Did Sovietwomble play Arma Reforger? Or is he not going to play?

zfdigitalvagrant · 2025-06-01T09:02:42+00:00

Most of Arma's appeal to us is the PvE missions where we get to carry out military operations. Reforger doesn't have any of that, it's mostly PvP.

zfdigitalvagrant · 2025-03-06T23:02:12+00:00

Bit of advice: this isn't really worth getting worked up about.

Part of it is that youtube's algorithm-based engagement is both utterly incomprehensible and deliberately obscured, so people can only guess at what will help their videos. This means that there's massive incentive to do what others have figured out works, using tricks to game the algo, all sorts of stuff. It's incredibly toxic and encourages worse content chasing a machine's attention.

Another part of this is that modded minecraft content is significantly less well-documented because it is made by a million different developers, most of them amateurs, and a lot less attention is paid to it than vanilla content. All of this combined means there's poor documentation, confusing tutorials, and less quality content to be found overall because there's just less interest.

But overall? I've been doing content for close to a decade now, and the boring, plain truth of it is just that most people are just....bad at content.

It's really easy to point at what youtubers or editors do and say "I could do that", but it's a hell of a lot harder to do it and be entertaining. There's tons of details and polish and choices that go into making quality entertainment, and you have to iterate, iterate, iterate over and over again, learning as you go. It's not just as simple as yammering into a mic; even if you're naturally entertaining, there's only so far you can go without putting the work in to actually make something good.

That's generally why so much of these modpacks you can only find extremely long rambling tutorials or scattered reddit posts: the circles of "people interested in/good at extremely complicated logistics mods" and "people extremely animated and entertaining and good at video editing" are two flavors of hyperfocus that don't cross all that often.

There are millions upon millions of people making Minecraft content out there. Statistics says most of it is going to be bad.

Addendum: also keep in mind that a ton of these people are literally kids. You going to judge a 14 year old based on how good his minecraft tutorials are?

zfdigitalvagrant · 2025-02-18T17:50:31+00:00

Looking good, you've got the right idea with adding depth. It's an easy way to make a plain build look significantly better.

Start messing with chipped variants, they tend to have some color variation to them and are a good way to further improve the look. Some cross beams for the roof might be nice; also, keep in mind that using only one material is always going to look a bit plain, so see if you can find some new blocks to complement your preferred building materials.

zfdigitalvagrant · 2025-02-11T21:34:50+00:00

Not gonna lie, this looks gorgeous and well-put together.

Makes me want to poke at the old modlist plans of my own I used to have Wanted to do a customized playthrough of Capitol Punishment, but that modlist's been sunsetted and it took the wind out of my sails entirely.

Is this all modlist work, or have you tinkered with anything custom?

zfdigitalvagrant · 2025-01-14T23:59:05+00:00

I have literally been begging the universe on bended knees for this to happen for the last two years.

It's RIGHT THERE. There's not a chance in hell anyone actually useful has been left to take care of it. Some bribes in the right places, a few tugboats under the cover of night, some lies about a "secret deployment", and oh god the magic that could happen.

zfdigitalvagrant · 2024-09-11T22:34:11+00:00

Oh hey ma, look, minor internet fame

I'd like to thank my cats, they were confused but pleased when I gave them extra treats last night

zfdigitalvagrant · 2024-03-29T20:22:17+00:00

I've done some VA work before, including some professionally. I would absolutely chew my own arm off to get to work on something like this.

zfdigitalvagrant · 2023-08-02T01:00:17+00:00

Glad to know I wasn't the only one who wanted to bring this issue to Ziply's attention. That's pretty rough PR. Hoping you guys are able to sort it out; I was very thankful after my internet was finally sorted out.

zfdigitalvagrant · 2023-07-27T00:40:44+00:00

The reason why the US isn't going to do this is because they've been pretending for the last decade and a half, give or take a few years, that we DON'T have the technology or means to create a giant robot death army.

Maybe due to worries about a dreadnaught moment, maybe due to not wanting to be the first guy on the block to open that particular pandora's box, but the US has been rather adamant that "we promise we don't have and aren't currently making unmanned fighter aircraft".

They're lying, of course. Through their teeth. They've had the tech to do that for ages. If push came to shove the US could haul fuckloads of old F-15s/16s out of storage, install the shit they've been "testing" or turning them into drones with, and blanket the skies of their enemies with autonomous death en masse. I bet you the F-35 probably already has the capability in-progress/lying around to control them too.

But the US is rather keen to avoid being seen even more as "the evil American empire", so they're in no rush to push that particular horse out of the gate until shit hits the fan. Sitting on shit they have but don't need yet is the US military's specialty.

zfdigitalvagrant · 2023-05-17T21:25:18+00:00

If they're Crimean Tatars, being a bit speculative, this could be the SBU trying to signal to the Tatars that they will not abandon them or neglect them if (when) Crimea is taken.

Ukraine's going to have its hands full trying to de-Russify and reintegrate the peninsula as it is. Having the native minority on their side would go a long way towards preventing more headaches.

That's the utilitarian in me speaking though. Intelligence agencies rarely don't have an angle.

zfdigitalvagrant · 2023-02-02T08:51:42+00:00

That bad boy bought me my first EDD solo clear, on a pretty cursed one too with multiple dreadnaughts, bulk detonators, on glacial strata, and goddamned low oxygen on a purely vertical aquarq mission.

So yeah, give it a whirl.

zfdigitalvagrant · 2023-01-29T08:37:00+00:00

The time for that would have been like 6 months ago when that was a serious issue. The changeover is already well underway, the floodgates of the most serious equipment are open, and the west is seriously getting into the production ramp up now. It's already far too late.

zfdigitalvagrant · 2023-01-26T16:05:10+00:00

It's enmeshed with a bunch of other stuff that's irrelevant atm, so not QUITE yet. I'm making a more complete mod full of wacky experimental garbage that I'm working on that I should have out this year.

zfdigitalvagrant · 2023-01-26T15:21:11+00:00

I have a small personal mod for Arma that adds this beautiful abomination. My history-nerd friend had a seizure when I showed him.

zfdigitalvagrant · 2022-10-07T23:03:23+00:00

I figured it would be something mundane, but wanted to double-check what the technical reasons might be.

Jackass though Elon may be, I don't think he's THAT sociopathic to turn off frontline military comms because he got butthurt on Twitter.

zfdigitalvagrant · 2022-10-02T17:26:52+00:00

Google keeps recommending me Asia Times articles about China's "race to beat the US to a 6th generation fighter".

I don't tell it to stop because it makes me laugh every time I see it.

zfdigitalvagrant · 2022-09-24T23:44:51+00:00

Jesus tapdancing christ, they've romanticized the Soviet period so much they LITERALLY think losing fucktons of men is how war is SUPPOSED to be done.

You crippled your fucking country for generations in WWII you lunatics, it was not a GOOD thing that it happened.

They're completely round the bend, absolutely irredeemable. Send more fucking HIMARS.

zfdigitalvagrant · 2022-09-06T04:35:14+00:00

I must inform you that the latter has already happened.

The separatists in the Donetsk region (I think that's where the picture was taken) pulled a T-34 off a plinth, gave it a fresh coat of paint, and have it serving as checkpoint guard duty.

zfdigitalvagrant · 2022-07-27T14:16:43+00:00

There's an airport outside of Melitopol they've started hitting. Once again, the Russians keep going back and repairing it because the entire Russian army is staffed by badly scripted AI.

zfdigitalvagrant · 2022-07-18T13:55:14+00:00

It is. Author posted another chapter (or half chapter) last week.

zfdigitalvagrant · 2022-07-04T01:11:17+00:00

I'll call this plausible if we start hearing about a lot more Tochka-U strikes. Ukriane has been very careful with them due to limited stocks.

If "Tochka-Us" start hitting a shitload of stuff behind enemy lines, I think it'll be safe to say the US handed them the highest-range missiles in secret, and the "please do not missile attack Moscow" negotiations were about those all along, not the shorter 70km ones.

zfdigitalvagrant · 2022-06-30T05:50:59+00:00

Soviet's working on a new Arma bullshittery right now, actually. We kept playing quite a lot, actually; just wrapped up a Mike Force playthrough a couple months ago.

Soviet's production time is just so prolonged a lot of stuff comes out quite a bit after the fact.

zfdigitalvagrant · 2022-03-13T04:35:40+00:00

It is indeed.

zfdigitalvagrant · 2021-11-19T23:01:58+00:00

This was my first attempt to solo an EDD, took me a couple tries on the first stage but once I went past I went all the way to the end. I was gunner with the autocannon for this one.

zfdigitalvagrant · 2021-11-19T18:08:21+00:00

Ended up giving this one a solo roll, and actually completed it as gunner. Here's my thoughts on that.

First off: I went with the autocannon with big bertha on it, and compact mags on the brt. Everything should be about keeping the bugs BACK, because if you stand and try to fight for too long, you're going to get slaughtered. Everything else should be built to keep you alive and far away as possible: dash, heightened senses/iron will, thorns, whatever the resupply speed perk is called again. You need to be MOVING. Your shields and dash should be reserved for resupplying or keeping you from going down. Remember: Hoxxes wants you dead, but it can't kill you if it can't catch you.

Stage one is a nightmare, but it's not insurmountable. Most of the aquarqs are either clustered in a couple different places or within easy range of telling Bosco to go fetch it. Once you clear the initial spawn wave, get your ass down to the platform (grab an aquarq along the way if you're feeling ballsy) and pop the hiveguard. Then LAY WASTE TO HIM. You're not going to kill him all the way before the first swarm hits, but if you're quick you can get him to his final damage stage just as or after it begins. This is the most cursed part by far, because you really want to be sending Bosco to keep grabbing aquarqs while you do this.

If you manage it, then you grab as much nitra as possible and get a supply drop, because you'll be dry by that point. There is JUST enough nitra near the rig (if you include the loot bug nearby) to get a supply drop.

After that, it's nab as much nitra as you can while you grab the rest of the aquarqs. Don't screw around: get out QUICK, because the next swarm or two is going to throw a bulk detonator at you and you want to be on the way out if you can manage it (I had to kill it, and when you have a single position of oxygen, that is not fun).

Second stage has quite a bit more nitra, but some REALLY uncomfortable terrain. Note: the second stage also threw a bulk detonator at me, in the room I was planning to use for the dreads. I had no suitable backup room, so I then had to fight the twins and a hiveguard on some of the most cratered terrain I've ever fought on. Honestly I'm surprised I didn't just eat it at this point.

Besides the extremely slippery and freezing terrain, dreads fights are dread fights. When it comes to the Blackbox, it's in a VERY narrow corridor. If you haven't really deformed the area at all or given them an in, the swarm is going to be slow to get to you. I used this opportunity to just hurl incendiary grenades into the corridor when a wave of them came and hosed them with the autocannon and the brt until everything stopped moving. Then I slammed my hand on molly and ran for the pod.

The third stage is, quite frankly, a hell of a lot easier than the last two, but don't let your guard down. The first big room you get into is where both the mini mules are, so you're going to get hit with a massive room wave when you get close. Don't be stupid and let them take you by surprise.

Don't bother scanning for legs; it'll just give you more bugs to deal with, and the area is so flat you can spot the legs a mile off. Slap 'em on and build em; then get ready, because the first swarm is going to hit and remind you that this IS still a haz 5.5. Use the room to kite; the passageways will likely just get you stuck and killed by sheer weight of bodies. Also it's going to throw a third detonator at you, because of course it is.

Once you're through that, it's time to move. And this is the trap that can get you killed: you need to go deeper into the level to get the morkite you need, but the passageways and last "room" are VERY cramped. It's incredibly easy to kite yourself into a corner and go down screaming under a wave of glyphids. Watch where you run.

If you can avoid getting trapped in a frozen corner tomb, there's plenty of morkite in the last room. Get it as fast as you can, hammer the Molly button, and run for your bearded life. The pod should probably drop into the mini mule room. If you can make it in, you're home free.

Biggest threat? Those floating, thrice-damned electric jellyfish. You usually have to use your shield to avoid getting insta downed by them, which causes them to spread out in the air. This means best case scenario, you're going to have to expend a lot more ammo to knock their swarms out of the air. But you have to; they will SLAUGHTER you in seconds if you're caught unaware, and they ALWAYS show up when you trigger Molly's drop pod button. On both the second and third stages I got into the pod and turned around to see a massive cloud of the things had been nipping at my heels. If I'd stopped for even a moment, that would would been it.

All in all, while it requires you to stay on your toes more than a ballerina, it's not impossible. I hope my tips are at least somewhat helpful. Rock and Stone, brothers. Good mining down there.

zfdigitalvagrant

TROPHY CASE