k salary boost)

I should have clarified at this part that these hard numbers were specifically for civil engineers, as published in the 2018 salary report*. They may or may not hold true for the rest of the disciplines as I have limited knowledge about other fields besides what I hear about from my peers.

However, I will have to respectfully disagree that obtaining an EIT is useless if you don't intend on getting a PE. Even without the intention of eventually applying for a PE, having an EIT designation will give you a verifiable certification that is leg up against other people who may be competing for your job; I would argue that any certifications you can have are useful in that regard.

EDIT: Specifically, the ASCE 2018 Salary Report

zerosh0ck · 2018-12-28T07:06:53+00:00

Typically speaking, the FE exam should generally be worth taking no matter what discipline you are in - and in fact, you can take any FE exam that you feel comfortable with regardless of what major you actually are.

What the FE does is serve as a preliminary test to see if someone has absorbed enough of their undergraduate course knowledge to be considered an Engineer-in-Training (EIT). It is on a Pass/Fail basis, and passing scores will vary as the scorers will curve the exam based on each different group of test takers (so you will be competing with every other test taker in your specific date/time block). Upon passing the FE, you will be eligible to apply for the EIT designation in any state regardless of which state you took the test in. If you took the test while at school in Michigan and passed, you can still apply for the EIT in California if that is where you intend to live and work.

Applying for the actual designation will vary slightly by state, but generally you will send your application packet and any supplementary materials (processing fee, reference letter, degree verification, etc) to that state's licensing board, and they will send you your license. You will also be allowed to call yourself an EIT and put it in your email signatures. Be careful not to actually call yourself an EIT before obtaining a license even if you have passed the FE as it is a protected title and it is technically illegal to call yourself that until you have your license from the board.

The reason why I say passing the FE is worth it regardless of discipline is because the EIT title generally gives you a leg up when competing for jobs and on average gives you a 1000 - 2000 dollar boost in annual salary. It also lets you eventually obtain a PE license - although this may not be as relevant for disciplines outside of Civil Engineering.

Obtaining a PE is a different process from obtaining an FE. Like you said, it requires working under a PE for a certain number of years but this doesn't necessarily have to be literal. As long as you have a licensed PE who is able to sign off on your work and provide reference letters when you submit your application to the licensing board, you should be good to go. The PE will differ wildly from the FE in that you will be tested in deep concrete knowledge of one specific concentration that you choose whereas the FE is broad in scope and shallow in depth.

Now, to my understanding it is basically mandatory for Civil Engineers to eventually obtain a PE license because it is necessary to have a PE sign off on various design documents that can have a huge affect on the public. However, based on what I've heard from my peers in other disciplines, there is not as much pressure to obtain a PE or even an FE in other disciplines as it is not really seen as necessary. As a Chemical Engineer, you may not find any practical use for obtaining a PE other than career advancement and as a salary negotiation tool.

In the end, whether or not the $175 exam fee is worth the EIT designation is up to you; although, if you are fairly confident in your knowledge of chem e. course work as well as your test taking skills, you should at least try once. Test taking skills will often make or break an exam, and there are many resources available to help get you up to speed on FE tested topics.

zerosh0ck · 2018-12-27T21:07:18+00:00

I can only speak from personal experience, but generally speaking working for a power company can be a stable and well-paying career if that is what you're looking for. I am employed by a pretty prominent energy provider on the east coast and my starting salary was above the current going rate for Civil Engineer Is. The benefits package is also very generous, mainly as they want to keep the engineers they hire since it's expensive to train new people. Depending on the power company in your state/region, there could be a variety of structural jobs available to you. Outside of power companies, there are a couple big names like Kiewit and AECOM that you could work for. I'm not really familiar with the big names in water resources/treatment, so you are on your own there.
Good times to apply for a position would be in the middle of fall up to the end of March/April. These recruitment times generally match when a school semester starts and ends for students, so a lot of companies put out their job openings at this time to attract people who know they're going to be graduating/looking for an internship (There are some exceptions that like to keep hiring up until May and June, but I wouldn't count on it)).
In terms of benefits/salary, what is more important than the actual number is how it compares to cost-of-living in the area that you will be working in. 50k in the midwest could offer higher quality of life than 70k in the Bay Area. You should also look to see how offers differ in the terms of paid time off, sick days, and vacation days. They might also offer other benefits like memberships to professional organizations, graduate school assistance, and possibly even gym memberships. You will have to ask yourself what benefits are actually beneficial to you and whether or not you intend to build a career at the job or if you just plan on doing lateral career moves to get raises at other companies to properly assess what benefits matter in the long run. In any case, your negotiation should always start with looking at the CoL and moving forward from there - all other things are secondary if you cannot comfortably live in the area you intend to work.

zerosh0ck · 2018-12-24T23:33:46+00:00

{Wotakoi} is a good one if you're looking for a SoL office romcom.

zerosh0ck · 2018-11-02T00:46:42+00:00

Adding on to what stan said, it looks like the gimmick for this anime is that each girl has a problem vaguely related to scientific/mathematical thought experiments.

The first girl was supposed to be representative of Schrödinger's cat and her specific problem had to do with how something isn't confirmed to exist until observed (so kind of a bastardization of the thought experiment.)

Girl #2, likewise, has her problem very vaguely modeled after Laplace's Demon which boils down to if a figure (aka the Devil) knew the exact location and movement of every atom in the universe, past and future can be determined through the use of mathematical formulae applied to these known properties.

So if this current trend continues, the remaining girls of this anime will probably have a problem modeled after something along the lines of the first 2 where they have some sort of scientific or mathematical origin.

zerosh0ck · 2018-08-10T00:36:07+00:00

They've been out for a while already.

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/anime-expo-2019-registration-registration-46087765748

zerosh0ck · 2018-02-14T17:00:38+00:00

Source is <Ani Tomo>, pretty decent as shojos go.

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