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At the end of the day the reason why I liked Dragonfall more than Hong Kong was the real time stealh matrix weirdness in HK, but you're right. HK would have been improved by an editing pass or two to reduce the word count. That was verbose for the sake of having a lot of text at times.

The army is confusing. A specialist is a sergeant but not. Different regiments attached to different divisions but they’re all interchangeable. Their rank structures a mess. And if you think that’s bad look at the rates and ranks of the US Navy. Now there is a hot mess. That’s one thing I loved about the Marine Corps. The rank system is very straightforward. A lance corporal in one unit reach the same as a lance corporal in any other. No special titles, no different uniforms, it very much buys into what they used to say back in my day you’re a marine first everything else comes second

Zoraptor, his ire irrationally raised. But seriously, Darmok benefits hugely from at least one rewatch, since you can tell what the aliens are saying. And kind of pertinent to other discussions, but Darmok has gained particular relevance now since it can be seen as an analogue to meme communication. If you said "Anakin, with the ground lower" "Drake, his approval gained" "Dexter, an unexpected maternal based accusation" etc just about everyone would know exactly what pictures were meant and what was meant to be communicated by them.

SpaceX set to launch its next Starship prototype on Monday.

I'm not sure the OK symbol is an example of something changing over time due to use, as much as its an example of the OK symbol being metaphorically attacked in a back alley by a gang, taken away and held hostage in an undisclosed location while an exact duplicated created through cunning and cutting edge plastic surgery takes its place.

Okay, so I'm rewatching Star Trek: The Next Generation for the first time since it aired in first run and I've gotten to Season 5. I think this may be the season that I stopped watching regularly and just caught episodes here and there afterwards. Now true confession, I'm an original series Star Trek fan so while I have fond memories of the better TNG shows, it isn't my touchstone of Trekkiness and has always had things that I didn't like about it. YMMV. The season started concluding the "Redemption" cliffhanger, and it wasn't a bad conclusion to that story, and "Darmok" and "Ensign Ro" tried some interesting things, even if I'm not sure they worked 100%. "Disaster" was awful, particularly the part where everyone - including Troi - is surprised she's the next in line for bridge command. Surely this was mentioned at some point prior to people agreeing to these positions? And instead of giving Troi a chance to rise to the occasion, she's shown as a weak and indecisive leader. How can someone who is so inept at decision making be a counselor? Certainly she has to have some insight, logic, training in problem solving that could have been used? And putting Picard with the kids seemed like an excuse to have the viewer sit through Picard being uncomfortable with kids. "The Game" is a bit better. It doesn't work, entirely, IMO, but its an improvement. To be honest I can't remember what I didn't think worked, something about the last minute plan, but still I enjoyed it. "Unification" shows that not even Leonard Nimoy as Spock can improve everything. First off what a sad send-off of Sarek that his death scene doesn't exist on screen. And second, pretty much everyone involved in the mission (including Spock) had to be stupid not to see what the Romulans were up to. "A Matter of Time" has Matt Frewer in it which is a plus. And it was a good idea, its just that fell flat in the end. Then we get "New Ground", "Hero Worship" and "Violations". In "New Ground" we see Worf uncomfortable as a father. This is a good idea, and an interesting position for the character. But the scenes themselves make no sense. Why would Worf need to physically enroll his kid into classes on the Enterprise? Is there like 3 or 4 schools being run on the ship that the kid has to be accepted to? The teachers don't seem to have made any accommodation to try to understand Klingons, but surely this is SOP for a ship with multiple cultures/alien races on it? Sure you could argue that it was short notice, but it didn't seem like they didn't even try. What was Alexander's obsession with the creature in the class about? Its like the scenes happen, but there isn't an internal logic to the story that allowed me to get into the plot. The plot was an excuse to have Worf and Alexander bicker, but there's not ultimate point or revelatory moment for the characters, I felt. And yet the episode worked better than "Hero Worship". First, the school in "New Ground" is miles above what is presented in "Hero Worship". Here the school seems to be a classroom to teach banality. The teacher seems to have no real desire to integrate Timothy in his class, and Troi's suggestions of how to help the boy don't ring true, and seems to exist solely to serve the plot - namely to fob the boy off on Data. Which could work, but the episode takes a story of a boy experiencing, processing and recovering from trauma into an episode about Data's awkwardness of having to deal with the boy. I understand the appeal as everyone likes Data, but even if you wanted Data to be impactful of the story, the focal point of this story is the kid. its like telling Don Quixote from the perspective of the windmill. Thus the resolution of the story is for Data, not the kid, which undercuts the premise of the episode. And finally there's "Violations", an episode that wants to bring up the subject of rape. It doesn't want to actually delve into the subject; you're not going to see a motivation as to why the psychic attacker is doing what they do; nor are you going to understand why they pick the memories they do or anything close to a motivation. You're also not going to see how their actions relates with their family, friends, co-workers, larger society or anything. Nor are you going to see how the victims cope with the trauma that has been inflicted to them. Nope, this episode is perfectly content to bring the subject up and stop there. I hope the back half of the season makes up for this. Looking at the titles, I'm pretty sure there are at least 2 episodes I liked and 1 I disliked in the back half, the rest I'm blank on without spoiling the episodes. And I hope we don't see episodes where Riker, La Forge, O'Brien, Ro, Crusher, et al, are forced to deal with a kid for an episode. Did the producers get to season 5 and think - "Hey, lets create a bunch of scenarios where one of the cast has to deal with a kid! It'll be great!". Surely the production - even if they wanted to make these stories and thought they were worth doing in the same season - should have realized that having 3 episodes within 7 involving the major cast being put into uncomfortable mentorship roles with kids was a little much? You've got 26 episodes this season to spread that out!

I have finished yesterday Shadowrun Hong Kong - Extended Edition Deluxe – Bonus Campaign. The bonus campaign was little bit more fight ready than the main one and less to talk. Despite me being more the guy who like to solve the things the peaceful way, I think the main campaign was to much verbose even for my playstyle So I've enjoyed this campaign more.

More Sailor Moon. It is one of the dumbest things I have seen but it's charming and more entertaining than whatever edgy cw or netflix **** is dropping lately.

Gondor Has No King S—t is starting to get weird

Your daily dose of the Hero Irene: Now for the pop-quiz to see how well you understand being a hero: Question 1: Fear is the cowardly method of what kind of person? Answer: Question 2: Who's common weakness are rage and conceit? Answer: Bonus Question with possible story spoiler:

If no one gotten it yet, I’ll take the war hammer chaosbane

I don’t know. If creative assembly ever makes total war 2021 I’ll be able to formulate a more intelligent answer.

Woedica priests have mortars?

In some ways it's simpler. You can tell a SEAL is a a SEAL when he never stops telling you he is a SEAL.

Exactly. The 82nd airborne is one of the most prestigious units in the US Army. But like every other unit it has sections that are not dedicated to the airborne infantry. It will have an administrative section, intelligence, logistics, special services, it will have medics, armorers, all the personnel needed to run an army division. They are all in the 82nd but not all can call themselves airborne.

"When Sollenberger reached out to Cotton’s office for a comment, his spokesperson, Caroline Tabler, replied, “Senator Cotton graduated from Ranger school and is more of a Ranger than a Salon reporter like you will ever be.” That response is so hostile it's actually quite funny. Does sound like a situation they should be clear on, not the first time I've seen this confusion either innocent or not, even some active duty people are saying getting the tab means you are a Ranger, others don't. Heh, also a lot of comments bigging up the 75th which remind me of reading BHD where the Delta soldiers regard the Rangers as incompetent.

They used to show Sailor Moons together with Captain Tsubasa and Dragonball, where it took like 20 episodes to finish one match/fight. It was refreshing.

Ranged Combat in Pathfinder 1st edition is very powerful and in PnP Alchemist is considered the strongest class outside of 9th level casters. Even without bugs it'd be surprising if those two didn't hit big numbers. I'd say the Tiefling twins can outdamge then once they get composite blasts, but Kineticst is a headache to play. Kingmaker is easy enough that you should be able to clear it with most of the companions. Off the top of my head Valerie is the only exception and she's just awful in the vanilla game.

not sure i quite understand the confusion about fighter/priest (it is probably one of my more frequently used priest multiclass), but here are just a small set of pointers: disciplined barrage/tactical barrage/disiplined strikes all also affects non-weapon attack rolls. +5 accuracy (from perception), plus graze->hit chance helps offensive spellcasting a lot. so does the upgrade, where you either get hit->crit chance, or +5 int and +1 PL. adventurer/conqueror stance's accuracy bonuses also applies to spells (won't stack with devotions). casters also get some benefit from the deflection boost. in close range, with lots of engagement, mob stance's recovery time bonus also helps with spellcasting. priests also have a spell (champion's boon) that gives you lots of engagement, since normally mob stance fighters don't have a lot of engagement without shields. armored grace means casters can be faster while wearing armor, possibly even wearing more armor than they would normally priest gets access to fast runner and uncanny luck, which are two "universal" passives that the priest normally does not get access to IMO, fighter + any caster is one of the more easily synergistic builds you can set up, so i'm a little surprised that one has to ask "why does this even exist?" off the top of my head, i've done a berath and wael multiclass with fighter. the berath was like a battleship spellcaster, slower and heavy hitting. the wael one was a glass cannon build using monastic unarmed training. i think i also did magran, but i don't remember too much what i did (was pretty early in my deadfire playing history)

Yeah, I didn't have a great time with Hong Kong - definitely not as good as with Dragonfall. I appreciate they tried to go for more sabdued and talky mission design, but I don't think Shadownruns systems were deep enough to support so much non-lethal gameplay. So much of Hong Kong consists of running from one barely interactable conversation tree to another. Also really cute touches from Shadowrun (like reading forums and such) really overstayed their welcome in HK. I thought Dragonfall pushed Shadowruns systems as far as they can go. They would really need to build a deeper engine to beat it.

Consider your audience, people still think isometric is best here, after all...

The OK sign has always been a bit sketchy though. I still remember getting punched in the arm in middle school whenever I was gullible enough to look down at it.

That is indeed a neat use of your bounding boots trick (cancelling the leap mid-air). BTW I'm using those boots in a solo playthrough with Kaylon's Glimmer Man Tactician Assassin build that I'm trying to tweak to see if it can solo the entire content, and if I can find even more synergy/efficiency with the build idea. Bounding Boots Trick + ranged Arterial Strike on dumb melee enemy AI is almost too good.

Wow that’s good

Little trick: if you took the Bounding Boots from Benweth you can reach most (if not all) chests/containters stealthed without having to use Sparkcrackers.

Yeah, I just edited that in. Figured it out myself just a couple of minutes ago. The, uhm, stock footage thing is going to get worse. Where I'm right now (at the end of the third season) Sailor Moon has to go through two seperate transformation sequences and a 30 second attack move to defeat enemies. But to be honest they're so ridiculous that they're fun to watch regardless. I'll just put that in spoilers because, eh... 's not much of a spoiler (except for the really obvious), but it makes the post unneccesarily large.

I’m awfully fond of the Dragon Pendant when I can find it. I always wondered why the Belt of the Royal Deadfire Cannoneer from PoE1 [DP] isn’t found in PoE2, but it would be awesome to recharge this way.

Yes, everything can be changed over time. There is no shortage of replacement options though. Humans are creative and etymology is fascinating!

Some of you folks seem rigidly attached to certain symbols, words, and gestures. Things change over time, relax, it has been like that through all of human history and we are still here. Also, I am interested to see how DP's campaign to influence the poop emoji will go. I like the confidence!

I dunno all the rules. In the picture Pidesco posted all the "ok" symbols were pointing up. If the "ok" symbol is pointing down is that ok? Oh crap, thats the "made you look" symbol then. Were in a real pickle here.

Doh! Thanks for reminding me, I completely forgot that you can steal this grimoire. My solo stealth is low when I first hit Neketaka, but the Cobbler has the boots, and pop some thieves putty. My point really is that the main gear for this build can all be had very early with Berath’s blessings, a lot of it before you leave Port Maje. Cape of greater protection will do until you get the giftbearer’s cloth, and waiting for Kuaru’s prize ring you can use ring of focused flame or anything else. Some other popular builds of all classes, the gear you want comes much later in the game.

Ok, -40 is too much even for me.

The one where one of the great seven Youma is inside the fat cat that's been hitting on Luna (because the other evil pet episode is near the end of Sailor Moon R, and wowsers that would be a quick binge on your part)? edit: No, it's not. I just realized you mean the one near the beginning where everyone buys these weird little pet things that turn them miserable and jealous. One of the best things about Sailor Moon is how you can pick out any number of scenes, talk about them and people who have never seen the anime are left to wonder what the hell is going on and how anyone could even being to enjoy this, yet it still makes perfect sense in-universe because the show's just like that and never stops or, heaven forbid, apologizes for it. Glorious, just glorious. And yet, even amongst all this bedlam it still finds time for character development and the odd commentary on 90ies Japan or broader issues here and there.

I'm watching the evil pet episode right now and it's just ****ing hilarious.

Exactly how I felt starting out. Supremely stupid, but also hilarious and nice (and also specifically the first season gets funnier as it goes on right up until the end, as it gets more and more ridiculous and almost starts becoming a meme of itself).

The microchip will travel to your brain and make your gray matter microsoft?

That's correct. You want Shadowing Beyond for action economy efficient stealth attacks in Turn Based mode. So better make sure to have that Devil of Caroc Breastplate. A non-bloodmage at least can use Empower to squeeze some extra uses. That or Arkemyr's Brilliant Departure spell for CC/debuffing.

Iirc Smoke Veil is not a free action in TB and only lasts 1 round. So you can't go invisible and then attack from invisibility. Is that correct? You'll need to use Shad. Beyond since that is a free action. That limits the amount of invisibility uses per encounter a bit more. Instead of 5 Smoke Veils you can only use 3 SBs. Devil of Caroc Breastplate can lift you up to 4. Somebody correct me if I'm talking nonsense, I didn't play TB mode and am only repeating what I (think I) read.