Seattleite

If that fails, try beer.

Well, if it makes you feel better, we're still doing great by internet standards. Outstanding, even.

Ninja'd. I used to do that, then a moderator banned me for disagreeing with them on a thread closure and nobody could see what happened because it was in PM. Not saying you'd do that, I don't think you would, but surely you understand my caution. I have my doubts. No further comment. Double ninja'd.

That's fine and all, but I just don't want it continuing here. Maybe we can copy+paste it to serious topics and I'll join in tomorrow. Or the day after. Or never, who knows.

I am going to keep this short. 1. I am never the first to insult somebody. I used to be too quick to return fire, which I am working on, but the only time I've insulted somebody first was with Vapymid, because I majorly took offence to his extreme disrespect of the coversation. That is the one time. 2. They didn't leave it either. That is a lie, which we can see is a lie on this page. Ninja stayed in past the topic change. 3. There are other moderators. You don't have to be the one. You have a personal bias against me, and I suspect it is because of the Vapymid incident above. Take this friendly advice from a former mod with much more experience than you: Leave it to a different mod. That's what I did, it works wonders. This conversation can be over right now. Leave it to somebody else, and there will be nothing to leave. OT: Very tired and extremely frustrated. @Judas We're done, buddy. I'm not even reading it. @Scampi We do. It's called "Private Messages". We don't use it enough. I'll have to keep it in mind.

Ninja, we're on a different topic now. One that's more important.

"Just don't respond"? Seriously? That is absurd. You could say the exact things about them, or you. Why don't you just not reply? Why don't they? Wouldn't this logic make them just as much at fault for each additional post, and you too? Or am I the only one who should be quiet when others disagree with me? Or is it people you disagree with in general that need to be quiet and not defend their positions? That hardly seems fair. I'd even say it sounds like a double-standard, because it is. You are grasping at straws here, trying to make this my fault. Not because it is, but because you want it to be. I can't be the only one at fault just for participating. If participation is guilt, everybody else is guilty too, so stop ONLY blaming me for EVERYTHING. OT: Frustrated with obvious bias.

That's not true, Jeb. That's not true, and you can look back one page and see it's not true, right at the bottom of the page. This was made an argument by Psychotic Ninja, NOT me. Just like last time it was Randomguy, NOT me. And that time too, you could look back one page and see who it was. Every time it follows the same formula. I express an unpopular opinion, somebody starts in on me about it, I defend my position, then you act like it's my fault for having an opinion. And it's clearly not even-handed because the one time it happened the other way around you STILL blamed me. I didn't want an argument, Jeb. When I want an argument I go to serious topics, or preferably a different board. That isn't why I came here. I came here to share an experience, and I would have rather not had it turned into an argument. @Heliocentrical: I'm of a mind with you on this. I never wanted an argument in the first place. Somebody, change the subject. I got nothing.

If you had read my post, you would have found several reasons it's bullshit. That's one. And that's the least important one, too.

You are wrong, and I gave reasons. You want to drop it, fine, but if you don't want to drop it make an actual argument.

The difference is that technology is good and has a purpose. This exclusivity crap is not. Exclusivity also fits our psychology about as well as abstinence. It isn't taking a relationship serioisly to doom it by making it exclusive. Our brains are not wired for that, it creates a constant temptation to break it up to see other people. I've been with her for fifteen years. As in, since I was EIGHT YEARS OLD, and you're saying it's not serious just because it doesn't follow your arbitrary, unrealistic, detrimental rules. I find that highly insulting. You want to change the subject now? Sure. But you people started in on me, just like every single other time, so don't try to act like it's my fault. I didn't make this an argument.

Attention, comrades in the post-nuclear wasteland. Vodka helps resist radioactive fallout. Alcoholic beverages contain stable isotopes that prevent binding of radioactive isotopes into your tissue and bones. Take two shots before putting on your hazard suit, and be safe out there. And tune into Gopnik Radio for the best tunes from across the sea!

In order: Does not seem so, she's been so sick the last week she didn't even remember inviting her, and nobody was lied to here. I read their AIM log, it was almost a week ago when she was running a 104 degree fever, and it never came up. She might have even told me, but she also complained about missing classes (she isn't in school) and thought she was in Nevada at the time.

You clearly understand just about nothing about the topic if you think any of this has ever really existed. 1. Marriage is a recent development, only a couple thousand years old. It did not exist for the other hundred and some odd thousand of years of human history. 2. Anthropological evidence shows that human relationships were neither lifetime nor exclusive before this point. If a relationship is not exclusive, there is no "cheating". 3. Marriage was a business exchange until very recently, less than a century ago in most of the world and in many places still is today. Women were property sold to men by their fathers. That is the reason for the ceremony's entire structure, from the father " giving away" the bride, to the dowry (which is the payment, and is still done in many places), to the clothing she wears (designed to slow her down if she tries to run) and even where everybody stands (the bride stands to the left so the groom can bring his weapon to bear, and the best man is there to back him up, in case things go south). It also wasn't exclusive, men could buy as many wives as they could afford. You are supporting this institution. 4. Anthropological evidence shows open relationships that last as long as they need to. Signs of sexual exclusivity are non-existant, and the development of so many human-specific STDs suggests that humans are quite the opposite in nature. Even our genitals themselves reflect this, the head of the human penis is designed to compensate for human females having multiple partners by removing sperm from other recent partners. This is notably NOT a common trait, even other apes lack it, that is strictly a human thing. @Jeb: Most humans today are on your side only because they've forgotten that all humans naturally are on mine. Because my side is the side of not suppressing human nature for no reason other than because a book of bronze age desert fairy tales says to. @Heliocentrical: I love her, and I think it's stupid that people think this in any way damages that, and even dumber that they don't even know why they believe that. I've been with her for fiftern years. FIFTEEN. I am 23. Our relationship has been open the whole time and honestly it's probably more stable for it. Find me one adult who managed to keep an exclusive relationship since they were eight. I don't think they exist.

For 99% of our history, "cheating" was a concept that didn't exist. Further, why would I be bothered? Am I supposed to feel threatened? Why? She still prefers men and I'm her only man. What do I lose letting her indulge the other 30% or so of her sexuality I can't possibly satisfy? Because it sure seems like I stand to lose a whole lot less than she stands to gain.

Absolutely not.

Okay, see, I think you're missing that she appeared to think me assuring her I wasn't bothered was sarcasm, and still believed I had a problem with it.

Just a quick thing. Maybe I should have just asked in general chat. Anybody here watch Gopher? Because he's just about my favourite let's player, and I just wanted to see if any of his fans were on the forum. If not, it's this guy. He's great. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC1CSCMwaDubQ4rcYCpX40Eg

"Waste not, want slightly less." -Gopher, 2016

Today's topic: Defence. I've mentioned already that you have a lot of defences in this game, and that you need to because the game is just that lethal. Now, I'm going to better summarize each of these defences. Most of them are pretty simple, but their implications are vital to the game. Evasion: You can dodge in this game. Dodging takes you a set distance (one meter) and takes an amount of time determined by your agility multiplier. This multiplier is 1+0.05*agility, so with the boy's 12-24 agility it's 1.6-2.2 and with the girl's 13-26 agility it's 1.65-2.3. This multiplier is a multiplier to the speed of movement and all actions, including attacks and dodges, and that means that with a multiplier of 2 you take half a long to dodge. You can figure out the rest. Dodging does not grant true invincibility frames, but while dodging some attacks may only be able to hit you if their attack score is higher than your "evasion" score, which is initially only equal to your agility and a size modifier that for you is 1. This only affects thrust, projectile and beam attacks. Swing, shot, blast and area of effect attacks are not impacted by evasion, you have to actually clear the affected area before they hit. And as a general rule, you'll be aiming to clear the area anyway in case their attack score is too high for you to ignore it while dodging. Reflex: Closely related to the above, the reflex defence applies to blast and area of effect attacks while dodging. It is also based on your agility. Any blast attack with a damage less than your reflex defence (1/2 your agility by default) that hits you while dodging, guarding or performing other defensive actions is downgraded. Damage grades are an important in-game mechanic that determines what effects an attack has. For instance, a "deep" piercing attack and a "shallow" piercing attack are very different in that a deep attack inflicts bleeding and a shallow attack does not, and a "shallow" piercing attack and a "minor" piercing attack are very different in that the shallow attack inflicts body damage and the minor attack does not. For example, an explosive fireball that would normally have caused vital heat damage, setting you on fire for absolutely massive DOT to your health and stamina until extinguished, would be reduced to dealing only regular heat damage if your reflex was successful, which will still damage your stamina, health and integrity immediately, but won't get the DOT. Guard: Guard is your defence associated with blocking. If your guard score is higher than enemy attacks, they are redirected to the body part you're guarding with (if using a weapon, the body part holding it) and downgraded. If your guard score is sufficiently high the downgrades can happen multiple times. (Twice, for instance, would take the deep pierce damage of a knife thrust down to minor pierce damage, stopping both the bleeding and the body damage.) Weapons also give a little extra DR on a successful guard, depending on how well constructed they are and what type. (Wood-handled weapons provide 1-5 and blades provide 2-10.) Guarding is generally your strongest defence, but it's difficult to fully defeat incoming attacks with it, and as projectiles resist it and area of effect attacks ignore it, you can't use it all the time. You cannot guard and attack with the same weapon at the same time, but you *can* attack with one weapon while guarding with another, which is the primary strength of both two-weapon and shield builds. Logic: This defence is run by pressing dodge without a direction, and dismisses illusions that are ongoing. You need a higher logic score than the caster's resolve score for it to work. If the spell is being cast when you use this ability, the illusion doesn't work on anyone. Otherwise, only you dismiss it and others are still affected. Caution, using this ability takes longer than any other active defence. Dispel: Used simultaneously with logic, the dispel defence destroys enemy spells being cast in front of you. It activates earlier than logic, and releasing the button before it finishes will dispel without using the logic defence and tying you up for extra time. Armour rating: The first passive defence on this list, armour rating works much like the above defences in that it competes directly with an enemy's attack score. If it is higher than the opponent's attack, the attack is downgraded. It can also downgrade multiple times if it is several times higher, and it works all the time. It can also defeat area attacks, there competing against twice their damage instead of their attack. Armour rating is the single most important passive defence in the game, bar none, and can be achieved with surprisingly little weight. Sometimes, armour will provide extra armour rating against attacks that deal particular damage types. This makes it important to track what armour type you're using and what damage types you're up against. Damage reduction: You know how friggin' damage reduction works. This many points come off incoming damage, that's about all there is to it. Here we also have "penetration", which negates a certain number of points of damage reduction, but that's the only difference. Damage reduction is kept fairly low, and only completely blocks attacks that are already pretty weak. As with armour rating, some armour types will provide extra damage reduction against some damage types. Damage reduction only applies to kinetic attacks. Resistance: This is a percentage resistance, and comes in multiple separate layers that never go above 50%. This only applies to energy, and armour only provides resistance to energy damage types it is strong against. For instance, metal armour provides heat resistance, and hide armour provides cold resistance. Resistance is fairly hard to acquire large amounts of. Fortitude: A percentage resistance that targets the duration of poison, the magnitude of infection, both duration and magnitude of disease, and the buildup of curses. Fortitude may seem low (IE: 10% if your constitution is 10), and it usually is, but as these effects often compete directly with your heal rate, it is much more meaningful than it looks, at least where disease and infection are concerned. Will: Will is a passive, point defence against morale damage. Basically, this much comes off all morale damage. It's extremely effective at defeating small, frequent sources of morale loss, but many morale hits are often so huge that will is completely negligible to them. If you have 8 will, a 10-damage morale hit for getting hit by a divine spell will be knocked down to 2, but a 1,000-damage morale hit for killing somebody will still deal 992 and likely shatter your morale and inflict a trauma on the spot. Critical resistance: The sum of your relevant armour rating, evasion if evading and guard when blocking. If an enemy's attack score is higher than this, they score a critical hit and their damage is upgraded once. Crits cannot upgrade multiple times, no matter how good an attack is, without some other effect (usually a talent) stepping in. Critical resistance also doesn't have any effect other than determining critical hits. Cover: When behind something, either an object or a shield, enemies take a penalty to their attack when attacking you. This also transfers a percentage of area of effect and blast attacks to the intervening object, up to 100% if it covers you completely with room to spare. It's not that complex. Shields provide 5-25% cover normally and 10-50% when blocking, and this is the primary benefit of using a shield instead of an offhand weapon, when both are used to block. Since we're here, let's talk about stamina, health, vitality, integrity, morale and poise. Stamina: Actions use this, damage reduces this, spent with vitae to cast arcane spells. When it runs out, further use and damage to it goes to health instead. Regenerates by the minute, much faster than any of the others, and resting will usually fully heal it. As a small character you have a LOT of stamina, running from 400-800 depending on your constitution. And as a child, you regenerate stamina at double speed. (Constitution per minute instead of 1/2 Constitution per minute.) Some entities don't have health or vitality score and are immune to some or all forms of stamina damage, but these entities are immediately incapacitated when their stamina runs out. Inanimate objects do not have stamina, but anything powered will have a similar system. Health: Damage reduces this, over-exertion reduces this, used with vitae to cast occult spells. When it falls to 1/2, your character slows massively. When it reaches 0, your character loses consciousness and further use and damage go to vitality. Regenerates by the day normally and by the minute when your powers are restored. As a small character you don't have much health, running from 100-200 depending on your constitution. Your youth doesn't help it regen, either. Bleeding is the best way to lose large amounts of health, and several other effects (poison, burning) also damage it massively over time, but these do so through long duration rather than high speed and large immediate losses can be difficult to achieve. You take more immediate health damage for hits to the head (4x), less to the legs (1/2) and even less to the arms (1/4) than you do to the torso (1x). These multipliers do not apply to bleeding. Some things don't have health scores and cannot be affected this way. Vitality: Damage can sometimes reduce this, and anything that damages health carries over onto vitality, which is the primary way it's lost. When vitality reaches 0, you die. You have exactly 50 vitality as a small creature and cannot increase this. It regenerates by the week, by the hour when your powers are restored. The health damage multipliers for different body parts also apply to vitality. Some things don't have vitality scores and cannot be affected this way. Integrity: The structural integrity of various body parts. When it runs out, a part is crippled. If you weren't a celestial, this would be a lifetime problem as it caps natural regen at 0 and requires reconstructive surgery to fix, but as a celestial this is just a long lasting and severe, but still temporary, debuff. A crippled arm can't be used, a crippled leg forces you to the ground where you are slower and more vulnerable, two crippled legs slows you down immensely, a crippled head renders you comatose and a crippled torso paralyses both of your legs. Further damage can sever body parts, which for a mortal would mean nothing can heal them, ever, would mean instant death if inflicted on the head and full-body paralysis for the torso. For you, the more severe effects for the head and torso remain but you can regrow limbs so it isn't more permanent. Integrity regenerates by the month, by the day when your powers are restored. A severed limb regrows from -1000% integrity, so it takes exceptionally long. In game, though, you are basically forced to rest to regenerate limb damage, and if you're crippled when your powers are lost it may as well be permanent because it takes so long to heal. Everything has integrity. Morale: Many actions reduce this, it's spent alongside vitae to cast divine spells. When it runs out, you are inflicted with a trauma based on the effect that brings it down, and instantly returns to full. Regenerates by the hour, though its regeneration is based on resolve, not constitution, and is by the whole value, not half. Trauma effects are severe debuffs that last a long time, and should be avoided at all costs. Morale is 1,000 for all people, though some perks increase it. Some things don't have morale scores and are immune to traumas. Poise: Health damage reduces this, melee attacks and blast attacks get extra automatic damage to this, natural weapon strikes in particular get extremely high automatic damage to this. Regenerates to full every six seconds. Running it out causes somebody to stagger, leaving them wide open for a brief period. Running it down to -100% knocks them down, leaving them open for longer and forcing them to either remain on the ground or get up, which is a tough choice as both make them vulnerable. Reducing it to -300% causes a knockout, rendering them unconscious for a couple seconds. -700% knocks them out for a full minute. Some enemies don't have health scores, and thus only lose poise from melee attacks and blasts. Everything has poise. So, you should be getting a good picture right about now as to how the system works, given the above.

3fqXobXOoUg

So, today was kinda ridiculous. I showed up at my girlfriend's house this morning to see if she's feeling better, and found her having sex with another woman. And said woman freaked out and simply would not listen when I said it wasn't a problem, I wasn't bothered by it, and I'd actually rather she keep having sex with my girlfriend. She apparently though I was being sarcastic no matter how many time I said I wasn't. So as for my feelings: Slightly confused, exasperated, disappointed and moderately annoyed.

My grandparents watch too many "Cops" style shows. I must have heard about six different ways to make meth by now, just from watching those shows with them. Next fun fact: Deathclaws are genetically engineered from jackson chameleons. It's a good thing they don't retain that colour-changing ability, ain't it? Wait... Some do? Oh... Oh no... Why did I have to find that out? Why?

The production of methamphetamine from fertilizer is, indeed, a real thing. It's nicknamed the "Nazi method" of methamphetamine production as it also involves the same birch reduction as the original Nazi production method did, and is the main way methamphetamine is produced in rural areas in the United States. You can't watch a TV cop show go to a rural area without them finding a meth lab that uses this method. Adding extra chemicals to the brahmin's feed could easily be increasing the levels of the desired chemicals in their dung, and that could make the synthesis less complicated and more productive, but it is in actuality an entirely unnecessary step.

If there's one thing I'm consistently amazed by, it's the extent to which the makers of Fallout titles actually *do* do their research. So here's a thread for fun facts about the Fallout games and their less-tenuous-than-expected relationship with reality. These are not in any particular order. 1. Rad-X is real-ish. Rad-X is based off the real world chemical potassium iodide. It is much more effective than potassium iodide is, but this is also a game where morphine (see #2) protects you from physical injury. Potassium iodide is taken to prevent the bonding of radioactive isotopes of potassium into your body, mostly protecting your thyroid gland. These tablets are taken as a supplementary measure to hazmat suits by those entering areas where fallout resulting from the fission of uranium (the sites of atomic bombings and reactor melt-downs), as well as areas where nuclear waste is handled or produced, and lastly in reactor rooms themselves. That said, in real life alcoholic beverages are more effective than potassium iodide, so S.T.A.L.K.E.R. is closer to reality there. 2. Med-X is real. It should come as a surprise to nobody that med-x is actually morphine. It's labelled as such in the game files, and the name was only changed because Australia is a nanny state that ruins things for everybody. (Calm down, I'm insulting your government, not you.) Morphine is pretty potent, certainly, though it wouldn't actually prevent physical damage, it'd just let you go on after receiving more of it. So really, it should be boosting your health or endurance stats, not reducing damage, but whatever. 3. Jet is real. Buffout is real. Even friggin' PSYCHO is real, kinda. It's pretty well spelled out in Fallout 2 that jet is methamphetamine, but many fans never played the first two, so they wouldn't know that. Its effects in the first game also match the effects of strong stimulants decently enough. Buffout is based off of real-world anabolic steroids, and its clandestine use by pre-war athletes as a performance enhancing drug is based off the real world scandals involving baseball players and steroids in the mid 20th century. Psycho is based off a real-world military program conducted throughout the cold war with the intent of using psychoactive compounds to enhance the combat effectiveness of US soldiers. The program was unsuccessful, but the program in-game that created psycho is directly based off of it. (In fact, quite a few of the successful experimental programs in-universe are based off of real-life failures.) 4. CIT is MIT. Name says it all. 5. The Cambridge Polymer Labs are real, and so is everything about it. Almost. The Cambridge Polymer Labs are a real place in Cambridge, Massachusetts. DERPI is based off DARPA, a real US agency, and the piezoelectric project run there is actually based off an actual piezoelectric project run in these labs, if only fairly loosely. The real piezoelectric project was meant to find a way to make piezoelectric boots for US soldiers so that they could generate power by walking and recharge electronic equipment such as torches and radios. However, the power output only ever got to 1-2 watts and the added discomfort the soldiers experienced with the new soles was too much to be worth that little bit of output. Like the psycho example above, the program in-game is successful even though it's based off of something in real life that very much wasn't. Though how radiation is going to make piezoelectric generators more effective, I have no idea. 6. The Fallout 3 subway tunnels are absolutely spot on, down to the line. And so is everything else. Fallout 3 matches the geography of DC so well that even people looking as hard as they can for mistakes can't find any. Even all the subway tunnels are correctly placed and follow their real-life routes. It is uncanny. Obsidian followed suit with matching the geography of the Mojave almost, if not quite, as well. Fallout 4 once again does the same. This is a massive departure from the first two games, which kinda sucked at geography. 7. Hail to Caesar! The Legion was, in-game, modelled after ancient Rome. And Caesar did his research. Not only do they all speak proper latin and pronounce words (like "ave" and "Caesar") properly, but even the way he originally formed the legion matches the formation of Rome, and his attack on the NCR after conquering Arizona does mirror Julius Caesar's attack on Rome after conquering Celtica, the mainland section of Gaul. Their command structure also follows the roman design, from the centurion to the decanus, their currency is the same as ancient Rome's (the aureus and denarii are real, and the aureus was indeed worth 25 denarii). 8. All those songs about nuclear war and fallout? Those were NOT made for the game. Most of you know this already, but all of the songs to appear in Fallout are either real songs or parodies of real songs, and all the ones on the radio are in the former camp. That includes Uranium Fever, Uranium Rock, Crawl Out Through the Fallout and Atom Bomb Baby. More to come later. In the mean time, anybody have some of their own?