mildly_obsolete
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User ID: 1305
mildly_obsolete
3d ago
Dumb of me to phrase it that way, entire sentence is confused. I meant to say, correct in the sense of formulating the core problem the big deal is about, not just a problem; enough, to count towards the core problem - no bearing on correct. Who doubts, I'd pretend to know if I listed anything concrete, it only is an impression from some scattered reading.
My understanding impression of the navier-stokes "result" is that it is a mound of Lean and a paper no person can parse. Lean kernels say proof is valid, but Lean kernels may be buggy. The problem itself is so convoluted there is no agreement if even the formulation of the problem itself is correct, so Lean not being buggy is not enough either. Sounds unreliable, I don't care and presume the result is wrong.
In near-ish future, human understanding not needed, I'll take whatever pure math result AI publishes on faith alone. For now, show me something genuinely brilliant that any competent mathematican can verify in under a week (any of that in this pile? probably, but let's see in a month or 3), or a practical, usable result.
Break some encryption scheme, show a big advancement in ML, right, you totally can (true) but won't release. Any big applied math result, is that permitted, can american AI corpos into public science beyond IPO pump curios?
mildly_obsolete
9d ago
Not sure what you're saying here, but I'd love to solve it, nuclear Iran not changing the approach in the slightest.
No, I simply correctly recognize US as the primary threat to Europe: deeply influential, predatory, capable and invested in Europe being a US dependent.
Radical islam or whatever is a migration issue. Iran having nukes makes zero difference, they are not "radically" islamic anyway. They fund regional factions in a regional power struggle. Iran can be mostly ignored by Europe, but you don't need to go that far since it can be negotiated with like a normal nation.
Also, you don't need to accept whatever a nuclear power does, you can fight back without a nuclear exchange.
Iran would nuke Israel, if anyone, if truly threatened. Not my problem.
mildly_obsolete
9d ago
Iran continues to trade cheap oil for Chinese weapons, builds out its ballistic missile program, and within 5 years has a nuke capable of reaching Europe
Unclear if the Chinese were selling much, and either way, if the Chinese intended to sell, they don't need to be paid in oil, and they don't need sea access to deliver.
Iran with a nukes capable of reaching Europe is fine, actually, I don't mind living in Iranian nuclear range at all (not that this was the concern in the US, obviously the ability to reach Israel was). Nukes in Iranian hands are a good thing, it is less likely US launches a retarded war of aggression on Iran that imposes nothing but costs on Europeans.
mildly_obsolete
23d ago
Agreed on most things here.
It's not that bad visually. Planets look nice. Ships, well, I like how busy core worlds can get, no need to zoom in.
Writing is bad, but the race-from-beyond-galaxy total war scripting/framing surprised me positively - they are so far ahead on tech that native empires joining them can actually be catastrophic (but shame you have so little diplo tools available). But again, could do so, so much more.
Teekans talk a bit like Skaven, it's cute.
UI is not up to the task
Many glaring issues, but even at 150 planets, I did not find it too bad. Only maybe a dozen are core. Character and army management is the worst.
Ship design
I had all state ships on manual design, since you can do a lot better than automatic. Shame you can't do guided auto-design (exclude this, always include that; or did I miss that in the UI?). Components going V1->V2 etc do update automatically now even on manual designs, but what a pain when you get something new, only "Copy as new" then obsolete the previous version works since "Upgrade" treats too many components as same family, pain.
They should open the game source code, it can all be fixed.
mildly_obsolete
23d ago
Finished a Distant Worlds 2 campaign. Love and hate this game. It is vast - I'm impressed it still (mostly) works with thousands of automated private economy ships, like freighters, on top of the usual space 4X systems. Thousands of mining stations, too many luxury resources to keep track of, characters, fleets; and option to automate almost all game systems on case by case basis. It is delightfully idiosyncratic - rarely convoluted, just unusual and unbothered by expectations, an oldschool feel. It leaks and reliably crashes on my 6GB VRAM (and autosaves do not help if you just spent 30 minutes paused fiddling with some details; at least it did not ever crash during manual save). It is criminally underbaked, just begging for another few passes filling details in, balancing, bugfixing. There is so many details I can't resist micromanaging a campaign takes unwise amounts of time for me.
Chronicon, very complete, top quality hack & slash. Tons of fun.
Endless Legend 2 is pretty good (tho only ok if you actually play past early game), I'm glad to say it is not entirely over for Amplitude after all. Has the usual advantages: quality visuals + music effectively conveying grandeur, decently creative worldbuilding, anchoring to common universe, familiar FIDSI icons, varied mechanics. Has most of the usual flaws: grandeur is paper thin (world feels tiny, centered on squads of hero plus 5 units max), pacing and balance issues, clown parade of too many factions with quirky mechanics.
Notably loved the monsoon->tidefall mechanic - ocean recedes in multiple pulses, revealing new areas, initial landmass less than a third of total. Had no idea the mechanic is there, fun to be surprised. "New world" style maps (second, empty landmass locked behind midgame tech) are my favourite in Civ5-style 4X games, you get to enjoy the dynamic parts of early game twice. If only limited colonial wars were a common mechanic.
Shame about the terrible balance - Endless difficulty is trivial if you avoid early war. On normal pacing, you can saturate the mechanics (finish tech tree, build everything in capital and spam 6 units out a turn) before last tidefall. On slower, it's only worse. Combat is too bursty. Terrain manipulation (dams, terraforming, scouring) has zero depth to it, disappointing. Generic, common events firing for ~all factions/heroes: a human, a machine-coral hybrid, an animated stone statue, a fucking zergling are all just westoid millennials deep down inside.
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