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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: July 22nd, 2023

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  • Can someone explain like I’m 5 searXNG?

    Like, I vaguely understand the terms everyone uses to explain it but I don’t really understand what it does or how it does it. I’ve used a public instance of it that the maintainers of my Linux distro provide and is set as default search on a fresh install. The results weren’t terrible but did take some time to load, which is the main reason I tend to use other engines.

    If I self host it do I get better performance? What about results? Are they different on different instances?








  • Gaming on Linux is really not as bad as all that unless you play a lot of games with invasive anti-cheat; which honestly, even if you never try Linux and stick to windows, I’d recommend avoiding or at least having a separate windows install for. I’m not a fan of having to install a rootkit on my computer that constantly monitors everything I do just to prove to some mega-corp I’m an honest player (especially considering how poorly even those work to stop cheaters).

    I’d highly recommend anyone upset with microsoft to at least setup dual boot with one of the popular gaming specific Linux distos and trying it out. Even if you did a few years ago, it has really come a long way in the last few years.


  • I just came up with a possibly acceptable middle ground of my own… Puzzle is intended for the players to solve, but if characters have an appropriate high mental stat or characters that roll well on an appropriate skill check would get varying degrees of hints or clues. Maybe? I feel like I’d have to try it to see if I actually like it or not. It feels like a sweet spot compromise, but still requires meta-game problem solving, but I feel like that is unavoidable - you can’t actually think with your characters brain, only your own. At least with current technology, lol.


  • That’s kinda dumb… It leads into why I don’t really like “puzzles” in the traditional sense in TTRPGs… Either it is simply a DC you have to beat in a roll, and that is it, or it requires the player (not the character) to be good at solving puzzles. Otherwise, it isn’t a puzzle, it is just an atypical “lock” requiring an atypical “key” reminiscent of old point-and-click adventure games where you just can’t proceed until you find the McGuffin (some random detail or piece of information that is hidden away that in turn “solves” the puzzle that you could not have hoped to solve without it).

    I’d love to be proven wrong, but I definitely haven’t seen it done well.



  • What’s wild is I have had a 1TB one of these running for like 4 or 5 years now without issues, and I’ve had 2 nice Samsung’s (a 970 and 980) die in that time frame. I’ve basically come to the conclusion that modern consumer storage can’t be trusted or relied on in general. Robust back-up solutions of anything I’m worried about losing, preferably to a cloud service (or 2)…





  • Running starfinder now, and I love it… But it is a lot more fantasy sci-fi than the IPs OP mentioned. It’s a great “dnd but in space” setting, but it is mostly based on og Pathfinder so it’s quite a crunchy system and ship battles can be a slog and kinda unbalanced from a “what each player gets to do” perspective. Really sucks to be the engineer or science officer as far as excitement goes compared to the pilot or a gunner.

    We’ve had good luck with atypical ship encounters though, like trying to chase down and board a ship before they escape or some people are on the enemy ship during the fight. Having to be fast and loose with the rules about ship roles though when you’ve only got 2 or 3 people on the ship. It feels like it is really designed to have a minimum of 5 people strictly RAW. We’ve also played with concepts from other systems, like allowing the Bard equivalent to use influencing spells on enemy ship crew despite being wildly out of range (but not being able to use ship actions in the same turn).