tberton

Founding next to Iron is a good idea! A good Robotic/Expansive founding spot will usually have Iron and Aluminum closely bunched together. As general rule of thumb, any secondary buildings (that is, buildings that require inputs other than power) should be built next to your HQ (Scientific HQs can get around this, but even then, closer is better). There are two reasons for this: first off all, if a building requires an input resource and isn't next to your HQ, that input resource needs to first be sent to the building and then the output resource needs to be sent back to HQ. Not only does that cost a lot of Fuel (or Power if your a Robot), but more importantly, it costs time and time is your most precious resource. Any second resources are flying through the air is a second you could instead be making money. For the same reason, putting your secondary buildings away from your HQ also makes it tougher to transition them. If you're playing a lot as Robotic, remember that Power counts as an input resource, so that any building next to a Power producing building will receive an adjacency bonus. Building Solar Panels or Wind Turbines near your HQ (or even better, founding near a Geothermal Vent) is the best way to maximize the Robotic bonus. As for the Return Claim button, you can do that, as long as 1) a structure hasn't finished building on that claim yet and 2) the tile hasn't yet been hit by a Black Market effect. It's basically there in case you misclick.

Ah, okay, I didn't catch that. And sorry, by the way, if my tone came of as condescending or anything. I didn't mean it to and I appreciate how confusing the game can be. Robotic have the lowest Aluminum requirements, so they can get around it a bit, but in general, you really need an Aluminum mine at the beginning of the game or you're going to be paying for upgrades through the nose. You're right that the price tends to tank late game though, so if you can swing it, founding right next to a good source of Aluminum is always nice so that you can switch it into something more profitable later on. You're right too that you have a big effect on the market and so a big part of the strategy is in identifying when you're going to need to transition into a different one. By HQ Level 4 or 5, you should generally have 3-4 triangles of secondary resources that are making you good money. Once one of those starts to dip and doesn't seem like it's coming back anytime soon, you can switch into something that's making more money. If you feel that you're still chasing prices as they disappear on you, try to identify resources that your opponent is going to need and use the Black Market to deny it to them. For instance, if your opponent is an Expansive HQ, you know they're going to constantly be consuming Food. So freeze their Farms and build some yourself then sell down that Food as fast as you can. The upward pressure on the market from their life support cost will keep the price high enough for you and by the time their Farms are back online, they'll be making less money than you did. Also, Graddy, I got your invite!

You are correct. Jake brings it up pretty much every time Myst is mentioned.

Food and Oxygen do tend to be the most valuable Offworld resources. After the inital seed, there is some semi-random upward pressure on the Offworld prices, but it's not affected by players, and I do believe that it's weighted toward the Life Support resources. So you're right that those resources tend to be very valuable in most games, especially if there are a lot of faction consuming life support as well. That said, Oxygen especially is tough to produce, as Electrolysis Reactors only make have as much of it as they do Fuel (they're working off of H2O, after all) and Solar Condensers only work during the day, so it can be tough to make money from it sometimes. And, if everybody's making Food and Oxygen, Water will get very expensive. Electronics and Chemicals have more inputs, but can have their price seriously offset with the Carbon Scrubbing patent, which lets them ignore their biggest input. Also, with people using Optimization Centres, Patent Labs and building Offworld Markets, the prices of those resources tend to spike in the late game. Glass will also get costlier as the game goes on, as people upgrade and build Farms and such. Again, though, a flooded market will sink all ships. As for the Robotic strategy in that final practice game, that sounds like a good one! Robots are definitely the easiest faction to play as a beginner because they have so little debt to worry about. (In fact, one fun, but tough, strategy is the Power Robot - found in a pile of Silicon, build a couple Solar Panels and start making mad money on Power.) And you may be right that Robotic is the best choice for that map - faction choice is very, very dependent on the map, the factions the other players have chosen and the Black Market. On that note, anybody looking to get some basic strategy tips should check out . Zultar is the most prominent Offworld streamer and does a really good job of explaining the general strategies you should be using. Also, if anybody would like to play online, I'm Karzac on Steam and am always down for a game.

I just tried the practice game for the first time and while I lost, it was only because I was lazy and didn't buy my own stock. I've got a fair bit of experience in the game though and can see how it could be intimidating for a newcomer. I don't think I'd say Robotic is the only good choice though - given that the iron is far away from everything else (presuming that the map seed is the same, which I think it is for the practice games), founding near the middle of the map, closer to the water, silicon and aluminum so that the only thing you have to ship a long way is iron. That said, there may be a couple beginner mistakes that might be making the game tougher for you. Number one, are you securing aluminum early? Every HQ type needs aluminum to upgrade (although Robotic needs less of it), so it's a huge bottleneck at the beginning of the game. You should usually try to get a high source of it at HQ Level 1. Number two, are you building your structures next to each other? Its essential to build structures (especially those that produce secondary resources) in pairs and triangles to get adjacency bonuses in order to maximize efficiency. If you don't do this, you'll fall behind quickly. Finally, in direct response to Dewar's comment, building everything that your opponent is building is usually a bad idea. Think of it like playing rock-paper-scissors and always playing rock the turn after your opponent plays rock - they'll beat you every time. In Offworld, the first person into a resource will benefit most from its price - as they sell down to make money, the price will go down and anybody getting in afterwards will be getting a smaller profit. Ideally, you want to find high-value resources that your opponents haven't yet started producing and make those while the price is high, the switch to something else if the market is flooded. Now, sometimes the price of something will be high enough to justify everybody making a ton of it, but usually, you want to be making whatever your opponent isn't making.

Friends at the Table is awesome. Especially the second season.

Agreed. Not only that, but there are countless small and large gameplay changes that have made the game so much better since Early Access. The stock system, neutral colony, advanced buildings and black market have all benefited a ton from the extra time.

So excited.

I've only played the campaign a little bit and it's a bit jarring, because I'm so used to multiplayer, but it feels pretty fully formed and interesting. Enough to keep your attention, certainly. However, like most RTS games, I'd say multiplayer is the main attraction.

It's not my favourite Darren Korb song, but I didn't hate it.

I've been playing a lot this week in anticipation of the official release. This game is so good! It's been amazing watching it evolve and improve throughout Early Access. Some of the new systems, like the way the neutral colony works now and the stock system, feel so right. If anybody checked it out in early access and thought it was interesting but wanted to wait, I highly recommend looking at it again. The game has come a long way.

Tinker Tailor would probably be a good place to start, since it's substantively the same as the movie but structurally very different. Having the movie in your head will make it a bit easier to follow. The Spy Who Came in From the Cold is also really good and shorter and more focused than Tinker Tailor. Just be aware that the George Smiley that shows up in that book isn't really the same George Smiley that shows up later. Man, I should read more Le Carre.

I wrote up a design idea for Always Support the Danger Layer last year. Maybe I'll make it!

My favourite part of the finale was the interview with the guy who thought that Bergdahl had definitely betrayed the trust of his fellow soldiers, but was not responsible for anybody's death. Dude seemed really smart and I appreciated that he had a nuanced position.

So did anybody listen to the finale of Serial Season 2? I thought it was really fantastic. I know that a lot of people were disappointed in Season 2, but man, that final episode is brutal and really pulls together all the strands of the season beautifully.

Man, I think this was the best episode yet! The whole discussion about simulation vs. evocation was fascinating. I loved the sabermetric discussion too, since I was thinking of something similar (although I'll note that ground-ball rates vs. fly-ball rates is something that a pitcher has control over and does affect BABIP). Great job to both of you!

Sclps: Codenames definitely fits that bill. Small, easy to learn, quick to play and devious as all hell. It's a weird cross between Hanabi, Minesweeper and Password.

I can't really disagree with you on any single point there (although I think I like Schwartzman, Cera and Larson more than you), but I still really like that movie. It's just a really pleasing audio-visual experience. The colours, the fight choreography and the music are all great. Plus, it's really nice to see my city actually get to be itself on screen and they even get some good gags out of it, like the Casa Loma scene. But I agree that it's a thematic mess. They tried to cram six books that take place over more than a year into a 2 hour long movie that takes place over maybe two weeks. The characters really suffer for it. I may have said this here before, but it really feels like it should have been two movies: first, Scott comes to terms with Envy, then Ramona comes to terms with Gideon. Trying to do it all in one movie leaves everything falling flat.

Yeah, American news always gets huge coverage in Canada. In 2008, we had an election a month before yours and there was way more excitement about Obama v. McCain than there was about Harper v. Dion v. Layton.

Loved this episode. I'm not even a Civ fan (having only played a little bit of vanilla V) but I love listening to Jon and Soren talk, especially when it comes to their histories in the industry.

Sean Vanaman is inside all of us, now.

Assuming that this year was Chris' 14th GDC (2003-2016 inclusive), then that would mean in two years' time he'll have been to 16 of them and there will have been 32 in total, meaning he'll have been to half of all of them.

The funniest thing about Project BEAST is their complete inability to understand meters and kilometers.

Yeah, I definitely see this. That's kind of what I was saying too: I think that was exactly what their design was going for.

Oh man, I've been playing Adam too! How's your experience been? I think he's super fun and way underrated.