overbyte's recent activity
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Comment on Breaking down my dislike of strategy games | Semi-Ramblomatic in ~games
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Comment on best option for a bare-bones message board/forum? in ~comp
overbyte LinkFlarum and NodeBB are the closest to stripped down forums that's still actively developed. Flarum is the successor of esoTalk and FluxBB (which the Arch Linux forums currently use). Both lean into...Flarum and NodeBB are the closest to stripped down forums that's still actively developed. Flarum is the successor of esoTalk and FluxBB (which the Arch Linux forums currently use).
Both lean into the Discourse-style layout (flat layout, scrubber, infinite scroll) than old-school phpBB/vBulletin forums, so that's something to keep in mind if nested replies are a dealbreaker.
Running forum channels on Discord is another option and extremely easy, but running a community on Discord comes with its own tradeoffs (like out of the box search engine visibility).
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Comment on Squadron 42 | CitizenCon 2954 live gameplay reveal in ~games
overbyte LinkContinuous gameplay sections at 24:16 (turret section) and 50:21 (FPS section). Zero in-cockpit ship combat. Guess part of the early story is you earning your wings, or pay up for Star Citizen to...Continuous gameplay sections at 24:16 (turret section) and 50:21 (FPS section). Zero in-cockpit ship combat. Guess part of the early story is you earning your wings, or pay up for Star Citizen to get a taste of that instead.
They really cranked up the post processing on this one. My eyes was starting to hurt trying to maintain focus because so many scenes were uniformly blurry like someone replaced the lens with frosted glass for a few seconds. An example is when they showed the Vanduul at 22:00 or whenever there's any scene with a ship moving. The ridiculously thick motion blur kicks in and just smears entire chunks of the frame.
More nitpicks and random thoughts with comparisons to Call of Duty campaigns, given the similarities in the cinematic corridorness of the demo:
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Military science fiction in space are right up my alley since the Halo games and Infinite Warfare. While I like Andor and Dune, they're more ground-based and I've been looking for something with a little bit more war than recent Star Wars output, if this game ever comes out. A coworker recommended the Star Carrier series by Ian Douglas, might start reading that.
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Trope of ships with capital-class weaponry in close proximity and not blowing each other up with friendly fire and the planet behind the fight left surprisingly intact, similar to the Earth cutscene in Mass Effect 3. I'm not expecting Newtonian physics in my Wing Commander successor, but some of the camera angles make it look like the ships are trading paint.
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I haven't seen the live demo if they were talking in certain sections, but some of the cinematic corridor sections before the tutorial drag on with the player staring a bit too long to showcase the "background chatter while you walk by" feature. Which would be novel for anyone who still hasn't experienced a Call of Duty campaign.
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Trope of holding fire until the enemy is at point blank range (while we already have modern combat beyond visual range). A chunk of the Vanduul fleet would've been cut down before they got real close unless this navy has zero long-range weapons and sensors, and you wouldn't get a cinematic turret section out of it. Complete opposite of my X4 playthrough helping Argon and Antigone hold back the Xenon, where Terran ships and tech are so powerful (especially the Asgard's main gun) that they can delete a Xenon fleet the moment they pop out of a jump gate.
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33:33 - One thing Call of Duty campaigns do really well to sell this kind of setpiece is screaming or panicked lines over the comms before something happens. Here a capital ship casually blows up in front of you while comms are silent where it should've felt like a bigger deal. Like the kind of dialog that plays at 37:06.
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This turret section is dragging on for waaay too long.
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51:35 - More staring at "look at this scripted section we did". Another thing Call of Duty campaigns do well is it would either script this section while you're walking around (like when he crawls through the vents at 56:00), or keeping these sections really short and immediately returning control back to you.
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57:40 - Good to see hot lead is still effective in 2945.
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57:58 - I'm a sucker for animation detail like this in games, a quick button press when opening doors. Not Doom Eternal fast, but excused since you're not Doomguy.
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Like the light puzzle elements of the zero G section. Also more staring at cinematic moments. "Get to safety" can wait.
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1:05:22 - It ain't a space game if artificial gravity isn't intrinsically tied to oxygen systems.
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That bridge fight looks rough. Also like hearing the no-nonsense Aegis Dynamics ship voice.
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Comment on Freeze drying ramen noodle add ins in ~food
overbyte LinkI'd also add raw thinly sliced pork, mushrooms and corn. Rehydrate the pork, pat dry and drop into a searing hot pan before adding to ramen. Electricity aside, if I had a freeze dryer at home I'd...I'd also add raw thinly sliced pork, mushrooms and corn. Rehydrate the pork, pat dry and drop into a searing hot pan before adding to ramen.
Electricity aside, if I had a freeze dryer at home I'd also make large batches of parboiled rice, store all the fruit (especially berries) and batches of mirepoix/trinity that I can conveniently drop into a soup or stew.
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Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games
overbyte Link ParentAside from endurance, I'd also describe it as "tolerance" in the vein of drugs like caffeine. I need more novel experiences and faster feedback loops where grinding out quests or going through a...Aside from endurance, I'd also describe it as "tolerance" in the vein of drugs like caffeine. I need more novel experiences and faster feedback loops where grinding out quests or going through a gameplay-cutscene-gameplay level won't give me a fix anymore. I fall off story-heavy games after 30-40 hours and essentially go on autopilot until I finish it. I could keep plot contexts for a few weeks in my head before they get overwritten by other things I need to do in life, and that's after outsourcing my life and my brain to a to-do list with GTD.
One factor I could think of is repetitive side quest design and open world traversal where essentially nothing is happening and you just push forward to get to the next plot trigger as padding. It's just easy and routine enough that the mind starts to wander instead of remaining fully engaged in the world and story.
And speaking of feedback loops, I've also gravitated back to gameplay-heavy sandboxes with a lot of interacting systems which tend to satisfy this loop faster. I've done a few Bannerlord playthroughs and currently on X4: Foundations (once I make sense of the impenetrable UI, which is where Starsector shines even if it doesn't have the level of galactic simulation that the X series has)
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Comment on Can you help me figure out why my VM is growing? in ~tech
overbyte Link ParentAfter running TRIM, you'll still need to trigger the compact operation from the host side. Shut down the VM and run Reclaim Space on the drive. VMWare has something similar with shrinking/thinning...After running TRIM, you'll still need to trigger the compact operation from the host side. Shut down the VM and run Reclaim Space on the drive. VMWare has something similar with shrinking/thinning disks.
Welcome to the world of thin provisioning, runaway growth and all. Basically you'll want to set a maximum size for the VM drives so they don't grow beyond what you're comfortable with.
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Comment on Books or other good content on software design? in ~comp
overbyte LinkSampling of the popular books we have floating around the office are: The Pragmatic Programmer - you might hear you don't need it today because it explains blatantly obvious concepts that would...Sampling of the popular books we have floating around the office are:
- The Pragmatic Programmer - you might hear you don't need it today because it explains blatantly obvious concepts that would make eyes roll, but when it's a case of "you don't know what you don't know" the book can help shore up any gaps. It's also an easy read, more like a self-help book for programmers than a clinical CS course in software architecture.
- Designing Data-Intensive Applications - I'd consider this a must have read even for ops/sysadmins if you want to know how a system properly scales beyond a few servers. Making more stateless frontends is easy (and even automated with things like Kubernetes), but the data is often the bottleneck and how you handle that data is a huge part of how scalable and reliable the entire system can become.
For quick reads I've learned and referenced a lot of concepts from Martin Fowler's blog.
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Comment on What programming/technical projects have you been working on? in ~comp
overbyte LinkBuilt up a simple data engineering platform with Airflow in kubernetes (GKE), and imported all our ragtag bunch of BigQuery datasets under Terraform. Surprisingly straightforward to setup even if...Built up a simple data engineering platform with Airflow in kubernetes (GKE), and imported all our ragtag bunch of BigQuery datasets under Terraform. Surprisingly straightforward to setup even if you have Airflow set at "planetscale" mode (with celery, KEDA for autoscaling worker pods, on a GKE cluster with autoscaling nodes).
Got it syncing with a git repo and task logs on a bucket so the deployment is essentially stateless. Managed to get Google SSO working with a bit of Python code, then Airflow essentially says "good luck" and makes you write the authorization code if you're not using a provider that has group data in the claim so you can easily map it (like GitHub). Will need to pull some of our more full-time devs to cook up something resembling saner RBAC. We're not in Active Directory land anymore.
We can now migrate an obscenely complex hierarchy of Jenkins jobs triggering more jobs and a hodgepodge of scripts on a crontab spread across VMs nobody has logged to in years that apparently performed some essential business function. One step closer to retiring our crumbling Jenkins instance that became a defacto workload scheduler that reminds me of Autosys.
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Comment on What programming/technical projects have you been working on? in ~comp
overbyte Link ParentAt work we're using cookiecutter to lay out kustomize manifests if someone needs to spin up a new service. It was slightly easier to onboard people to Jinja (ubiquity of Ansible) than Go templates...At work we're using cookiecutter to lay out kustomize manifests if someone needs to spin up a new service. It was slightly easier to onboard people to Jinja (ubiquity of Ansible) than Go templates when they take a crack at our in-house charts for the more complex deployments.
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Comment on Ubisoft needs the next ‘Assassin’s Creed’ to be a hit in ~games
overbyte Link ParentThere's also the other UbiArt engine games: Child of Light and Valiant Hearts. I also wouldn't mind the occasional Anno, Settlers and a Heroes of Might & Magic on the strategy front. That's on top...There's also the other UbiArt engine games: Child of Light and Valiant Hearts. I also wouldn't mind the occasional Anno, Settlers and a Heroes of Might & Magic on the strategy front.
That's on top of what the Tom Clancy brand originally represented. Yes I'm still salty on what happened to Patriots, I'm a sucker for single player games where you can boss an AI squad around and Ubisoft had most of those between Ghost Recon, Rainbow Six, and as the publisher for the Brothers in Arms series.
Anything that doesn't feel like another big budget open world checklist that kind of blend into each other because they share a lot of mechanics between the titles.
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Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games
overbyte LinkPlaying Final Fantasy XVI on PC and near the end of the main quest now, taking my time to grind out all the sidequests. On PC performance, it definitely needs Lyall's FFXVIFix. The cutscenes are...Playing Final Fantasy XVI on PC and near the end of the main quest now, taking my time to grind out all the sidequests.
On PC performance, it definitely needs Lyall's FFXVIFix. The cutscenes are hard capped to 30 FPS without it and there's a lot of cutscenes in this game. If you go straight with the main quest it becomes very cutscene heavy on the level of MGS4. Those epic FMVs from previous titles? Large chunks of the main quest are like that. It's feels more like a playable big budget HBO series punctuated by some moments of gameplay in between. The M rating is used to great effect here, but don't expect a moogle saying "fuck" or anything. For pure spectacle, it's pretty hard to top. There's multiple plot points in the game that oozes "final boss fight" energy and they keep getting better than the last.
Another is the character writing. Clive and his merry band of friends make a lot of surprisingly practical decisions, some are upfront they're winging a particularly crazy plan. Ever had a moment when watching a show that you wanted to scream at the TV because a character was doing something incredibly stupid at a critical point in the story? Clive is like the complete opposite of that. He doesn't kill a whole bad guy hideout's worth of mooks then spares the leader because he heard a sob story. He doesn't monologue with the big bad guy in a story act trying to change their ways at the last minute. Koji also makes his mark again here with the English localization, bringing the infamous item descriptions from FF14 that read like an English major gone mad.
On the gameplay side, I've appreciated that each mainline title in the series completely change things up, so I'm not putting any expectations that it should be turn-based or have a party or whatever. If you're looking for more meat on the RPG side then this game ain't it. It plays more like DMC-lite in an FF skin given the combat director. Like most games in the series, stat growth is completely automatic and most gear are stat sticks. The game hands you crafting materials that forge a very specific weapon as you go. You have infinite inventory except for potions, gil is practically useless aside from buying music for your hub (which can only be played one at a time on repeat) or NG+ gear. If anything, AP (skill points) is the real "currency" of the game.
There's combo damage but no elemental damage, so you busting out fire magic against a Bomb doesn't matter. There's a few status effects but stagger, frozen and "in midair" are the main ones to care about. Parries and perfect dodges can trigger more powerful versions of existing skills. Magic burst is like a lightweight version of Nero's Exceed. You can charge up your magic attack while attacking and let loose at the end for more damage, which can be awkward on the default controller layout.
For other downsides, one of my main gripes is your current companion don't have enough things to say and kind of just stand there. And you can clearly see where the focus (and the mocap budget) went. Without mocap, side quests have characters awkwardly standing around, or fading to black for things they didn't want to animate or talk that feels utterly dated and 2000s-era Bioware has done better. The most infuriating ones are the long unskippable animation where Clive receives and hands over items out of camera. Clive's magical pocket can even fit things like bolts of linen or planks of wood and he hands them over like trinkets.
Since this is getting long, one last item is a shoutout to the game's metanarrative "State of the Realm" feature. It's the world map superimposed with an interactive timeline of the main quest which feels like a wargaming table or WW2 battle map. It shows what other factions in the world are doing, current troop movements and how your actions in the main quest are affecting everyone else as the story progresses. You click on an object on the map and it pops up a codex entry for that item. I'd love other future story heavy games to just outright steal this feature to give a "what's happening right now" overview of where you're at while playing a long story.
At its core this is an old-school linear theme park ride with all the smoke and mirrors you can muster. And despite some bumps, what a ride it is.
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Comment on What things do you have are surprisingly good / handy? in ~life
overbyte LinkPhysical: I have a lanyard where I attach my apartment keys. I've trained the habit to wear the lanyard on my neck when I go out so I'll never lock myself out. As a bonus, it helps when I have a...Physical:
- I have a lanyard where I attach my apartment keys. I've trained the habit to wear the lanyard on my neck when I go out so I'll never lock myself out. As a bonus, it helps when I have a big haul knowing the keys are on my neck while both of my hands are carrying a big box or something.
- A container of citric acid. Bulk substitute for lemon juice when cooking, but the real use is for things like descaling the kettle, dishwasher and laundry washer and it doesn't smell like vinegar for the whole process so I'm more inclined to use it everywhere.
- Car stuff at home. Diluted windshield washer fluid or denatured alcohol for cleaning shower glass, then treating them with RainX/Invisible Glass. Carnuba or spray wax on clean tiled walls. Lithium grease for sliding doors/windows, interior detailing sprays for treating leather/plastic stuff at home and make them smell good for a bit. Our family has collectively enough Meguiars and Mother's products we should be shareholders by now.
- Calibrated ambient air thermometer/hygrometers as hand-me-downs from acquaintances who paint commercial aircraft. Company they work for replaces them every few years. Helps with measuring indoor RH which made life in a humid climates a lot more bearable throughout the year.
Digital:
- I have a folder of "the numbers" in my password manager. Driver license number, passport numbers, bank account numbers, insurance policies, car registration, VIN, anything that would speed up a form that requires my identity or anything relevant to these.
- A transparent PNG of my signature. I've put these on rental leases, government forms, signing up for banks, anything that can't do Docusign-style digital signatures. There's only a few edge cases left where I have to specifically use a wet/physical signature like very specific government documents that need to be signed in front of a witness.
- A complete address history spanning multiple countries over 15 years. I had to apply for a few visas and police clearances that needed these, so I've started keeping a completely accurate history down to the exact day. Not quite for day to day, but very useful in the exact times you need it.
- For less critical stuff, I have a note of my own measurements like shirt size, waist size, inseam, shoe size, etc kept up to date every few months. The only thing I need to worry is if it's true to size or not, more a problem for shoes than clothing.
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Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games
overbyte (edited )LinkBeen playing Deadlock constantly for around a few weeks now and got me hooked from the first go. It has the makings of another classic Valve multiplayer game with a cosmetic shop behind it. The...Been playing Deadlock constantly for around a few weeks now and got me hooked from the first go. It has the makings of another classic Valve multiplayer game with a cosmetic shop behind it.
The quick history to the game that it is now:
Got to admit, the handshake agreement before it was lifted made Fight Club feel more fun before every streamer and influencer got to complain and scream about it. Got to relive the organic game discovery from the 90s with demo discs that came with in game magazines, even for a moment when the Discord server was the only source of information about the game.
I'll only admit up to 2000 hours of Dota 2 and games like these are right up my alley. I also like bullet points, so here we go:
- It's a MOBA, so play it like one. Last hits, map timing, pushing lanes and active items all matter before cm/360 and prefiring here. That said, getting headshots still matters with a visible and audible ping since you increase your damage significantly with it.
- At its current stage it is already mechanically complex with a very high skill ceiling. Perhaps even more when you fuse third person movement with a dash, a jump, up to 4 MOBA abilities (some of which you have to aim, some are skillshots, some are channeled, some build up charges) and up to 4 active items. It takes a while to get used to your left hand on the keyboard being overloaded, so bind skills to extra mouse buttons to spread them around.
- It pulls mechanics from multiple Valve games, especially Dota 2 with some movement/shooting from Team Fortress 2. Each hero has a unique dash animation (given IceFrog is working on this it will likely matter like hero turn rates in Dota 2). Each weapon has a specific recoil pattern, not CS level where you have to quite know them but just something to note about.
- The map layout and some hero skills can up the verticality, so don't get stuck looking at ground level. As there's no warding, it's all line of sight and shared across the team. You'll get slightly better vision the higher you are, so it looks like someone on the team being always on the high ground for vision might matter.
- Compared to Dota, guardians/towers are weaker here and it currently favors you pushing your lane hard than sitting next to your own tower. How pushed you are to the enemy also affects skyrail speed, which is a nice quality of life feature when you need to move around a big map.
- To balance the third person gameplay, towers are immune if you try to snipe its health down. You have to get in close to deal damage to one.
- In the early game (up to 10mins or so) you aim to last hit the creep and secure the soul that pops so the enemy can't deny it plus you get the full value, so early game last hitting is a two step process. The game is very generous with securing souls and fudges bullets in your favor, you can do it with a hero's shotgun across a room that wouldn't normally connect.
- Breakable statues and boxes start populating the map around 3 minutes in, which give a random chance to drop a small permanent boost to your character. They add up and benefits those who keep moving around the map instead of just in their lanes.
- Some items are straight transplants of Dota items, so some players will feel right at home.
- Regarding the items, one of the big changes here are items that improve a specific skill. So it's not just stacking a bunch of items in order, now you have to pick which skill that item improves. For example, one of those items reloads your weapon after casting a skill, which can be powerful if synergized with the right skill.
- Like with Dota 2, active items are very powerful if you have the dexterity or transfer your 1000 hours of high MMR Invoker/Meepo skills to this game while constantly being on the move and aiming.
- The most unpolished part is the base where you have to destroy the core/patron. It's just a bunch of grey walls everywhere and there's this big empty space in the middle.
- Took me a bit to warm up to the urban fantasy "temporary art and experimental gameplay" style. As it is now, each hero has a unique profile and skill/weapon sounds, you can easily tell who is using what.
- Even for having "temporary art", there is so much hero-specific dialog that it's kind of insane Valve recorded it at this early stage. Getting healed by your partner in lane has unique dialog depending on your lane partner, getting a team kill triggers unique lines, all "hero spotted" lines are also voiced against specific heroes.
- Right now there is no item shop, no microtransactions, not even test versions of them. Currently it's pure game.
- Valve is currently very hands-on with their next game. It gets updates multiple times per week, the map layout changes constantly and fine-tuned with updates, and they manually review reports. It helps to use the report button since it actually works right now.
- I have no idea if Yoshi, the one prominent Valve dev that communicates everything related to this game between the forums and Discord, is actually IceFrog.
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Comment on Godot 4.3 release - A shared effort in ~games
overbyte LinkThe hooks to allow customizable render pipelines is also in this release. These patch notes are right up my alley even for just hobbyist projects. Just lots and lots of QoL changes in general like...The hooks to allow customizable render pipelines is also in this release.
These patch notes are right up my alley even for just hobbyist projects. Just lots and lots of QoL changes in general like the AnimationPlayer improvements which makes dealing with keyframes way less annoying.
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Comment on [SOLVED] How do I filter politics out of Tildes? in ~tildes
overbyte LinkYou can also filter out subsets of tags if you want to be specific. Like you can have ask.recommendations and ask.advice filtered out but ask.discussions will still show up.You can also filter out subsets of tags if you want to be specific. Like you can have
ask.recommendationsandask.advicefiltered out butask.discussionswill still show up. -
Comment on Google Chrome warns uBlock Origin may soon be disabled in ~tech
overbyte Link ParentQuite close. It's based off Location History from those who have opted in. Historical data was roughly based on the last 4-6 weeks during the pandemic. Behind the scenes: popular times and live...Quite close. It's based off Location History from those who have opted in. Historical data was roughly based on the last 4-6 weeks during the pandemic.
Behind the scenes: popular times and live busyness information
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Comment on Google Chrome warns uBlock Origin may soon be disabled in ~tech
overbyte Link ParentYou click a place on Google Maps, it shows you a live estimate of how busy a place is. It also collects that data in aggregate, so some commercial/business districts will be marked as "busy areas"...You click a place on Google Maps, it shows you a live estimate of how busy a place is. It also collects that data in aggregate, so some commercial/business districts will be marked as "busy areas" during peak hours.
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Comment on YouTube without a working ad blocker in ~tech
overbyte Link ParentParamount+ runs on GCP, they're definitely contributing plenty as one customer. Google also uses existing infrastructure as the basis for some GCP services, like YouTube for Media CDN or letting...Paramount+ runs on GCP, they're definitely contributing plenty as one customer.
Google also uses existing infrastructure as the basis for some GCP services, like YouTube for Media CDN or letting GCP customers register with the Google Front End, which is kind of like a global-scale reverse proxy on steroids that fronts all their public-facing services.
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Comment on YouTube without a working ad blocker in ~tech
overbyte Link ParentuBlock Origin has moved to differential updates and has removed manual full updates.uBlock Origin has moved to differential updates and has removed manual full updates.
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Comment on Google now only search engine allowed to provide results from Reddit in ~tech
overbyte Link ParentThere's also the same set of prolific cross-posting power users that effectively killed organic content on the big subs. There's one regular that handles movie/TV news and there's a small group of...There's also the same set of prolific cross-posting power users that effectively killed organic content on the big subs.
There's one regular that handles movie/TV news and there's a small group of rotating users for the general gaming subs. I noticed it initially from an account that regularly posted Neowin deals every week on /r/pcgaming.
For even more normal-sounding Yahtzee, he has an incredible series of dev diaries back at the Escapist where he forces himself to make 12 games in 12 months. Parts of what he learned from those were folded into Starstruck Vagabond. Each episode averages around 8 minutes without stereotypical Youtuber filler.
Equally entertaining and an insightful peek into how he thinks with regards to game design and made me appreciate his ramblings even more. Even as a hobbyist dev I've picked up a thing or two from his series with regards to nailing down core game loops at least.