#dss3

[dogmadillo]

Babe wake up, new gif just dropped

[dogmadillo]

Corporate, these pictures are the same, I can’t the difference-

That feeling when you solve a fake case designed by your elderly boss to get you out and working even when there's nothing to do.

[samueldays]

Sam Reviews: Factorio Space Exploration

That's Space Exploration the factorio mod (played v0.6), not Space Age the factorio expansion coming soon. I have finally completed SE with the cooperation of two friends across 300+ hours, I don't think I would have bothered to finish on my own, but it was a fine reason to hang out and chat. I had fun, but it was very irregular fun between good bits (spaceships!!) and facepalm bits.

It's A Scale Challenge

Space Exploration is a scale challenge, and I lead with this because I find the documentation misleading. On the Getting Started SE wiki page, which is also linked from the SE mod page, it says:

Space Exploration is mostly a complexity challenge and not a scale challenge. It's completely possible to beat the game with only 20SPM, unless you play with a science multiplier. But it'll still be hard!

Similar descriptions abound. However, Space Exploration has individual technologies mandatory for victory that cost more to research than the entire tech tree of the base game up to and including the Rocket victory research.

It's even worse than that sounds.

"Cost more" can be calculated in a quick and dirty way that vanilla Factorio's Rocket Silo victory tech costs 1000 sets of science packs to research.

Its prerequisite Rocket Control Unit costs 300, and so on back down to basic Automation technology costing merely 10, all of which add up to 5750 in total.

Space Exploration has a mandatory 6400-cost tech, some 5000s, a 4000 and a 3200, several 2000-cost techs used as filler in an already overpriced and bloated tech tree, and a 8000-cost (max spaceship size) that's theoretically optional but avoiding it requires you to play Tetris with your size-constrained spaceship layout.

But the numbers are not directly comparable, and the more detailed count makes Space Exploration look even worse. "5750 sets" vanilla includes several early technologies where the set is a subset, even one single science pack, it costs 50 of [Automation Science] for basic technology and gradually fills out to the Rocket Silo costing 1000 of [Automation, Logistics, Chemical, Utility, Production Science] which is a set of 5.

Space Exploration, meanwhile:

Which is 5000 of a set that's twice as large as the largest in basegame, so more like a 10K victory tech compared to the 1K victory tech in basegame.

But that number still isn't a direct comparison, because the multi-striped science packs in there are high tier packs whose ingredients include lower tier science packs that also need to be produced. Deep Space Science 4 (the black stripes) is made with various input resources + a DSS3 pack, which is made with more input resources + a DSS2 pack, and so on. If you count the fifteen intermediate science packs, it's something like a 25K victory tech compared to the 1K in basegame.

There's numerous techs like this. If you ever play Space Exploration, I advise you to slice a zero off everything. Set the tech cost multiplier to one-tenth. It is severely padded.

Pretty Cool Spaceships

Spaceships are of course the big draw of Space Exploration, though they come pretty late in the game, and before them there's two other methods of moving stuff between planets: Cargo rockets and railguns.

The rockets are very fuel-hungry to launch and also "consume" most of their ingredient parts as stages. The delivery railguns can't move fragile objects or players, and are same-solar-system only. (They double as expensive interplanetary weapons!) Spaceships are reusable as long as you keep them refueled, and much more fuel-efficient, as well as being able to mount laser/gun turrets for defense if landing on a hostile planet. You can even put artillery in a spaceship, which my team used to create a very short-distance-hop spaceship that was more like a suborbital bomber/mobile artillery platform for clearing the hostile fauna off our home planet.

Eventually you get spaceships to transport stuff at custom speed and scale between planets, with the ability to build and design your own. Then, the ability to set spaceship automation with docking clamps and the circuit network, and can give a spaceship instructions amounting to "go to planet X and wait until your onboard storage has 40K Cryonite, go to planet Y and wait until your onboard storage has 0 Cryonite and your fuel tank is refilled". It's the Factorio experience of automating stuff you were manually handling before, but at the much larger scale of interplanetary transport.

Here is my mini-spaceship for personal transport between planets, used to go over and tinker with things, has a few chests but doesn't take bulk cargo:

The side notch is to help me align the refueling underground pipes.

The Mod Maker Is A Control Freak

In the base game you have the opportunity to research Logistics Robots, small flying drones that carry items around for you, making automated transport more convenient so you no longer have to weave together transport belts, underground belts, railroad tracks and other physically connected means of item movement in the infamous "belt spaghetti".

Space Exploration comes with a mandatory dependency on the Robot Attrition mod, which makes logistics robots randomly collide and explode destructively if you're using more than 50 of them. (There's more than 50 item types in SE, so you will want far more than 50 logistics robots.) You can't not include this other mod when playing Space Exploration. There is a game setting which looks like it disables robot attrition, but it actually only disables robot attrition in the starting zone.

"Surely there's another mod which restores robot functionality?" you might ask, since Factorio has a lot of mods. Not that I could find, possibly because Space Exploration is distributed under a "no modding my mod any further" licence, formally the Factorio Mod Limited Distribution Only Licence.

You may make alterations for your own private personal use only. You are not allowed to distribute any content from the mod, or anything altered or derived from this mod with the following exception: You may post partial modified sections of this mod in Earendel's discord https://discord.gg/ymjUVMv for the purpose of providing bug fixes or enhancements.

Binding or not, I think that's an amazingly dick move for your Cool Spaceships mod to degrade some unrelated basegame functionality and tell people they aren't allowed to post a modmod which restores that functionality.

In other control freakery, Space Exploration is flagged as incompatible with infinite resource supply/non-depleting ore patch mods for Factorio, because the SE modder feels it would ruin the intended balance of his mod. It's flagged as incompatible with teleportation mods, to force you to use rocket/spaceship transport. It's flagged as incompatible with waterfill mods to prevent you digging wells where the modder wants to enforce a logistic challenge of delivering water in barrels. It's even flagged as incompatible with some mods that change the stack size of some items, because the modder wants to ensure you are inventory-constrained and pay for logistics.

Bizarrely contrary to the spirit of modding, if you ask me, trying to enforce that the mod is played the specific way one person wants you to play it.

Padding, Filler, and Bloat

It's not just the tech tree that suffers this, it's many aspects of the mod, and I'm going to list enough of them to make this post feel ironically padded.

In regular Factorio, when you put a drill on an iron ore patch, it produces iron ore, which you put in a Furnace to smelt into iron plates.

In Space Exploration, when you put a drill on an iridite ore patch, it produces iridite ore, which you put in a Pulverizer to crush into... a random mix of crushed iridium, stone (waste byproduct), and iridite ore that you have to feed back into the pulverizer and try to crush again.

To me this is something I shouldn't have to interact with in Factorio, it should be pre-automated below my notice. If an input ore is not properly crushed in the crushing machine, the crushing machine should keep crushing it until it's crushed, rather than demanding extra player attention to its one job. Reeeee. I have no interest in my factory's machines having what is effectively a random failure chance at doing their job. There is no upgrade tech or better machine which gets rid of that random failure chance.

It might have been interesting with one processing step whose unique gimmick is a failure chance and a need to filter-loop the output back onto the input, but Space Exploration recycles this recycle gimmick over and over again to pad out different processing steps with "do it again".

-

Speaking of random failure chances...

In regular Factorio, the "science packs" are kinda high-level abstractions. You put together a pair of engines, several electronic circuits, and a handful of sulphur to create "Chemical science", which could be taken to vaguely represent a process of destructively testing or consuming something and measuring it.

In Space Exploration, the advanced sciences are data-driven, which is a cool idea. For example you put together plates of iron, copper, stone, plastic, concrete and iridite with a blank data card to create "Tensile strength data" and recycleable scrap, then you use the data card in another recipe to create "Material science" and also outputs "Junk data card" representing data you've already analyzed and can't learn more from, and then you put the junk data card into a spacecomputer to erase the contents and get back a blank data card again.

It's a neat abstract representation of science involving data collection and material testing, with a reusable computer component and am expended material component, and it's undermined by the fact that erasing junk data has a 30% failure rate. That's the chance that the Super-Engineer Protagonist, with nuclear reactors and supercooled computers, will somehow fail to turn a Junk Data Card into a Blank Data Card and will instead break the card. So the data cards are in practice still expended consumables; you'll need to produce millions of them.

-

In regular Factorio, the various grades and kinds of steel (high carbon, low carbon, stainless, etc) are abstracted into a single "Steel plate" item which has many different uses. Storage chests, trains, power poles, handgrenades, armorplating, automation robots all use the same Steel Plate as ingredient.

This design holds true across the game: items represent broad classes of a material, also machines are multipurpose and an "Assembler" machine can be set to make gears, wire, pipes, or other stuff by configuration. One Assembler turns iron plates into gears. The next Assembler combines gears and more plates into engines. The next Assembler combines engines and more gears into transport belts.

In Space Exploration, there's several machines which only have one use, and there's even items which have less than one use.

The only thing the Xray Observation Telescope does is produce Xray Observation Frame items, the only use for Xray Observation Frame is processing into Xray Observation Data, and the only use for Xray Observation Data is combining it with Microwave Observation Data, Infrared Observation Data etc. to produce Astrometric Science. That's also the sole use for those other Observation Datas. All the different wavelength telescopes, the different observation data items, and the different observation data frame items collectively serve one purpose when put together, so I count them as having a fractional use each. Someone call an editor, fucking cut these.

-

In regular Factorio, drills on a copper patch produce 1 Copper Ore per production cycle, which smelts into 1 Copper Plate.

In Space Exploration, drills on a beryl patch produce 1 Beryl Ore per production cycle, and 20 Beryl Ore smelts into 1 Beryllium plate.

(both ratios can be improved somewhat with Productivity Modules in your furnaces)

Which brings me back to the extremely overcosted science packs, because that blue-striped Astronomic Science Pack that you need 5000 of for the rocket victory? Its cost in raw materials for a set of 8 looks like this:

displaying 580 beryl plates instead of the 5800 ore needed, 725 per pack, plus some more for the data cards that don't calculate raw material correctly, adding yet another multiplier layer of bloated tech cost. I am infuriated by whoever wrote "not a scale challenge" on the Scale Challenge Mod which asks you to mine millions of ore to research a single technology.

Arcospheres

I have another post on these, so I'll keep it short: There is a type of special item necessary to win the game, which are only available in limited supply, which you can permanently lose by accident or bad luck.

The available supply is several times larger than what's needed to win, so I wasn't actually threatened by this, but I dislike it on principle.

Also, they're spoiler-enforced by the control freak modder who keeps the helpful information off the official discord, wiki, and mod page.

Verdict: Thumbs Down

I was suckered into this partly because I believed the "not a scale challenge" advertisement when my friend group was considering what to play next, and I regret it. Halfway through we felt it starting to drag, but we were having fun and community and spite so we powered through. This is a reason I have emphasised the bloat so much in my review. This mod really, really needs an editor to cut down numbers and cut out items and simplify processes so you can get to the Fun Spaceships part without so many Mine Literally Million Ore part.

[horystech1]

Horystech

HORYS Technologies is a leading research and development company specializing in the creation of advanced software and hardware solutions. From tablets and laptops to smartwatches, HORYS Technologies designs and builds cutting-edge devices for global partners, shipping to over 150 countries. With a commitment to quality and innovation, all products undergo rigorous testing and certification, ensuring top-tier performance and reliability.

At the forefront of server management and hosting services, HORYS Technologies offers 24/7 technical support and secure server maintenance, adhering to international standards such as ISO 27001, PCI DSS3, and GDPR. Their Linux Virtual Private Server (VPS) solutions are optimized for scalability and high performance, delivering full root access, SSD hosting, unlimited bandwidth, and seamless compatibility with business needs.

Through the DigitalEdge Alliance Membership, HORYS Technologies offers unparalleled value to its customers. Members gain access to exclusive discounts, promotional coupons, and special events such as product launches and tech seminars. They also benefit from curated tech news, educational resources, and networking opportunities with industry professionals. With free webinars and in-depth content on emerging technologies, members stay ahead in the rapidly evolving tech landscape.

HORYS Technologies combines innovation, reliability, and a deep understanding of technology to empower individuals and businesses worldwide. Whether through their cutting-edge devices, robust server solutions, or membership benefits, HORYS Technologies continues to shape the future of technology.

software solutions

[takemehomecountryrhodes]

TO: ELSA AKA BEA FROM: LACEY

@thcbeasknees & @mikhailacey

[dogmadillo]

Julia writing this episode:

Or, alternatively us watching it, but I was a little too bewildered to giggle the time…

tag via @poisonheartfrog

Love that the fake murder was a locked room mystery where someone was killed with a candle stick and the butler did it

[acuppellarp]

SECRET SANTA WEEK 3!

Thank you to everyone who signed up to participate! And remember if you missed signing up for this week, you have the option to join in for the remaining week.

Each character participating in this week’s Secret Santa has (at random) been given a holiday-inspired alias. Below the cut is an alphabetized list of aliases and their respective questionnaire answers.

In just a few moments you should receive via Discord a message letting you know which alias your character has been paired with to deliver a Secret Santa gift.

Remember that you have until 8:00PM EST on Saturday to submit your gift to the Main or April for your assignee.

On Sunday morning all gifts and Secret Santa pairs will be revealed via April’s blog.

If there’s any confusion or you have questions, please let us know! Happy gifting!

BUDDY THE ELF

Puzzles or board games? monopoly

Book store or museums? both are for losers, but with book stores, at least you can walk out with something that didn’t cost you half your soul

Breakfast or dinner? 11 p.m. second dinner

Marvel or DC? they’re both venereal diseased imo

Stay in or go out? staying in so people don’t know who i am

CINDY LOU WHO

Puzzles or board games? Puzzles. You can do those alone.

Book store or museums? Museums. You don’t need a book store for e-books

Breakfast or dinner? Dinner. Or any meal served after 10 am.

Marvel or DC? I could not possibly care less.

Stay in or go out? Stay in.

DANCING LADY

Puzzles or board games? Puzzles.

Book store or museums? Bookstore.

Breakfast or dinner? Breakfast.

Marvel or DC? Marvel.

Stay in or go out? Depends on the activity, but both are good.

DRUMMING DRUMMER

Puzzles or board games? i don’t hate those people crosswords.

Book store or museums? i guess museums??

Breakfast or dinner? breakfast for dinner

Marvel or DC? neither

Stay in or go out? disney plus and thrust

ELSA

Puzzles or board games? Mmmm, puzzles. They say playing sudoku keeps you young.

Book store or museums? Museums.

Breakfast or dinner? Dinner.

Marvel or DC? Whatever’s popular.

Stay in or go out? Both, depends on my mood.

IVY

Puzzles or board games? i’m such a whiz kid @ connect four, is that a board game?

Book store or museums? museums are so cool

Breakfast or dinner? breakfast for dinner????

Marvel or DC? M A R V E L

Stay in or go out? depends on who i’m with tbh, like if you’ve got good pals with u they’re both great

JACK SKELLINGTON

Puzzles or board games? Jigsaw puzzles are my guilty pleasure

Book store or museums? Both are lovely, but I do love museums just a bit more

Breakfast or dinner? Breakfast!

Marvel or DC? I’m not well-versed enough in either to pick

Stay in or go out? Staying in, especially this time of year!

NOEL

Puzzles or board games? the only puzzles i really like are legos bc they come with directions, so board games for sure. settlers is awesome.

Book store or museums? museums all the way. 

Breakfast or dinner?  P A N C A K E S

Marvel or DC? dc. i pledge allegiance to ww.

Stay in or go out? i think i’m prob a homebody even tho going out sometimes is nice too.

PIPING PIPER

Puzzles or board games? I would have to make time for either, so I´m more likely to play board games with my friends while we hang out. Though after seeing Jumanji I am definitely being put off board games, too.

Book store or museums? Book stores. I love just browsing through the sections and not worrying about time and appointments.

Breakfast or dinner? I love both. I usually don´t plan too much time for myself at breakfast during the week though, so a nice breakfast on the weekends, or even a brunch, is much appreciated.

Marvel or DC? This is like, the feud of the century, hm? I think I have seen more Marvel movies.

Stay in or go out? Depends on the day. I love going out, but I also don´t mind a glass of wine and a good book in my bathtub or on my couch.

PRANCER

Puzzles or board games? Both, but board games in a pinch.

Book store or museums? Again, both and I can’t actually choose this time. They’ve both got great atmosphere.

Breakfast or dinner? Dinner.

Marvel or DC? BOTH! Captain Marvel and Wonder Woman would approve. Also Peggy Carter.

Stay in or go out? Stay in!

SILVER BELLS

Puzzles or board games? Board games! I love them. We should totally have regular board games nights!

Book store or museums? Comic book store. Is that cheating? I don’t think it’s cheating.

Breakfast or dinner? Breakfast! It’s the most important meal of the day

Marvel or DC? Marvel! I love them both, but Marvel will always be my number 1

Stay in or go out?  Either! You sort of need a good balance, you know? It’s way more fun that way.

SUGAR PLUM

Puzzles or board games? Puzzles, for sure

Book store or museums? Book stores that double as cafes that ALSO double as a music store

Breakfast or dinner? Brunch?

Marvel or DC? DC, but only because I’d die for Diana Prince

Stay in or go out? Staying in if I’m being lazy, going out if I feel like looking cute

[urbancycling-it]

http://urbancycling.it/27254-donhou-dss3-la-bici-acciaio-perfetta-cx-gravel/

[aces5050]

(via Light 'Em Up: Donhou Bicycles DSS3 | Cycle EXIF)

[kryptonitetidalwave]

East London bike makers Donhou Bicycles have just unveiled a bold new custom build, and a fresh milestone in their manufacturing methods: the DSS3 CX/Gravel steel bike, launched just last week, features a gorgeous steel frame that effectively pushes cycling into the modern era. 

The new build, which features a 3D printed steel seat lug, allowed its makers to use a heavily ovalized top tube for ride characteristics matched with comfortable shouldering, thus setting the seat stays further apart for maximum tire clearance and mud shedding.

Sweet!

[bikesandgirlsandmacsandstuff]

(via The 3D Dimension: Donhou Bicycles DSS3 Prototype | Cycle EXIF)

[dogmadillo]

“Self implicating over here old man?”

- Rosé

[nauj-aral-the-one]

DONHOU BICYCLES DSS3 PROTOTYPE New dimension, see the story at cycleexif.com 👍 🔥 na

[neon4]

The 3D Dimension: Donhou Bicycles DSS3 Prototype | Cycle EXIF

[themakersmovement]

Donhou Bicycles launches new steel DSS3 CX / Gravel bike that features 3D printed steel lug Award-winning... http://ift.tt/2AdqJ5U

[takemehomecountryrhodes]

TO: CINDY LOU WHO AKA NATALIE FROM: BEA

Brunch on me and, an art puzzle and a moma calendar to get you through the year.

Enjoy!

Bea xx

@natalieramos & @thcbeasknees