Marketing is one of the most crucial operation for a Shopify store. There are lot’s of tactics Marketing is one of the most crucial operation for a Shopify store. There are lot’s of tactics to grow quickly and none of them not working. Well, if you looking for a way to create solid marketing plan, then this guide is for you. In this guide you’ll learn

• Definition of Marketing
• Market Research, Competitor Analysis and Defining Your Target Market
• Brand Identity and How to Create Your Branding
• Go-to-Market Strategy and Defining Your Marketing Strategy
• Inbound and Outbound Marketing Channels
• Marketing Plan Template
• FAQs

Definition of Marketing

American Marketing Association defines marketing as activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large. Source
What do you see here?

1. Marketing is not about activities, it contains activities, set of institutions and process.
2. Function of marketing is not generating sales. It’s creating, communicating, delivering and exchanging offerings that has value.
3. In this post we’ll focus on Shopify stores marketing. However in the big picture marketing has not limited with companies. Marketing can be done within organization or society.

Let’s summarize what marketing definition for a Shopify store. Marketing will create, communicate, deliver and exchange offers that have value for customers. As you can see main subject in here is customers. Because of this, I’ll put customers as the center of this guide. Everything we’ll do has to something with them.

Market Research, Competitor Analysis and Defining Your Target Market

This is a practical guide for marketing so I want to continue with a hypothetical Shopify stores for each steps.
Let’s say we have a Shopify store that has some high-end, organic baby clothes targeting new parents.

Market Research

How can we do the market research?
Let’s say you have a new Shopify store that has less than 500 order per month. You can hire expensive agencies, expensive experts to research the market, create market reports for you, etc. Even if you do that, I highly suspicious if it helps you.
However you can talk with your new-parent friends. Ask them about how do they decide to buy baby clothes? What they are looking for before completing their purchases? Do they get any expert opinion before making buying decision? How do they search online and what they want to see? Is there any great YouTube channels about this.
Don’t have any friends? Checkout your friends not a new-parents but parents and ask similar questions to them. If you also don’t have them, try to make new born friends. I know how hard it is but let’s be honest here. If you don’t know anybody in your target audience, how do you manage to get know them? All of the successful stores I saw they have direct relationship with their target audience.
When you make your research with real people, then you can extend your project to online. Try to search as they do. What do you find? Deep in dive and take your notes.

Competitor Analysis

When you done this market research, you’ll also see there are some other brands. This is a huge subject but let’s call these brands as competitor for now.
Now it’s time to analyze them.

1. Checkout their branding strategy.
2. What are their value propositions?
3. What is hot about them? Return guarantee, free shipping etc.
4. What is not hot about them? Poor product or store design, low UX on the website, etc.
5. What people think about them? Google reviews, Trust pilot reviews, product reviews on the store.
6. Are there any partnership or influencer program they’re running?
7. What is their Google/YouTube campaign strategy? Check it here.
8. What is their Facebook/Instagram campaign strategy? Check it here.

Create a spreadsheet with all of this information. We’ll use this when working on positioning and marketing strategy.

Define Your Target Market

What do you say about our target market? Can all of new parents be our target market?
Nope, it can’t. You need to deep dive into your market and find a sub-segment, a niche that will need your products much better than anybody else and afford it easily.
This is what I called ideal customer profile (ICP). Check out what is ideal customer profile and how to create your ideal customer profile posts to learn more about the concept.
For our hypothetical store, ICP can be something like this;
Demographics

• Age: 25-45 years old
• Gender: Primarily women, but also some men
• Education: College degree or higher
• Income: $75,000+ per household
• Location: Urban areas
• Occupation: Professionals, entrepreneurs, stay-at-home parents

Psychographics

• Values: Health, wellness, sustainability, social responsibility
• Lifestyle: Active, eco-conscious, family-oriented
• Interests: Organic food, natural products, children’s activities
• Media consumption: Social media, parenting blogs, magazines
• Shopping habits: Researches purchases thoroughly, values quality over price

Pain Points

• Concerns about harmful chemicals in baby clothes
• Difficulty finding stylish and affordable organic baby clothes
• Wants to make sustainable choices for their children

Needs

• High-quality, organic baby clothes that are safe and healthy for their children
• Unique and stylish designs that make their children look and feel good
• A brand that shares their values and commitment to sustainability

Buying Behaviors

• Researches products online before making a purchase
• Reads reviews and testimonials from other parents
• Shops at specialty stores and online retailers
• Willing to pay a premium for quality and sustainability

After creating ICP, it’s important to spend some time on empathy map. Don’t forget to check it, too.
Now we know our baby clothes Shopify store market, customer’s buying process and our ideal customer profile.

Brand Identity and How to Create Your Branding

I’ll follow the American Marketing Association (AMA) in here too.
First look at brand definition. AMA defines brand as “any distinctive feature like a name, term, design, or symbol that identifies goods or services”.
Branding is for creating and managing your brand’s identity. It involves your mission, values, culture and public image.
I’m not an expert on brand, but I know how branding can be effective for your conversions and performance. Here are some checklist for you.

1. Design consistency is the key. Your visual identity should be consistent across social media, Shopify store, emails, product detail pages, etc.
2. Copy consistency is the key. Your communication style should be consistent across social media, Shopify store, emails, product detail pages, etc.
3. Experience consistency is the key. Let’s say your brand looks like a high-end brand and when a new visitor visit your store first they see is an annoying popup saying want to get 10% OFF. This is simply how to destroy your brand.
4. Craft a story and stick to it. What makes you create this brand? Faces behind the brand. This is a huge leverage for creating trust and building bonds.

Go-to-Market Strategy and Defining Your Marketing Strategy

So far we identified our target market and ideal customer profile. Check out competitors and creates the branding for our store.
Now it’s time to work on go-to-market strategy and crafting our marketing strategy.

Go-to-Market Strategy

Let’s say you recently launched your Shopify store or add a new line of products.
You need a plan to introduce your store or new products to the market. This is what we called go-to-market(GTM) strategy.
Main goal of the GTM is letting people know that there is a new brand or product line. It’s similar to launch marketing. Key message here is there is a new products/brand launched and it offer the best for you. Give it a try, you’ll love it.
All of your messages and communication should be parallel to this process.
Our focus is convincing people to try our products/brand. So I always offer a special campaign just for the launch to give people to a reason to try your products/brand.
For our hypothetical Shopify store we can run a special campaign for launch like;

• Free shipping until X date.
• 5 different boy and girl bundle with 40% OFF to try our products.

Marketing Strategy

This is your plan of actions to sell or advertise your products. Now we can talk about selling part of the marketing.
Let’s say you have GREAT advertising creatives and a huge budget and just spending it. Don’t wait to crack the code and having lot’s of sales.
Your marketing strategy should be follow sales funnel. If you don’t have a high-converting sales funnel, you can’t expect people to buy from you. Check out How to Build High Converting Sales Funnel For Shopify post.
AIDA Sales Funnel Framework
Now we can continue with our hypothetical store example. We’re selling high-end, organic baby clothes on our store. We crafted our ICP, empathy map, work on branding and created our story.

Example Marketing Strategy

First step we’ll work on attention step. Our focus is getting attention of our target market attention.
We can create a educative e-book like “7 Harmful Chemicals Commonly Used in Baby Clothes and How to Avoid Them” and run some campaigns targeted new parents on social network (Facebook, Instagram or YouTube)
This ads will land on a landing page that gives brief information about why we should pay attention to chemicals in baby clothes for our little ones and make a promise like “I spend my last 5 years about researching chemicals on baby clothes and prepare this book for you and your little one”. Also there can be a quick video about our story explaining our expertise in this field and why we’re building this brand.
We can ask for their email address to share the book with them. When they enter their email address, we’ll send them this ebook.
After first email with the ebook, we can send a few more emails with easy to digest information about chemicals.
This will create an expertise image on our target customers and start to create a bond with them. Not a bad start, right?
At the same time we can use this content on our social media, right? Quick videos, infographics and posts about the chemicals in the baby clothes.
After getting a few thousands subscribers we can organize a webinar to answer questions. This will also a great content for re-used social media content and creating trust and expert image.
Then we can share a time-limited promotion with this people for a bundle. Like we’re running a campaign and these 5 chemical free baby clothes bundles 10% discounted until next week!
We can send emails about it and use this campaign for remarketing for only people who show interest in our e-book and webinar.
This is a very brief template of marketing plan.
Now let’s take a look at more common one.

• Post product photos on social media with lot’s of hashtags
• Run a Meta campaign without any targeting, land people on product detail page
• Give them WELCOME10 discount if they enter their email address
• Send them 15 emails in the next 5 days to maximize your sales.

It’s time for you. Which one do you want to choose? All of the experts recommending this without even asking who are your customers. Can you believe it?
Don’t forget that marketing strategy is not a hope. It’s a well documented plan of actions designed for turning strangers into customers.

Inbound and Outbound Marketing Channels

Inside the marketing strategy, channels plays a vital role. There are lot’s of ways to group channels. I’ll use most basic one.
Inbound Marketing Channels: With the inbound marketing your customers will find you and start the interaction. Most common channel for inbound marketing is organic search engine optimization.
After creating high quality content, when customers search something online, they can see your articles and first interaction happens.
Outbound Marketing Channels: With the outbound marketing you reach out to customers. Facebook/Instagram/YouTube ads, influencer marketing, display ads, podcast ads can be count in this category.
As you can imagine inbound marketing channels takes lot’s of efforts and time however over the time you’ll have organic marketing channel and it brings you customer without needing any budget.
Outbound marketing channels generally works with advertisement models and you need budgets to run these channels.
Most of time I recommend to start with outbound marketing channels and then invest inbound marketing channels overtime. Don’t forget to check Mastering Paid Ads For Shopify post.
Succesful marketing plans should be supported by high converting growth and conversion plans. Don’t forget to check Growth Guide For Shopify and Conversion Optimization Guide For Shopify too.
to grow quickly and none of them not working. Well, if you looking for a way to create solid marketing plan, then this guide is for you. In this guide you’ll learn

• Definition of Marketing
• Market Research, Competitor Analysis and Defining Your Target Market
• Brand Identity and How to Create Your Branding
• Go-to-Market Strategy and Defining Your Marketing Strategy
• Inbound and Outbound Marketing Channels
• Marketing Plan Template
• FAQs

Definition of Marketing

American Marketing Association defines marketing as activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large. Source
What do you see here?

1. Marketing is not about activities, it contains activities, set of institutions and process.
2. Function of marketing is not generating sales. It’s creating, communicating, delivering and exchanging offerings that has value.
3. In this post we’ll focus on Shopify stores marketing. However in the big picture marketing has not limited with companies. Marketing can be done within organization or society.

Let’s summarize what marketing definition for a Shopify store. Marketing will create, communicate, deliver and exchange offers that have value for customers. As you can see main subject in here is customers. Because of this, I’ll put customers as the center of this guide. Everything we’ll do has to something with them.

Market Research, Competitor Analysis and Defining Your Target Market

This is a practical guide for marketing so I want to continue with a hypothetical Shopify stores for each steps.
Let’s say we have a Shopify store that has some high-end, organic baby clothes targeting new parents.

Market Research

How can we do the market research?
Let’s say you have a new Shopify store that has less than 500 order per month. You can hire expensive agencies, expensive experts to research the market, create market reports for you, etc. Even if you do that, I highly suspicious if it helps you.
However you can talk with your new-parent friends. Ask them about how do they decide to buy baby clothes? What they are looking for before completing their purchases? Do they get any expert opinion before making buying decision? How do they search online and what they want to see? Is there any great YouTube channels about this.
Don’t have any friends? Checkout your friends not a new-parents but parents and ask similar questions to them. If you also don’t have them, try to make new born friends. I know how hard it is but let’s be honest here. If you don’t know anybody in your target audience, how do you manage to get know them? All of the successful stores I saw they have direct relationship with their target audience.
When you make your research with real people, then you can extend your project to online. Try to search as they do. What do you find? Deep in dive and take your notes.

Competitor Analysis

When you done this market research, you’ll also see there are some other brands. This is a huge subject but let’s call these brands as competitor for now.
Now it’s time to analyze them.

1. Checkout their branding strategy.
2. What are their value propositions?
3. What is hot about them? Return guarantee, free shipping etc.
4. What is not hot about them? Poor product or store design, low UX on the website, etc.
5. What people think about them? Google reviews, Trust pilot reviews, product reviews on the store.
6. Are there any partnership or influencer program they’re running?
7. What is their Google/YouTube campaign strategy? Check it here.
8. What is their Facebook/Instagram campaign strategy? Check it here.

Create a spreadsheet with all of this information. We’ll use this when working on positioning and marketing strategy.

Define Your Target Market

What do you say about our target market? Can all of new parents be our target market?
Nope, it can’t. You need to deep dive into your market and find a sub-segment, a niche that will need your products much better than anybody else and afford it easily.
This is what I called ideal customer profile (ICP). Check out what is ideal customer profile and how to create your ideal customer profile posts to learn more about the concept.
For our hypothetical store, ICP can be something like this;
Demographics

• Age: 25-45 years old
• Gender: Primarily women, but also some men
• Education: College degree or higher
• Income: $75,000+ per household
• Location: Urban areas
• Occupation: Professionals, entrepreneurs, stay-at-home parents

Psychographics

• Values: Health, wellness, sustainability, social responsibility
• Lifestyle: Active, eco-conscious, family-oriented
• Interests: Organic food, natural products, children’s activities
• Media consumption: Social media, parenting blogs, magazines
• Shopping habits: Researches purchases thoroughly, values quality over price

Pain Points

• Concerns about harmful chemicals in baby clothes
• Difficulty finding stylish and affordable organic baby clothes
• Wants to make sustainable choices for their children

Needs

• High-quality, organic baby clothes that are safe and healthy for their children
• Unique and stylish designs that make their children look and feel good
• A brand that shares their values and commitment to sustainability

Buying Behaviors

• Researches products online before making a purchase
• Reads reviews and testimonials from other parents
• Shops at specialty stores and online retailers
• Willing to pay a premium for quality and sustainability

After creating ICP, it’s important to spend some time on empathy map. Don’t forget to check it, too.
Now we know our baby clothes Shopify store market, customer’s buying process and our ideal customer profile.

Brand Identity and How to Create Your Branding

I’ll follow the American Marketing Association (AMA) in here too.
First look at brand definition. AMA defines brand as “any distinctive feature like a name, term, design, or symbol that identifies goods or services”.
Branding is for creating and managing your brand’s identity. It involves your mission, values, culture and public image.
I’m not an expert on brand, but I know how branding can be effective for your conversions and performance. Here are some checklist for you.

1. Design consistency is the key. Your visual identity should be consistent across social media, Shopify store, emails, product detail pages, etc.
2. Copy consistency is the key. Your communication style should be consistent across social media, Shopify store, emails, product detail pages, etc.
3. Experience consistency is the key. Let’s say your brand looks like a high-end brand and when a new visitor visit your store first they see is an annoying popup saying want to get 10% OFF. This is simply how to destroy your brand.
4. Craft a story and stick to it. What makes you create this brand? Faces behind the brand. This is a huge leverage for creating trust and building bonds.

Go-to-Market Strategy and Defining Your Marketing Strategy

So far we identified our target market and ideal customer profile. Check out competitors and creates the branding for our store.
Now it’s time to work on go-to-market strategy and crafting our marketing strategy.

Go-to-Market Strategy

Let’s say you recently launched your Shopify store or add a new line of products.
You need a plan to introduce your store or new products to the market. This is what we called go-to-market(GTM) strategy.
Main goal of the GTM is letting people know that there is a new brand or product line. It’s similar to launch marketing. Key message here is there is a new products/brand launched and it offer the best for you. Give it a try, you’ll love it.
All of your messages and communication should be parallel to this process.
Our focus is convincing people to try our products/brand. So I always offer a special campaign just for the launch to give people to a reason to try your products/brand.
For our hypothetical Shopify store we can run a special campaign for launch like;

• Free shipping until X date.
• 5 different boy and girl bundle with 40% OFF to try our products.

Marketing Strategy

This is your plan of actions to sell or advertise your products. Now we can talk about selling part of the marketing.
Let’s say you have GREAT advertising creatives and a huge budget and just spending it. Don’t wait to crack the code and having lot’s of sales.
Your marketing strategy should be follow sales funnel. If you don’t have a high-converting sales funnel, you can’t expect people to buy from you. Check out How to Build High Converting Sales Funnel For Shopify post.
This article first published at MarketingLib.
Don't forget to check Growth Suite on Shopify App Store.

Reddit Account: u/Thenn_Applicant
Discord Tag: Garin
Name and House: Dorian Merryweather
Age: 49
Cultural Group: Reachman
Appearance: Dorian's chestnut brown hair has been greying for quite a while, however is short beard retains more color, including a few stray red hairs peppered throughout it. While his features have softened and gained some pudge as he aged past his prime, he remains in overall good shape. This is partly due to his great love of gardening and crop cultivation, which have left his hands and nails rather rough.
Trait: Numerate
Skills: Avaricious (e), Architect, Administrator, Investor
Talents: Language (High Valyrian) Cooking, Gardening
Negative Trait: N/A
Starting Title: Lord of Longtable
Starting Location: Opening Event
Biography:
It has been said; men grow tired of sleep, love, singing and dancing, sooner than war. As such, it begs the question, what does a man have left when he finally tires of war? In pursuit of an answer, of any answer, one half of Dorian Merryweather’s life was spent. He was the second son of Lord Arthor Merryweather of Longtable. Like many others born in a place of natural abundance, he longed for more, for something greater than a mere provincial estate. The tourneys of Highgarden, the hunts of Horn Hill and the books of Oldtown all called to him, and so he could never ride past his father’s mild and verdant fields fast enough. Dorian counted himself lucky not to be the heir, for that meant he could pick where his future lay, unchained from the uninspiring home of his childhood. Instead it was his older brother, Bennard, who envied his free-flying lifestyle, contriving any excuse to join him on his escapades and agurk lessons and ceremonies he ought to have attended.
Lord Arthor was fairly permissive of this deriliction of duties, as the friendships forced on such journeys were worth more than lessons that could be repeated later, or tasks that could be handed off to lowborn stewards. The boys attended tourneys, balls, hunts and feasts, living the life the bards extolled as the height of reachman’s chivalry. The one time they did not shirk their duties was when their father had the honor of hosting King Mern and his court for a tourney on the Warrior’s day. The Merryweather sons would present the king and his family with silver bowls of dilligrout, a most exquisite stew of capons, white wine and almond milk. They had the joy of tasting it once the Gardeners had their fill, a taste they would never forget. On the tournament field three days later, Mern knighted them both, though Dorian was only sixteen at the time, green as a knight could ever be.
Five years later, as news of Aegon Targaryen and his early conquests spread, the lords of the Reach were summoned to Goldengrove, where they found a veritable forest of Westermen’s banners being planted beside their own. The fall of the Storm Kings had led to a whirlwind of diplomacy between the houses of Gardener and Lannister. The plan was presented to the lords with the two kings sitting beside one another on the dais as though they were brothers. They held up Aegon’s letter of demands, scornfully reading it aloud and then proceeded to tear it up to a roaring acclamation from the hall. Standing there before the hall, Mern could hardly be called the Warrior incarnate. There stood a man well past his prime, old enough to be a grandfather and with no great victories to his name, in battle or on the tourney field. All the same, this man, whom they called their king, always seemed to know exactly what to say to win someone over. If he’d declared war on hell itself that evening, the Merryweather brothers would probably still have marched off with him when the next morning dawned. Bennard and Dorian shouted as loud as anyone, death to the foreign upstart. That evening were betrothed to westerwomen they’d never met before, made plans for a real battle, which they had never fought in before, and drank, ate and sang as though the night would last forever. House Merryweather was not able to secure a command, yet King Mern remembered his stay at Longtable fondly. He gave Bennard and Dorian a place in the vanguard, and even adorned Bennard with a brooch of the order of the green hand the morning before the army Goldengrove, a momentous honor which Bennard would cherish for the remainder of his days. He did not have many left, as it turned out. The Field of Fire began like a dream, as the two brothers rode off at the break of dawn, two out of five thousand sets of gleaming armor atop proud warhorses. By the end of the day it had become a nightmare. Caught up in the maelstrom of battle, Dorian did not see the moment when their loss was assured, but the Gods know he could hear it, the creeping, hungry flames that descended on the reachmen like an army of its own. As hundreds were broiled inside their steel plate and thousands more choked on the inferno’s horrible vanguard of black smoke, Bennard and Dorian broke and fled. They were not far behind the retreating Loren Lannister in their escape, but half a minute made all the difference. The lines of fire fanned out, hunting more living things to devour, and engulfed the two brothers. Dorian could feel how the flames spread from his surcoat to his undershirt, all the way down to the hairs on his chest, beginning to sear his skin. In a desperate act he threw himself in the Blackwater, and would have perished if not for the shoddy work of his squire that morning, which left him able to tear off his plate before he could sink. With bloodied, burn-marked fingers, he clung to the roots of a tree by the riverside, water up to his chest. He was retrieved after some time, how long he could not say. For the next two moons his mind was adrift, distracted from his pains by milk of the poppy. The next two were far worse, as he grew more lucid and realized the extent of the damage. A burn-mark stretched from his right thigh, all the way up his chest and left bicep to the apple of his neck. Many times over, flakes of dead or dying skin had to be peeled off by the maester as the scabs kept bursting with blood and clear liquid. By the end of that year he was able to walk again, though the burn mark would leave a feverish red mark across the front of his body, his new skin settling into twisted lines.
Bennard was far worse for wear, alive yet burned all the way to his face and crippled from a fall off his horse. His nose and ear-lobes had to be cut off, too burned to save, and even his eyelids were permanently scarred, unable to sprout new lashes. The more lucid Bennard became, the deeper his sorrow. Eventually he began refusing food. The new lord of Longtable would not eat anything his cooks set in front of him. In spite of his ever present pains, Dorian began going to the kitchens, reprimanding the cooks for their failings. He knew his brother well and knew his palette, and began ordering them to make his brother’s favorites. When he felt they were making mistakes, he interrupted their work himself. He was a stranger to the kitchen, yet would criticize how things were cut too roughly, spiced too little or too much. He was a terror to the cooks, yet they could not refuse him.
His attempts to intervene were however hampered by a newfound aversion to heat. The sound of the hearth, of boiling and searing, the general sense of warmth around him made him nauseous and caused his movements to seize up. Still, he went to his brother’s bedside every day, and afterwards he forced himself back to the kitchens. His sister, Lydia, tried to stop him at first, but soon found her protes fell on deaf ears, and so joined him, if only to leash him in when he went too far. Finally, there was only one dish they hadn’t tried; the dilligrout they’d once served to the late King Mern. Every time it was made, it came out wrong. It soon turned out the cook who had served them that evening six years ago had since retired, and his exact method had never been recorded or taught to anyone else. Dorian would first invite the man to Longtable, then summon him with armed knights when invitations were refused.
Theomar, the man who appeared before him, was a sorry sight, looking frightened and confused as he was taken to his old workplace. It was explained by his sons that he’d been growing senile even six years ago, often snapping at the kitchen maids under him when his memory failed him. Since then he’d gotten worse, seldom eating, let alone cooking. Something in the old man’s eyes did seem to brighten for a moment when the sounds and smells of his old kitchen surrounded him, and Dorian ordered him to make dilligrout. Before long that faint spark had been drowned out by tears. He would start boiling capon or crushing almonds, only to leave the job half-done whenever he had to fetch something new. Serving maids were put at his disposal to bring him ingredients, yet an ingredient ordered would be met with a reprimand as he seemed to forget which dish he was making every few minutes. Finally Dorian snapped at the man, grabbing him by his collar and shouting accusations of treason against House Merryweather. By the time Lydia could restrain him and try to apologize, the man was a wreck on the floor. After watching it for a while, waiting for the man to get up and continue his work, even Dorian was overcome by pity and shame for what he’d done. The old cook was praying to the gods, begging forgiveness for his failings. Dorian began to realize he’d broken a great man down and would himself beg forgiveness. He offered the man his old cook’s quarters back for the rest of his life, and promised his sons that his maester would tend to the man in his old age, that he would be fed from Longtable’s stores.
At this point, he resolved to make the dilligrout himself. Through it all, Bennard was barely clinging to life, or rather being tethered to it by the will of others. He could only be fed when drugged down by the milk of the poppy, and the more often it was used, the less effective it became. Every day Dorian braved the kitchens, yet he could not recreate the flavor of that wonderful night. It was by the grace of the gods, perhaps with Theomar as their vessel, that Dorian would even come close. The old man could no longer cook, but over time he began to wander into the kitchens and sit down on a chair. At first Dorian thought the man only sought the warmth of the hearth for his weary bones, yet he discovered it to be more than that. Theomar’s eyes were like clouded glass, yet they brightened every now and then, hearing almonds being ground, smelling capons searing in fat, as though it was stirring the kitchenmaster of yore back to life. Eventually Dorian began to walk up to the old cook with his ingredients, bidding him to smell or taste small portions. Sometimes he got simple instructions out of it, ‘too coarse’, ‘too sour’, ‘underdone’. Som times a mere nod or frown was all Theomar managed. Over the course of a couple of days, Dorian put together one final attempt to get the dish made rightWhen he arrived in Bennard’s chamber, he was met with a look which brought forth discomfort that no flame could produce in Dorian. Plainly, raspingly, his brother asked him why he wouldn’t let him die. It was easy, Bennard reasoned. All Dorian needed to do was wait and become lord. The words almost made Dorian throw the dilligrout on the floor. Almost. He placed two bowls on Bennard’s table, the dilligrout and one brimming with milk of the poppy. Dorian told his brother to make his choice. If he sought death, Dorian would let him, but he would not hear that it was an easy thing, watching his brother die. That evening, the milk of the poppy was carried away by the maester, the empty bowl of stew taken to be washed in the kitchens. From then on, Bennard ate what his brother brought him without complaint. He lasted just into the new year, dying on its tenth day. In the predawn gloom of the twelfth, Theomar died in his sleep
Dorian took up his lordly task joylessly. His old wanderlust returned, spurred by the horrible memories that now stained Longtable and the reach itself in his mind. The final straw came when their new Tyrell overlords, insisted on him marrying a lady from a dornish house. His previous betrothal had fallen through, as the parents of his western bride had not wished to draw the ire of the Targaryens by maintaining an old alliance meant to oppose them. Instead of obliging, he boarded a ship from Oldtown going east. It stopped only briefly in Planky Town before going to Tyrosh. Noting him to be a nobleman, a few of the city’s wealthy men would host him for a while, though they quickly lost interest when his lack of knowledge of trade became apparent. After that, he spent time in the markets and squares where the common people lived. His old curiosity was piqued, and he decided to embark on a quest of learning, fashioning himself another Lomas Longstrider. He moved on to Myr, and the experience was much the same in broad strokes, a few rich men showed interest and quickly lost it. As he’d visited the dye markets he went to see the city’s famous artisans at work. One thing was notably different, he met a Tyroshi woman with green-dyed hair, going by the name Maryah. She was a trader, and the two had taken the same ship to Myr. She had been to Myr before and showed him many of its secrets. They spent an entire day in one of the vast delicacy markets so she could show him the many tastes of the city. Having no plans in advance, he asked where she was headed next.
Without a second thought he would join her on a journey to Lys. He soon understood it to be a test. It was not long before she teased him, speculating he’d only joined her for a chance to see the famous pleasure houses. Evening after evening they stayed in the city and Maryah would tease and test him over the matter. Finally he told her he’d renounce his betrothal for her, that there was no one else in his eye. She laughed, replying he would not have to. The next morning, Dorian awoke to find that she was already up, the green washed from her black curls. Maryah had in fact been Joanna Dayne, his dornish bride to be, having traveled the same route as him ever since his ship stopped at Planky Town to refill its food and water. She was already quite familiar with the three closest free cities, having served as a dornish envoy on behalf of its spice traders. As they planned their return to Westeros, Joanna asked him what else in the world he wanted to see. Within a few moons of being wed, they left Westeros, not to return for three years.The journey was what his mind needed, away from the Reach, its knights and tapestries, hunts and tourneys. Ultimately, the lords and knights of his homeland, for all their songs and poetry, lived every day in preparation for war, frivolous though the preparations were. Joanna showed him a different world, the remnants of Old Valyria. War was to be sure inescapable. Wherever they went, there were soldiers, tapestries, contests of arms, and yet the cities housed something else as well, a boundless potential for creation, commerce and growth.
Thanks to Joanna Dayne’s knowledge their stays became far better planned, and they could enjoy the hospitality of wealthy locals far longer. She knew how to talk about the spice trade and similar matters, and Dorian began to pick up on it. On their second stay in Myr, he procured a great deal of fine parchment and began taking notes, everything from negotiation tactics and the prices of cloves or red peppers to court customs, as well as more eclectic pieces of knowledge, details of running an eastern estate, descriptions of technological marvels he had never seen in Westeros, and ingredients in the local food. By the time they neared Qarth he had quite the list of recipes, among other things. There he was even able to learn a few all the way from Yi Ti, as some local cooks catered to merchants from the Golden Empire. On their journey home they’d end up taking the opportunity to see the newly made port of King’s Landing. By that time, a third member had joined their journey, their infant daughter Florys. Having left Longtable in the care of his sister and steward for three years, Dorian finally accepted the responsibility of running his ancestral home.
Longtable was considered to rule over some of the best lands in the Reach, ideally situated along the river with abundant soil which could provide two grain harvests in a year. Having seen the estates which supplied the great cities of the east, Dorian was all too aware of its comparative shortcomings. He found that the abundance of the land had a counterproductive effect, breeding complacency and carelessness. From his grandiose tour of the east, he went on a painstaking tour of his own lands, trying to get an overview of everything he ruled over. He paid the citadel a fee to send him half a dozen maesters in training for a season. These young men, literate and numerate, would serve his own maester in conducting a survey of the land, giving Dorian account of all resources at his disposal as lord. The results were quite varied.
Some peasants were found to have remarkable agricultural insights which they had no way of writing down, entirely reliant on passing the knowledge to their children. Knowing the risks of such a method of transferring knowledge, Dorian ordered such insights recorded. In other places there were farmers and communities who were unwittingly exhausting their soil. Instances of lack of fallow land, excessive grazing by cows and lack of crop rotation were also made note of, followed by edicts against such heedless practices. Septons, sheriffs and tax collectors were given written copies and were obliged to read them to the peasantry wherever it was deemed necessary. It also became part of the obligations of farmers to plant a set amount of clover in their fields and pastures, a practice some had taken up on their own but which had already become a standardized law among the estates belonging to Myr and Volantis. Irrigation was expanded and land inheritance was reformed to prevent the splitting of fields past a certain threshold.
Lord Dorian was not always successful. Some eastern ideas had been useful innovations which improved conditions across the board. In time he learned that the peculiarities of the westerosi system were sometimes necessary for the sake of stability, not merely the misshapen fruits of ignorance. His attempt to enclose part of the common lands proved abortive, as it nearly caused a peasant rebellion. A procession of aggrieved smallfolk headed for Longtable had to be dispersed by knights, armed with wooden clubs to prevent needless bloodshed.Two men were hanged and five sent to the wall, but the reform was thereafter abandoned, leading the populace to calm down. Dorian was not much of a military leader and had not wielded weapons since the Field of Fire. He became aware of his need to bolster his forces, a notion reinforced by the establishment of the Black Roses not long after his return, and again with the Kingswood Catastrophe
In the meantime, he and Joanna raised a family together. Three more daughters would be born healthy, with a couple of miscarriages and a stillbirth in between, also a daughter. Their travels did not entirely come to an end. In 13 AC they would tour the northern free cities of Norvos, Qohor, Pentos, Braavos and Lorath, which they had missed on their original journey. The lion’s share of 17 AC was spent on a journey to the Summer Islands. At other times they would make shorter journeys around the Seven Kingdoms, where they felt more secure in bringing their older children along. Whether it was visiting Joanna’s family in Dorne, tourneys and feasts in the Reach and West or even one trip to see the wall, a nameday wish by Florys, they were often on the move. Like most of their peers, they frequented Oldtown and Highgarden
The growing rift between the two queens and their children was a situation Dorian would watch with dread in his heart, remembering keenly how a generation of young men had been brought to the field of fire. To his mind, the Targaryen rule ought not go to waste. Like Valyria of old, it had begun with fire and blood, yet similarly peace and prosperity had followed in its wake. If only the dragons could stand united, perhaps another long peace like the one the Freehold once enjoyed could again be established. If not, another century of blood was upon them. Under Dorian, Longtable became a place where he sought to bring together people from across the kingdoms and forge unity over the dinner table, an attitude which somewhat vexed and confounded his more militaristic daughter and heiress, Lady Florys. Even amid her questioning of the viability of his peaceful ways when surrounded by those who would make war, a terrible sight would steel his resolve, watching the Mander burning green, every bit as terrible as the flames from twenty one years prior. That night he made a simple vow, never again.
The League of the Cornucopia, he would name his little group, a gallery of lords and ladies whose acquaintances he’d made over the years. With these fellow gourmets he would share the culinary knowledge he’d gleaned from his journeys in the east and west. Most unusual for a lord of his rank, Dorian came to spend a great deal of time in his kitchens, testing out recipes himself. On occasion, the dishes he served to his guests for these small, intimate gatherings would be the work of his own hands. The membership did vary from time to time, both based on who could make it and who he sought to bring together. Rather than a fully closed circle, the League is more like a form of feasting, only it’s done for a much smaller crowd, without the public spectacle. Such occasions allowed for more refined foods which did not need to be served to hundreds and kept constantly warm over the course of hours like some common tavern stew. It also opened up an arena of more intimate diplomacy and negotiation for those who sought it, hosted on neutral ground by a lordly mediator, free from prying eyes.
Timeline:
25BC: Dorian is born, second in line to Longtable
24BC: His sister Lydia is born
9BC: House Merryweather hosts House Gardener for a tourney and feast. Dorian and his older brother Bennard serve the dish of honor to King Mern Gardener and his family. During the subsequent tourney, Mern knights both boys, despite their inexperience and lack of victory in the tourney
9BC-2BC: Dorian spends much time travelling the reach, attending events
1BC: Dorian and Bennard fight in the vanguard at the Field of Fire. Both are burned, Bennard far more severely than Dorian. Lord Merryweather is killed. Traumatized by the battle and his new maimed body, Bennard starts refusing food. Dorian desperately tries to re-create the dish they served King Mern eight years ago. The cook who made it has since gone senile, but eventually manages to help Dorian re-create it. He is given a place at court as apology for his mistreatment at Dorian's hands before this occurred.
1AC: Lord Bennard dies at the beginning of the year, leaving Dorian as lord of Longtable. His sister Lydia fulfills her betrothal to House Tarly, becoming lady of Horn Hill. At the prospect of marrying a Dornishwoman on the King's orders, Dorian decides to leave Westeros to put off his marriage. In Myr, he meets a woman calling herself Maryah, claiming to be a Tyroshi merchant. They fall in love and travel to Lys together. There Dorian promises to set aside his betrothal for her, whereupon she reveals herself as Joanna Dayne, his dornish betrothed.
1AC-4AC: Dorian and Joanna wed at Longtable, then depart on a new journey of the east. They reach as far as Qarth before turning back home. In 3AC, on the way back, their first child, Florys, is born while the couple are in Volantis, on the way home. They return via the newly built port of King's Landing.
4AC-8AC: Using knowledge from the east, Lord Dorian embarks on a project of rationalizing the agriculture of Longtable
5AC: Dorian and Joanna have their second child, a girl named Ellyn
8AC: Their third daughter, Desmera, is born
13AC: Dorian and Joanna spend a year travelling the northern free cities
14AC: Their fourth and final daughter, Gwin, is born
17AC: Dorian and Joanna undertake a journey to the Summer Islands with their children
23AC: The aftermath of the battle of Stonebridge brings back memories of the Field of Fire, as the Merryweathers watch burning slag run down the Mander
25AC: The Merryweathers travel to the celebration of the maturity of Aegon's sons
Family Tree:
Arthor Merryweather (father, d.1BC)
Cerelle Merryweather (pending family connection) (mother, d.20AC)
Bennard Merryweather (brother, d.1AC)
Lydia Merryweather (sister, b.24BC)
Glendon Merryweather (uncle, d.1BC)
Myrcella Pommingham (aunt, d.22AC)
Leo Merryweather (cousin, b.13AC)
Joanna Dayne (wife, b.26AC)
Florys Merryweather (daughter, b.3AC)
Ellyn Merryweather (daughter, b.5AC)
Desmera Merryweather (daughter, b.8AC)
Gwin Merryweather (daughter, b.13AC)
_____________________________________________________________________________________
Auxiliary Character:
Name and House: Florys Merryweather
Age: 23
Cultural Group: Reachman
Appearance: [A short, muscular woman with wavy black hair, normally worn in a bun. She has high cheekbones and a proud demeanor. Her rigid strength stands in contrast to the more relaxed nature of the Merryweather court, one she finds overly lax and casual](0_0.png (896×1344) (discordapp.com))
Trait: Hale
Skills: Swords (e), Essosi Blademaster
Talents: Dancing, Fishing, Cooking
Negative Traits: N/A
Starting Title: Heir to Longtable
Starting Location: Opening Event
Timeline:
3AC: Florys is born in Volantis, while her parents are on their way home from Essos
10AC: Florys starts training under Saathos Trevelyan, her father's Master at Arms
13 AC: She joins her parents on a tour of Pentos, Braavos, Norvos and Qohor
17AC: She travels with her parents to the Summer Islands
19AC-23AC: As she comes of age, Florys becomes more critical of her father's desire for peace, viewing it as increasingly far-fetched amid the increasingly controversial regency and the impending succession dispute. She resolves to make the kinds of connections her father seems unwilling to, in case of war
25AC: She accompanies her family to the celebrations
NPCS:
Ser Leo Merryweather (Age: 37, Archetype: Magnate) Lord Merryweather's first cousin, he has become an indispensable agent in the daily running of Longtable. Despite his foppish demeanor and aparent laziness, he is highly capable and loyal in his task of increasing his family's fortune. He remains happily unwed
Saathos Tevelyan: (Age:48, Archetype: Master at Arms) The son of a Lysene father and a Myrish mother, Saathos initially sought a career in amongst Myr's military officers, however his family's relatively low status proved an impediment to further promotion, later compounded by a dispute with a superior. He met Lord Merryweather in 3AC and eventually travelled West to offer his services five years later, finding his career progress stonewalled in his home city. Well into middle age, he still looks firm and imposing as profesisonal a soldier ought to

I think this is a topic we should continuously bring up and discuss because I believe creating a base or home is such an important part of Fallout. After a long day of fighting off the monsters and horrors of Appalachia, we sometimes just want to come home to our homey base and admire our creation and hard work. The more I build, the more I feel restricted on what I can do and have to really plan and sacrifice some creative designs to meet with the building limitations. With the evermore additions to things we can add to our base, base building really needs to be refined. I'll add what we had last post and what suggestions were made as well. I'll also add more of what I've noticed from my return to the game. Previous post for reference.

Disclaimer of Understanding

Listen, I understand there could be hardware limitations in regarding to number of items or models that can be loading and unloaded at any time for the servers though we need to find some middle ground. A way to optimize the base limits to allow for more creativity. I also understand there could be programming limitations though refactoring some the base building limits is a positive change and worth while, especially to continue improving on this game long term (if that's what is planned to be).

Quick bullet points of Ideas from previous post

• Wallpaper to be painted on BOTH sides of the wall.
• For the love of god, increase base building limits, since we cant have two camps at the same time. I'm trying to decorate haha. Ideally id love a camp to build my vendor store and a home but hey..im good with either.
• why hard limit displays? I'm a collector, let me show off my collectables :( .. increase or remove display limits.
• Vendor should have a recently sold list. Like 5 items. Sometimes I miss the notifications :(
• allow me to mass select items and scrap. Unless I'm missing something I cant seem to find this feature anywhere.
• posters and wallpaper seem to have troubles meshing. Hopefully this could be fixed. I find posters hide behind wallpaper. Also..
• why does changing wallpaper remove everything off of wall. Sad times. Hopefully this could be changed.
• No-Atmosphere-4145 commented: I'd love for a feature where adding stairs won't cause the entire construction to become unremovable.
• Belickade commented: And how about an undo feature for the times you accidentally scrap a camp object.
• Similar to No-Atmospher-4145's post but I'll add it.. JakLynx commented: I’d love it if adding stairs to a vault wall door with vault door didn’t break the door and literally prevent you from entering.

Base Building Limits Extended

Lets talk about some Quality of Life updates that would help our base building experience. I'll dive deeper into some of the points that need some extra points to it.

For the love of god, increase base building limits, since we cant have two camps at the same time..

A further increase to maximum storage is not what we're talking about ( while this is something that can be improved upon), we want to be able to build more around our base, the total base building limit is what needs to be increased. Wires should not be apart of the base building costs in my opinion, this would help alleviate some room in the limit. I'm also hoping that wallpaper and things inside the displays don't count towards it but I have not personally checked.
To add more to the strain of base limits, is it possible to put things on shelves? I feel like they're so bare, id like to have them display items like display cases do.. that would be an amazing change!
Speaking of display cases..

why hard limit displays? I'm a collector, let me show off my collectables :( .. increase or remove display limits.

Lets increase these AND do not have the items count towards base storage. It sucks so much to see my STASH storage so high and be like "oh, its all the stuff on display" .. AND in the vendor. Putting items in your vendor or on display should remove them from your STASH. This would help the currently implemented STASH limit and it would also be such an improvement to the build system.
I also believe the limits on display shouldn't be towards the category but towards the item. Wall Displays should be separate than the floor glass display or any floor display to be honest. Even if you didn't increase the total limit for building displays and just separated how many you can make of each (mind you don't decrease the amount to 5 each..), this would improve our base building quality of life.
To further talk about displays, sometimes I can't place wall mounted displays because that wall doesn't have support below, though I was still able to build the wall. If the wall exists, the wall mounted display should be able to go on it.

And how about an undo feature for the times you accidentally scrap a camp object.

This is self explanatory though this is me emphasizing that this is huge. Big feature needed. Just a general undo last change is such a big help.

STASH Quality of Life Updates

These points were mentioned before but I'm going to mention them again. I understand that Fallout 1st is a good way for you to make some money on the stash limits, so upgrading the already set 1200 storage limit is unlikely BUT there are things that count towards stash that should not be. Such as:

• Vendor Items. These should not count towards our stash limit, its in the vendor..
• Displays. The item or weapon is being displayed outside my stash, therefore should not count towards my stash. This should be the case for all displays including bobblehead displays, Nuka-cola displays and so forth. This would alleviate so much space for some people and allow there to be more room without needing to increase the hard limit on STASH space.

That's pretty much it on that front.

New Ideas

Scrapping.
Scrapping my building item (generator, wall, lights) and losing most of its materials is a little frustrating. If I built it, I should get my materials back though I understand that is what storing items is and that you want to continue to have a game loop for gathering materials. So, its not a huge thing if this isn't changed in some way. Maybe I'm upset because I scrapped a generator to build it after I change the floor and didn't have enough materials anymore to re-build the generator. lol.
Fast Travel Spawn Point
This is a really cool request. Give us the ability to choose where players spawn when they fast travel to my base? Have one custom spawn point that must be put on a foundation or floor. Reason I say this is because my base is on a cliff and sometimes people or even myself don't spawn in my base but on the side of the cliff and then I have to fast travel again. It'd be nice to just have them spawn in a location that is preset so that no one falls or gets stuck.
I can see players setting up traps and what not with this, though I think the benefit outweighs the negative. There are many free fast travel locations if you get stuck and you only drop junk on death so? Maybe I don't know of other negatives from dying but I feel like most people want to show off their homes and not setup prisons lmao.
Shelves as displays
I talked about this earlier though shelves feel empty and I feel like my kitchen shelving would look nice if I can store some ingredients on them. Make it look more full and lively. Otherwise idk what to do with them lmao. Doesn't need to be crazy, just like fill the front side of the shelving unit and have 3 or 4 items to be displayed on the shelf. Also if this is implemented, items on shelves should not go towards STASH limits.
Renaming Power Chassis
I get confused on which power chassis hold what or displays what. Its like 7 power chassis in my stash. It'd be nice to name them lol.
Mark as To Be Scrapped
It'd be nice to mark items as "To Be Scrapped" so you know what you want to scrap, or even sell. That way you don't scrap something by mistake.
Guest Book
I remember reading somewhere an idea of having a guest sign book so that people that visit could sign saying like "I was here' or maybe "yolo 420" lol but it could also be emotes, stickers, pre-generated phrasing that people could sign with like a date saying when they signed it. Would be cool. Even something that could be done on the personal terminal?.

Conclusion

Look, I get it, some of these features are big asks but overall the quality of life improvements to STASH limits by removing the items displayed and in the vendor would be such a good change and one that wouldn't require too much refactoring of the CAMP code base (I hope). A lot of what was mentioned is nice to have but some are like really important to the ecosystem of building your base. Display limit segregation, removing wires as counting towards base limit, fast travel spawn point, undo button are just some to name that would bring big changes to the base building feature in this game.
Thanks for coming to my ted talk. Until next time!

So with SF6 introducing a bunch of new characters with a portion of them being somewhat successostudents of others. Like Luke, Lily and even Kimberly. And the whole story being John World Tour being tutored by these characters. I was thinking that we can see other newcomers characters down the line that are successors of others and carry similar movesets.
That said who do you think makes sense to introduce. I have a few ideas.
Vega: Since the other members of Shadaloo has relations with some relatively newcomers that have their fighting styles being based on them. (Ed=Balrog, F.A.N.G=A.K.I Arguably J.P.=M.Bison) Only one left out is Sagat but I don't think he counts. So I think it'd be neat if we go full circle and create a new generation of Shadaloo members. With a new Spanish Ninja.
But I don't think there's anyone in Vega's story set up to do that. I also don't think he'd be a guy to train an apprentice even more so than Balrog. But I'm sure we can think of something.
Final Fight: I also had the idea of Jessica Haggar would come back and have a moves that represents all of Final Fight's playable characters Cody, Guy, Haggar. Like she was trained at them from some point before SF6. Especially since it's insinuated that Haggar passed she could possibly come back to further his legacy..... Ass-Kicking wrestling-wise not Mayor-wise Cody's got that filled out.
But Kimberly is also a student of Guy's and if we're gonna simple it down to making a successor for one character who doesn't have one than Jessica can just have Mike's moves.. or Cody.
Speaking of Cody there's his assistant Marlowe. Would be interesting if she knew how to fight. I have an idea where she would fight with skill and focus but would show hints of dirty brawler like Cody like he's rubbing off on her.
Dan: Now with Dan being somewhat..... take more seriously. Somewhat. I was thinking it'd be interesting to have a new character put a spin on the Saikyo style/being a different type of "joke character"

Ever since I built my first 80486-based computer, I've been hooked on PC building as a hobby. I'm not going to pretend to be some expert who can make custom hardline builds and overclock them.
For a time, I went through hardship, and stopped building for a long time. When I came back, water coolers were everywhere. I didn't understand the difference between closed loop (AIO) and open loop (custom). And all of that RGB stuff looked annoying and terrifying.
I'm older. We older people get crabby about change.
Anyway, I ended up swallowing my pride and bought a pre-built. It was shitty as many pre-builts are (CyberPower if you must know). Somehow, some buffoon managed to install the wrong BIOS from a different model, making the BIOS impossible to update. The 120 AIO was shit, and I had to upgrade it, which helped me overcome my fear of those new-fangled AIOs and RGB and whatnot.
Then the shitshow computer died right in the middle of the pandemic when it was impossible to buy a graphics card thanks to all those cryptobro morons destroying the environment for what turned out to be a shitty fad for libertarian softheads who can't tell the difference between Bioshock and Ocean's Gate. So I was forced to buy another pre-built because that was the only way to get a decent graphics card at the time.
I'm getting the itch to build a whole new computer from scratch. The cheapo web-browsing computer I recently built for a relative doesn't count, but this entire generation of graphics cards is a dumpster fire, so I didn't.
But now, all the experts are saying that water cooled AIOs are just for looks, and you're better off with air cooled.
Damnit.
Look, I've used HSF (heatsink fan) coolers for most of my adult life. It's what I'm used to. But I finally got used to water cooling, I finally got good at installing and/or upgrading AIOs, and now everyone is saying go back to HSF.
I should have just remained a curmudgeon and stuck with air all along, damnit.
Anyway, I replaced my existing NZXT Kraken X63 with a Thermalright Phantom Spirit 120 SE. I love it. It's so much simpler, it will be more reliable in the long-term, and it even makes less noise at idle (which surprised me). The temperatures fluctuate more, but the floor for idle is lower than it was on the 280mm AIO, which surprised me. In BIOS, the temps are some 10°C lower.
I'm just crabbing about the fact that I dug in my heels and resisted making the jump from air to water (so much so that I swalled my pride and bought a pre-built), then I dug my heels in and resisted the move back to air.
What the [bad word] is wrong with me?
PS—did anyone else ever use one of those Piezo (edit: Peltier, not Piezo)-based hot side-cold side CPU coolers back in the day?

And the best part is, this isn't the first time this has happened. In the over 8 years I've been a Coinbase customer I've had transactions randomly delayed and/or put on hold more times than I can count - despite being told over and over that I am a high-value client. And what has now happened to me yesterday has happened before - except before, the probaly 4-5 hours I spent on the phone with customer service ended in a solution. This time, the literally 10+ hours I spent online yesterday in live chat resulted in nothing but "sorry, nothing we can do."

• Bank account randomly delinked for no reason
• Can't relink no matter what I do
• Literally 10+ hours online with Coinbase doing everything they said
• Force me to go through Plaid, which keeps saying "insufficient sharing permission" on the final step
• 14 emails from Chase saying the account is completely shared with Coinbase (one generated each time)
• 5 attempts to completely delete and create a new payment method. Same result.
• Every single step Coinbase prescribes followed in real time - endless times for 10+ hours
• Furnish over 20 screenshots of every detail of my bank account, many of which make me uncomfortable
• Furnish pictures of myself holding my ID, signs they tell me to write, (too) detailed scans of my statement
• The same steps, the same process, over and over and over
• For an account - the ONLY account I have ever used with Coinbase in my 8 years with the platform
• Sharing is on / I haven't changed my login credentials / no 2FA
• NO LOGICAL REASON WHY Plaid is doing this. NO LOGICAL REASON WHY it ever happened
• Zero resolution, and I am instead told "Sorry, nothing we can do. Try another bank account."

Well I don't have another bank account. Like most normal people in the world, I have one. And it is the same one that's been linked to Coinbase for at least EIGHT YEARS.
I ask if I can relink/verify manually, using the old two-deposit method. I am told no, I have to go through Plaid. Plaid will not, under any set of circumstances, stop telling me "insufficient sharing permission" even though 100% of everything about the account is in accordance with what they require.
I am told that "higher levels" could do it manually. Then after at least 2 hours of waiting for that to happen, am told they cannot do so because Plaid won't let them. So HOW is that doing so "manually?"
Not doable through Plaid, not allowed to do so manually, and not in possession of a random number of multiple bank accounts because I am a normal person, now the result of this is that I have NO bank account linked or linkable to my Coinbase account.
Not only am I unable to deposit funds to trade, I am also completely unable to link an account in order to withdraw MY OWN LEGALLY ACQUIRED AND OWNED ASSETS AND CASH. Forever, apparently. Because no solution is offered by Coinbase other than going through Plaid. Which cannot, and will not, give me any result other than "insufficient sharing permission" no matter how much objective proof has been furnished that every single thing they require has (and always has) been done/selected.
And the best part is, this isn't the first time. Besides the fact I continually have random holds and delays placed on my account - despite being told over and over I'm a "high value client" - this exact scenario happened some 5+ years ago. I can't remember how, but after hours and hours on the phone they were able to fix it. Now, 10+ hours later, they can't even do that. Won't let me do it manually. And offer no other solution other than "Oh well, nothing we can do."
Yes, easy to say Coinbase sucks, switch to someone else. But what would/can I even do about my balances and assets that are now apparently stuck on Coinbase forever? And for what? I have done and proved literally EVERY SINGLE THING they wanted. Only to be forced over and over through Plaid, which then Coinbase says "well there's nothing they can do about, it's a third party."
Thus an endless loop that only results in my complete inability to access the entirety of my assets. With no workable solution given whatsoever other than continually telling me to do every single thing I have proven I have done.
How can a company that handles this level of assets and value not have ANY other solution to such a situation (that I did not even cause), not only now disallow a customer from depositing or adding funds to their account, but more importantly disallow said customer from accessing their own legally-owned assets in any way?
10+ hours with "customer service" wasted How many years of not only being a customer but actively trading, wasted Literally all my assets trapped on the platform with no solution to relink the account THE SAME ACCOUNT THAT HAS NEVER CHANGED IN EIGHT+ YEARS
How many people need to go through this before Coinbase either stops using Plaid of can at least present an alternative to linking an account? How can Coinbase literally have NO means to manually link a bank account when a customer provides mountains of evidence, photos, screenshots, and has to reveal levels of personal information that makes them extremely uncomfortable but has no choice in pursuit of accessing their OWN account?
So now I'm just stuck. Cut off from actively using the account because I can't add funds. Cut off from the entirety of my assets on the site. Cut off from everything. All for no reason other than the site decided to randomly delink my bank account and I am now held hostage because Plaid keeps saying I have "insufficient sharing permissions" despite literally 14 emails from my bank and screenshots showing otherwise.
You need to do something, Coinbase. To somehow say "oh well" and think this is acceptable is beyond comprehension.
I do not have a "case number," as all 10+ hours yesterday were spent with live online agents. But all those chat logs exist. Along with the countless documents I provided you.
There's the whole "Coinbase sucks" thing.
Then there's this.
This is other level.
This is not acceptable in any realm of the word.

Hi all! With TFS looming over the horizon, I wanted to take a look at some Exotic weapons we have in that grand ol’ arsenal of ours that haven’t been doing too hot in a while… or ever. We have a lot of strong choices nowadays, and even some fun niche ones too, but there are a lot of picks that just don’t make sense, have better legendary variants, or are outdated asf (looking at you specifically, DARCI). In this post, I want to share some fun ideas I had for how to rebalance these exotics, adding new functionality in both their intrinsic abilities and catalysts. I don’t even think all these exotics necessarily need a huge intrinsic buff: sometimes a catalyst is all it takes; just look at how nice Trinity Ghoul is with its catalyst, and that’s just a teeny tiny change.
What I count as an underpowered exotic is a weapon that doesn’t really have a place both in regular play, endgame activities, or as a niche weapon with certain uses. So something like Tractor Cannon, although not a DPS/adclear option, is super super useful against certain bosses like Crota or in certain situations, therefore, in my mind it is not underpowered as it has its place. Something like Hard Light, though… yeah.
I’m swinging the hammer kinda heavy with the buffs because it’s more fun that way. I hope you all enjoy, and please share your ideas too! Bonus if you make a bingo card to see how many of these exotics Bungo actually changes in TFS. We’ll find out soon enough, I’d imagine.
Oh, yeah, and this is just my opinion. I know some or a lot of these weapons are usable. But alas, this is what I think.
KINETIC WEAPONS:
Sweet Business: Adds intrinsic Overload capabilities. Once this weapon is spun up, it will remain spinning until reloaded. This assures that once you enter combat, you won’t be stuck having to get ‘er goin every time a new enemy jumps you. Catalyst now adds Killing Tally. This perk would make the weapon much stronger (duh) but also it has good synergy with Sweet Business, as the playstyle opts for keeping the weapon out, in use, and continuously fed from ammo pickups or actium war rig.
MIDA Multi-Tool: Adds the ability to change the rate and mode of fire, so that the weapon can behave like a pulse rifle and an auto rifle by changing perk options in the gun’s menu. Scoping in now highlights information about enemies and distance, just like DARCI does.
Crimson: Perhaps this sounds repetitive, but for weapons that sustain fire, Killing Tally is really solid. This would reward the user for continuous precision kills to maintain Killing Tally, a strong bonus on top of Exotics have a 40% buff against red bars.
Cerberus+1: Damage againts elite (orange bar) and major (yellow bar, non capitalized names) also increased by 40% to match the minor (red bar) enemy increase. New intrinstic perk: Interial Quakes: sustained damage on one target causes shockwaves to summon at the location of the target, disorienting them and dealing high damage. This offers Cerberus+1 a variant of Kinetic Tremors that has increased functionality, as it’s an exotic, as well as the ability to activate off of non-precision hits since.. yeah hitting crits with Cerberus is ass.
Bad Juju: Catalyst increases super energy gained from a kill closer to D1 levels, to make it more of a super battery. We get our super back so quickly in PvE with the amount of orbs we generate; let’s ratchet Bad Juju up to make it a competitive super generating option. The catalyst also gives Desperado.
Bastion: I wish I knew what to do to make it better. But it needs help.
Traveler’s Chosen: This weapon was designed back when Bungo was like “lol we hate damage perks”. Gathering Light now grants an escalating damage bonus in addition to its previuos effects. Consuming Gathering Light increases this weapon’s RoF for 10 seconds to compensate for being reset to its baseline.
Cryosthesia 77K: Here’s a dousey. Every third precision shot applies x25 slow to enemies. The special “reload after kill” show now loads the gun with a projectile that is akin to a coldsnap grenade, seeking out and freezing a target. Catalyst grants headstone so you can make more stasis crystals with this bad boy.
Wicked Implement: Make this thing a 260rpm scout. That is all.
ENERGY:
Coldheart: Catalyst adds voltshot. Increase the damage ramp-up for sustained fire.
Borealis: Why does this thing not have anti barrier. Half of its gimmick is breaking barriers. Give it anti barrier lmao and it’ll be top tier in GMs. That’s literally all you need to do?
Skyburner’s Oath: Increase rate of fire for Scout Rifle mode. Make it unstop intrinsically.
Merciless: Catalyst gives Controlled Burst, further decreasing charge time and increasing damage.
Hard Light: Add incandescent, voltshot, and destabilizing rounds depending on the elemental mode that is selected. Catalyst allows it to swap between Stasis and Strand, giving Headstone and Hatchling respectively.
Fighting Lion: Just revert some of the nerfs on this poor guy for crying out loud. Life was more fun when he was still kickin’.
Prometheus Lens: Sustained damage will this weapon can cause enemies to ignite prematurely.
Tommy’s Matchbook: Buff the scorch this weapon deals against enemies. Increase hipfire accuracy further to make sure you can hit your shots. Allow for kills on scorched enemies to trigger brief health regeneration.
POWER:
D.A.R.C.I.: Ammo type switched to special, damage is decreased to compensate. Deals further increased precision damage after hitting 3 shots in a row. Catalyst adds Reconstruction and High-Impact Reserves.
Legend of Acrius: Add one-two punch, as well as the ability for Acrius to add a solar centurion shield if you are within close proximity (melee range) of an enemy.
The Wardcliff Coil: Buff the damage! This weapon and EoT deal less damage against bosses since they fire a salvo but it’s too weakkkk. Also, catalyst jolts targets if 5 or more rockets hit the target.
The Prospector: Grant this weapon a GL variant of bipod” grenades deal decreased damage, but this weapon can carry double the amount of grenades. Grenades chain lightning between themselves and targets when exploded, and the catalyst now adds auto-loading holster.
Worldline Zero: Uhhh….
Sleeper Simulant: Buff that damage Bungie. Make it a powerhouse again.
Black Talon: I’m not gonna lie I have no idea what to do to make this thing better.
One Thousand Voices: Make this thing hurt, Bungie. Buff it’s fuckin damage. And make it guarantee ignite enemies if the entire beam hits a target. Chain reaction is added as well to chain explosions from target to target.
Truth: Rockets have a larger blast radius than normal, and debuff nearby enemies with Volatile. Bipod is added to the roster of perks. Rocket tracking becomes closer to its D1 level of aggresiveness. Catalyst reloads this weapon whenever a void debuff is cast to double capacity.
Deathbringer: Too much setup, too little payoff. Void orbs now weaken targets. The void orbs now take less airtime to reach max damage increase.
Eyes of Tomorrow: Make it do more damage against bosses. Stop being a pussy. We have Gjallarhorn, Dragon’s Breath, and whatever the fuck else. Make. Them. Fear. It.
Deterministic Chaos: Removes the sustained fire requirement for triggering weakening and volatile rounds. Enemies are made volatile AND weak at the same time (every 4 shots), and every 16^th shot is now a quadruple damage bullet.

I think my org would benefit from a real-time linter, and I'm trying to figure out how to introduce it effectively and overcome cultural inertia.
The Java code base is 20+yrs old and has its scary places. There's one group of (sharp) senior devs that have been working with it a long time, and a second off-shore group that is significantly less experienced. Experienced group likes one IDE; new group has been told to use a different IDE (and a few rebels (me!) use a third).
I have two main concerns that I'm hoping the tool can help with: code formatting consistency across multiple IDEs (PR noise), and coding apprenticeship factors ("Don't copy that, it's not a good example"). I am tired of PRs where I'm looking for NPEs, seeing 'if' statements that are 8 levels deep, and getting distracted by code moving from one line to the next because the line continuation moved. I'm hoping a lint-as-you-type tool would help with these types of issues, but I'm a bit overwhelmed on how to push it out. The new group is probably amenable, but the old group maybe not so much.
Likely a phased approach is best, carrots over sticks, but what to prioritize in phase 1? Server side counts, or just let early adoption happen locally amongst the willing? Identifying & disabling the rules that generate too much noise? Editor freedom?

I have seen many people needing help with Gallagher’s energy thresholds, so I figured that since I’d already done some of the math, I should do the rest and write up something to help everyone know what choice should be made and why. And also because it is one of the main reasons these calcs mater I will also include SP (Skill Points)/turn gains and BE (Break Effect) opportunity cost for each
Before I get into the long version: the TLDR is if you need more SP from Gallagher (Firefly teams will need this) You can use energy planar set (such as Penacony set), break rope, and a non energy LC such as “What is Real” or “Multiplication” and normal attack every turn for the lowest BE cost to have the most SP/turn. If you have somebody else generating enough SP in some team comp, you can use Post Op Conversation , Energy Rope, and energy planar for very fast ults but SP negative
When calculating what actions Gallagher should be using each rotation of ults, I will prioritize Basic attacks/normal attacks over skills if possible, and have both the lowest turn count and highest SP gain. I will also be calculating the fastest way to get your first ult with E1. SP/turn considers the ult advance as not an additional turn, but does consider it’s SP change
All calc assume no teammates provide energy or energy regeneation rating, and Gallagher never gets hit
And now starting off the lengthy explanations:
Just Energy Planar set
You get your first ult after 2 basic attacks every subsequent ult can be done every 5 basic for 1.25 SP/turn or every 2 skills 2 basic at SP neutral This has the opportunity cost of 36% BE from Talia set (or you could use 2.3 Planer which I won’t explain due to being a leak, but this part will be notable in 2.3)
With just Energy Rope
You get your first ult after 1 skill Every subsequent ult can be done every 5 normal attacks for 1.25 SP/turn or every 3 basic attacks and 1 skill for 2/3 SP each turn This has the opportunity cost of 64.8% BE from a break rope
With just Post Op Conversation (this is included to prove why it’s probably not worth using. Use Multiplication if you want 25% more turns (assuming you skill 1 or less times every) or What is Real for the 48% BE)
You get your first ult after 1 skill (this is the only thing it does better than the planar ever as you will see) Every subsequent ult can be done every 5 basic attacks for 1.25 SP/turn or every 2 skills 2 basic attacks for SP neutral (note these are identical to just the set) The opportunity cost for this is dependent on your other LC choice
When using 2 choices I will give the least SP negative way to have less turns to ult than the faster of the 2 (Even with Rope + Op none of these let you be any more SP positive without losing turns)
With energy Planar and rope
Every subsequent ult can be done after 3 skills for -1.5 SP per turn This has the opportunity cost of 100.8% BE
With energy rope and Post Op
Every subsequent ult can be done every 3 skills for -1.5 SP per turn (note: this is once again identical to planar instead of Post Op)
With energy Planar and Post Op
Nothing changes from either alone except that the first ult is 1 skill like just Post Op
Now for some slight oddball options
With no energy regeneration rating
You get your first ult after 2 basic attacks Every subsequent ult can be done every 4 basic attacks and 1 skill for 0.75 SP/turn
With all 3
You get your first ult after 1 skill Every subsequent ult can be done every 1 basic and 2 skills for -0.5 SP/turn
Anticipated FAQ:
Why E1? Gallagher’s E1 gives the equivalent energy to using 1 basic attack at the start of the battle, saving a turn to get the first ult, if you have E0 just add 1 turn basic attacking to the existing count
Why Post Op over Huo Huo signature isn’t that more ERR? Yes it is, the original reason was that I am a F2P player and wish for this guide to be useful for F2P players If you would like to know however, the only thing it changes is both LC+something else can switch 1 skill for a basic attack and using HuoHuo sig+energy rope lets you normal 4 times per ult
Why assume Gallagher never gets hit? Why not use Thief 4? Why no ally energy? A main goal of this was for these to be 100% reliable and independent
What’s an opportunity cost? (Just in case people ask) An opportunity cost is a cost to making a choice that comes from the inability to take the other choice. As you can only have 1 rope/Planar set/LC any you dedicate to energy comes at an opportunity cost from the other options

Believe it or not, there was a time when people actually talked to each other—shocking, especially for the younger generation, right?
But kidding aside, there's a grain of truth in that jest. I'm a firm believer that genuine connections start with meaningful conversations. I'm on the lookout for someone who appreciates the beauty of communication as much as I do.
About Me: I'm the kind of person who finds joy in learning about people from all walks of life. Whether it's through the pages of a book, the scenes of a movie, or engaging in conversation, there's always something to discover about the human condition. I believe in making every moment count.
I've been told I have a knack for turning ordinary conversations into something a bit more exciting. If you enjoy a good laugh, playful banter, and a dash of charm, we might just hit it off.
I'm searching for someone who knows how to keep a conversation interesting. If you appreciate witty banter, love sharing your favourite cheesy jokes, and aren't shy about throwing in a compliment or two, you might be the one I'm looking for.
If you're ready to embark on a communication adventure filled with laughter, curiosity, and a hint of flirtation, send me a message. Let's see where our conversation takes us and if we can make each other's day a little brighter.
About You:
I do have a type. Currently working on my overall fitness journey during bouts of depression (somewhere between fit and dad bod?). I'm looking for a partnesub who is somewhat in shape or thin. Apparently, someone once told me that I have a thing for dark-haired women with big lips—go figure!
A bit about me: I'm pretty open, dark-skinned, 5'7, black hair, brown eyes, working in IT. Feel free to bounce ideas off me to see if there's a match. I enjoy wordplay, encouragement, and, of course, seeing you. Intellectual stimulation is crucial, and effort goes a long way. Currently learning guitar for fun (what a journey!). I'm pretty much an open book.
If any of this resonates with you, don't hesitate to reach out. Pouring yourself out there isn't easy, but to make sure you've read this far, please include your favourite drink or any books you've read lately in your message!

Got a 690, nice.
Prior to this, my only real experience with Linux had been making a Raspberry Pi tablet that nobody really uses, and installing Kali Linux on a potato laptop. I'm a Mac user and I have used Terminal a bit, and I used DOS a lot in the 90s, so some of the material (particularly hardware, basic CLI) was familiar to me. I started studying about two and a half weeks ago.
In case this is helpful to anybody, this is what I did and here are my thoughts:

• I went through the Cisco NetAcademy course. I did some of the labs. I read all the content and outlined it. It was extremely boring.
  • I completed all the unit tests on the Cisco course (In one case, and chapter 9 I am looking at you, up to 11 times...) and looked up answers and reread material until I was consistently scoring 80% or, ideally, 90-100% on each unit, the midterm, the final, and the cumulative final. Last night I finally hit 80% on all except Chapter 18 (Special Directories and Files), which is sorta funny since I got 100% on the "Security and File Permissions" component of the exam.
• I made Anki flashcards for everything I got wrong or that confused or even mildly interested me. Basically, I "Ankified" everything that was not a transition sentence, lol.
• I also had a big document where I took notes from every single section. This was, honestly, mostly to keep myself from just skimming through and skipping over stuff because it was really really dull. It might not be efficient, but throughout my education (and this ain't my first school rodeo), I've found it useful to see how information is organized, so I generally make top-down outlines of what I read. I used to do this in MS Word but lately I've been using Notion since the formatting is nicer Maybe it's a total waste of time, because it took fivever. But I did it and now I have a huge Notion document of Linux notes....so I've got that going for me.
• I went through the big blue Linux book. It was also EXTREMELY boring. It was actually sort of impressive, just how incredibly dull they managed to make that book. After a certain point, it felt almost like meditation or a fever dream. I had a friend who did a silent meditation retreat and I think I started to feel like she described feeling towards the end of that. I did as many of the exercises and "explorational" activities as possible (some required permissions that weren't possible with the VMs I had at the moment).
• For a few days, I was using the online tests / flashcards that went with the LPI Linux Essentials Study Guide: Exam 010 v1.6 book, but apparently the site those were on was "retired" on April 30th, and it was annoying enough to get access the first time, so I didn't bother to try & figure out whatever it changed to. I found that book to be the least helpful of the materials anyway. The practice tests were the best thing about that one.
• I completed the Codecademy Bash scripting course one afternoon, since I like Codecademy's approach to scaffolding material and wanted to practice actually doing Bash scripting (but without, like, installing a VM).
• I took all the Dion exams multiple times.
• I followed the same process as with the Cisco exams, making cards / looking up anything and everything I got wrong.
• I made Anki flashcards for all of the above, and used GIFs or made graphics or used ChatGPT / Midjourney to generate ridiculous / weird images or songs to help me remember commands. Please, let me regale you with my and ChatGPT's interpretation of Johnny Cash, called "A Command Named Su." (And, actually, su came up ZERO times on the actual exam for some reason).
• I played this "Command Line Murder Mystery" game and really wished there was more to it, because while it's a great intro to the CLI that I'd recommend to anybody new to it, it also replicated a lot of the stuff I was more familiar with. I would have loved it if there had been something like that for every corresponding unit of the Cisco course or chapter of the book.
• I spent about a week and a half going through the flashcards during any and all downtime: During my kid's bath, on a flight, at a stoplight, at a family wedding, hair appointment, meals, whatever.
• I had started out by downloading a public Anki deck that was supposed to be for Linux Essentials, but ultimately I didn't think those cards helped nearly as much as the ones I made myself. The process of making the cards is important, and the deck I found was all "basic" format (instead of Cloze or Image like I was using). The deck I found had very open-ended questions that lacked context, and I regret wasting time on it instead of just making my own cards from the get-go. In the end, my deck was 835 cards, though that included the rando one I had downloaded. I don't think I use Anki in the most efficient way, so that was probably too many.
• I was able to attend one of the Cohorts and do the online game yesterday, and it was both fun and helpful. So I'd definitely recommend doing that.

Exam:

• I was mildly surprised that there were a few more "pick X of these options" questions than I'd expected. I had thought there'd be 7; by my count, I had 9.
• In case you aren't aware, there are about 3 fill-in-the-blank questions on the exam. They only ask for one word, though. The practice exams do not have these types of questions. However, since I had no idea until yesterday that this was even a question type, I wanted to put that out there, since some people might get thrown off by a question type they're not expecting.
• I did my exam at a testing center and it felt like a damn vacation. I managed to show up precisely on time for the first and probably only time in my entire life. It was, just extremely nice people, free parking, free locker for my stuff, a nice sunny window in the testing room, everything was very clean and bright. I wish I could take all the OAs that way!
• I've taken the Dion and Cisco and Study Guide practice tests so many times they run together, so it's hard to say exactly which questions came from where, but I was surprised that a lot of the questions on the exam were verbatim from the pool of practice tests I'd been using.
• In general, I think Dion's exams were a little bit easier than the actual exam and Cisco's were a little bit harder. Dion tends to have some goofy or humorous "distracter" wrong answer options (which, frankly, I appreciate because this was generally extremely boring material to me, sorry), but the other practice exams I took were all srsbiz. Also, since Cisco's unit tests are specialized to each topic, I think they go into greater depth than the actual exam might.
• In the end, I think I did substantially better on the exam than I had on the Cisco material, so I'd say that Cisco over-prepares you a tiny bit and that's probably what you want, right?
• I was so psyched about the "Command Named Su" and never even got to use it. :(

Recommendations:

• I am sure the best actual approach is to have and use Linux daily via the command line, or perhaps to be bo(u)rn(e) to a family fluent in C and grow up speaking Bash or C as your native language... but failing that, I'd start with the Cisco course (Link). It's fantastic that it's FREE. Note that about once a week they take it down for an annoyingly long maintenance window, but still. Each unit test is only 10 questions, and it doesn't actually tell you what the "right" answers are if you get them wrong, so it's extremely hard to get through a unit without having a good understanding of the material.
• If you're not familiar with the CLI, definitely try the game I linked above. It's really cool. Actually, try it even if you are, it's just a fun way to practice.
• If you can figure out where the practice tests went for the LPI Linux Essentials Study Guide: Exam 010 v.16 (by Bresnahan and Blum), they are fairly useful, but they are also very, very similar to the Cisco course.
• It took me some time to figure out that the Dion course on Udemy is really two courses. One has videos and 2 practice exams, one is just 6 practice exams. Between the two courses, there are 8 practice exams. I took all of them multiple times and thought they were really good practice. I tried feeding the exams to Chat GPT and asking it to generate new questions, but it didn't work very well (they were too easy / just reworded, etc).
• I love Anki, though I guess it might not work for everybody, and don't take a shortcut; make your own flashcards.
• A lot of the material that seems to be floating around about this exam is redundant to the big boring book and the Cisco course. So I think it probably matters to just find a format you enjoy, or at least that you can stand (e.g., video, course, whatever) and stick with it all the way through.
• The thing that helped the most for me, in terms of both trying to stay sane and memorizing the material, was trying to turn it into something fun and interesting. I actually began to enjoy the process of studying once I started making stupid / weird / traumatizing AI art images. I am sure a smarter person than myself (which is most of you) would've probably figured that out a lot faster.
• The real kernel is the soul-crushing boredom we found along the way. Right?

OK, onward and upward. Hope this helps somebody out.

You might not know it but all the "over expenditures" that the locale is doing like, repair, repainting, staff salary, utility bills, and renovations are charged to each member of the locale and they should be paying that before making some improvement or upgrades. All the the upgrade and improvement request will go to a process of checking whether the locale owed from the central office or not. When I was an assigned ministerial worker, I saw that the chapel needs repair because the toilet was clogged and many fans were broken. The organ was a bit out of tune, many tiles on the floor were chipped and it was a mess around. I did try asking for the members' voluntary help but it wasn't enough. So I requested to have all this issues fixed but all the requests were denied because the locale owed an accumulated 2.4 million debt from INC and the only way to pay it off is by the district TH that the members need to give twice a month. I counted how much the locale generates every week and it was a gross of more than a million every quarter of a year. Why do we still owe money from the central office? I found it absurd..

Reddit Account: u/broncobracken
Discord Tag: Jackun
Name and House: Benedict 'Ned' Bracken
Age: 24
Cultural Group: Riverman
Appearance: Ned is young, spindly. He keeps himself thin so that he makes little noise as he walks in the halls of great keeps. He looms not so large when he is not in armor and his eyes betray a weariness in recent years. Still he grooms himself, almost religiously. Bracken shaves his beard and shapes his mustache in the manner his father does. Most notably about him is his talking, or lack thereof. Ned speaks hardly above a whisper, leaving many to regard him as a mute.
Trait: Hale
Skill(s): 2HW (e), First Man Warrior (e), Andal Knight
Talent(s): Horsemanship, animal handling, language: High Valyrian
Negative Trait(s): N/A
Starting Title(s): Knight of the Kingsguard, Sworn Sword of Prince Aenar Targaryen, Scion of Bracken
Starting Location: Opening
Alternate Characters: N/A
Family Tree: Bracken Family Tree
Biography:
Benedict was born in the year of Aegon's second crowning, to Steffon Bracken and Aglantine Bushy. The only son of the thirdborn Steffon, Ned was never seriously considered nor prepared for rule. He was counted among the many boys growing up in the ancient castle. But for whatever reason, he was slow to speak. Words were rarely said, if that. Though the maester deemed him not to be a mute, his work did little to improve Ned's speech. His uncle Wyl, the master-at-arms of Stone Hedge, deemed it to be an issue of the body and declared that he would not stand idle while his kin suffered. Soon after Ned began serving him as a page, following his uncle in the man's routines. The master-at-arms' constant training did not improve Benedict's soft spoken nature, but it did make the boy hale and healthy.
As a squire in a rather peaceful time in the Seven Kingdoms, Benedict spent many of his days in drills, working beside his favorite cousin, Walton. Among the things he struggled with was the shield. To swing with one hand and block with the other always felt unnatural to him. When Ned was large enough, Walton recommended to his father that he teach him to use two-handed weapons. He took to it like a duck on water, becoming very handy with greatswords as time went on.
Fortunes turned suddenly in 18 AC. Walton, a knight with freshly earned spurs, was directed to deliver a message to King's Landing. It was there he was killed brutally, in a duel of honor against the Lord Commander of the Kingsguard, Malwyn Blackwood. An old blood feud once again wettened by red. When word of this reached Stone Hedge, Lord Bracken raised Ned's father and his grieving uncle Wyl and crossed the Red Fork with a force of two hundred men. In the midst of night, they arrived at the hall of the Blackwoods and brought retaliation by burning the castle's manor. Though the guards of the keep fought back, they were surprised and on the back foot. It was Ned's first battle, in which he saved his lord uncle from injury by running down a crossbowman who drew his sights on Lord Bracken. The morning after, their cloaks reeking of woodsmoke and their steel bloodied, the lord knighted his nephew.
This was not the end to the conflict between Blackwood and Bracken. It was only the first of a series of raids conducted between the two houses; as villages were razed and riders bushwhacked. Benedict took part in a number of these skirmishes. His skill at fighting afoot was further honed in these, fighting in the way the First Men must had surely done in that same wilderness a thousand years prior. The eventual culmination in these raids was thousands of men being rallied to each side; an all out war imminent. As quick as the conflict had began, however, it ended suddenly at the urging of the Lord of Aegon's Rest, whose massive dragon forced both sides to abscond from the battlefield before a result could be had.
Ned Bracken returned to a family and keep that was forever changed by what had occurred. Difficult as it was, they tread into another peaceful, albeit tense, era. He was now the eldest of the Bracken's youngest generation, and found himself often acting as a protector and confidante for them. In particular, he rode beside the heir of Stone Hedge, Dickon, to a number of tourneys and celebrations throughout the Kingdoms. Though only an adequate rider, he learned quite a bit from the older knights at these tourneys, particularly as they battered their lances against him constantly. He came out smarter, somehow.
When rumor came from King's Landing that a member of the Kingsguard was on death's door, Lord Beck dispatched his nephew to the city; ostensibly to deliver a small missive to to a minor office holder. In reality, Bracken was sent to the capital to await the death of the sickly Kingsguard. After the man passed, Benedict was among the shortlist of candidates. Beck's gambit paid off when his nephew was sworn into the Kingsguard in 23 AC.
Shortly thereafter was Ned sent to Dorne, one of the three whitecloaks attached to the Targaryens of Summerhall. Queen Rhaenys then assigned him primarily to guard her son, Aenar. Two years have past since. As Aenar draws near to his eighteenth birthday, time will tell what else Ned will face.
Timeline:
• 1 AC: Benedict is born to Steffon and Aglantine Bracken.
• 7 AC: Benedict is made a page of his uncle, Ser Wyl Bracken.
• 9 AC: He is made a squire of Ser Wyl, alongside his cousin, Walton.
• 18 AC: The Riverwar. Walton is killed, Ned is knighted.
• 19 AC: Ned travels to various tourneys beside his kin.
• 23 AC: Ned joins the Kingsguard at his uncle's behest. He is sent to Highwatch.
• 25 AC: Present Day.

Hi all, long time lurker and first time poster from a throwaway as my main account has a lot of identifying information on it :) I hope this is the right place to post this.
TDLR: 1) I'd love feedback on my own finances right now to make sure I'm set up for success and 2) how to help my partner plan for a change in financial situation. Apologies in advance for the long post, but hoping I've shared most of the relevant info.

My own finances:

I (25F) live in a VHCOL and have been working for almost three years. My W2 TC is $122,000 (Salary $112,500 + $9500 bonus) and I anticipate that it will increase due a promotion to at least TC of $150,000, but I'm not counting these chickens before they hatch. I also have a side business (LLC) that brought in $40,000 last year, and I forecast will bring in a bit less this year (maybe around $30,000). Below is a breakdown of my savings and expenses:
Savings:
TDLR: Maxing my 401K and Roth IRA. I keep $25,000 in a HYSA for emergencies. I'm not sure if I'm sitting on too much cash.

• 401K: Currently at $42,000. I haven't always been able to max it out, but always have done at least the company match + a little bit extra. Will max it out this year, so $23,000 + 6% company match ($6750).
• Roth IRA: Currently at $27,000. I max it out every year; I was using my own Roth IRA in Fidelity and had not realized that my company also provides a match for this, so I've stopped my own contributions to the Fidelity for now and am instead doing the 6% for the match. I know the limit for Roth IRAs generally is $7000 per year - I've already contributed $1940 toward this year's limit and plan to get the full match now. How does having two Roth IRAs work? I've tried to research it and am still very confused.
• Brokerage: $76,000, all in ETFs/index funds except for $5700 which I keep in SPAXX. Should I invest the $5700 instead of letting it sit in the MM?
  • I auto transfer $800 per month into brokerage and if my checking account has too much in it, I'll toss a few thousand in.
• Primary HYSA: Emergency fund: $25,000 + Additional rainy day fund: $8,100 @ 5.5% APY
• Secondary HYSA: $1000 14% APY (14% only up to $1000, so once it's over $1000, I re-level it back to $1000 and move the money into my main HYSA)
• Checking account: $4400 to cover off credit card and rent. I use credit cards for everything, but treat them like debit cards. They are paid off every month and have never missed a payment.
• I don't have a HSA as I am still on my parents' insurance, but will move off of this onto my partner's starting next year, so may be able to open one after that move.

Monthly Expenses:
Some of these are not costs incurred monthly (such as clothes and travel - we don't travel every month and I'm not buying clothes every month), but roughly how much it would be per month from the annualized amount. No debt: No student loans, CC debt, we rent and likely will for awhile, and do not have a car.

• Rent: $1250 (We split, this is my portion)
• Clothes: $500 (My main hobby and in the middle of a wardrobe refresh. A lot of this is deducted from my LLC as the business is event planning related)
• Restaurants: $500 (My main way of hanging out with friends and how my partner and I spend time together)
• Travel: $400
• Groceries: $250
• Entertainment: $250
• Self-care: $200
• Health: $170 (Gym + fitness classes)
• Commute/transport: $125 (pre-tax benefit)
• Utilities: $120
• Uber: $50
• Subscriptions: $25

I'd love to hear any feedback or advice you have for me: Am I sitting on too much cash/how much should I keep in my checking account? Am I right to continue to prioritize putting money in the brokerage over the HYSA? What should I keep doing and what should I do differently?

My partner's finances:

My partner (25M) has been a student until now and will be starting a potentially very lucrative career in October after graduating. We've been very fortunate that both of us do not have any student loans or debt and that his expenses have been taken care of by a mix of largely scholarships and family support, so he is essentially starting from scratch. His starting TC will be around $245,000 (Salary $225,000 + Bonus $20,000) with a salary ladder for increases each subsequent year after.
We'll continue living in the same place, so rent will be the same ($1250) and we spend around the same amount on groceries ($250). Besides that, the only other expense he has is transport (~$120/month) and the gym ($10/month). I cover utilities/subscriptions for us). His only other expense is travel, which is probably around $2500 annually, which his internships in school have covered for him).
I had him set up a Roth IRA last year that he maxed out in 2023, besides that he has modest savings (~$5000 in a general savings account that likely generates next to no interest). This is the plan that I've helped laid out for him after he starts:

• Build emergency fund: I'm thinking around $25,000 in HYSA?
• Max Roth IRA since he'll be starting in October and his salary will still be below the income threshold (Am I thinking about this correctly?)
• Max 401K
• Set up a brokerage account and start chucking money in there once we get a handle on what his expenses will look like once we've not living the student life.

Beyond that I'm really not sure that makes sense and could use advice.
Thank you for reading if you've made it this far, and really looking forward to hearing any advice you have!

So for context I’m 39, was obsessed with Raw during the attitude era, ordered every PPV and recorded them on VHS, and around my early 20s is when I started losing interest. (In my opinion there was a huge drop off in quality after Austin’s heel turn at mania and it wasn’t the same.) Now that I have my own kids (son 11 and daughter 9) we started watching it religiously again (going to our first Raw tonight in Greenville, stoked!).
I know nostalgia can be a hell of a drug, so was the attitude era really THAT good or is it just nostalgia talking. Well after watching a ton of attitude era Raws on PPV over the last few weeks, the short answer is.. Yes, it was glorious! Below are my takeaways.
This will be unpopular to say and many of you will disagree, but many of the main stars of today would have been mid carders at best during the attitude era.
I mean my god, the supreme talent that the “big 3” had (Austin/HHH/Rock) was just otherworldly. The in ring talent, the charisma, the acting. Truly once in a generation roster. It would be equivalent to having Larry Bird, Michael Jordan and Lebron James all in their primes at the same time and on the same team. They were just that good at EVERYTHING.
Mid carders of then are equal to the main eventers now in terms of talent, Ken Shamrock, Big Bossman, Test, Val Venis (I wish we had a cringe sexual character like him now, was so fun lol) pretty much all of D Generarion X. I mean, I just watched a European title match with X PAC vs Al snow for the European title, and Snow and Golddust had a an angle where he stole Al Snow’s head and it was just entertaining as hell for some reason.
The announcers, Jim Ross combined with Lawler was pure gold. Nothing and I mean NOTHING gave you goosebumps more than hearing Stone Cold’s glass shatter and Jim Ross’s commentary. NOTHING like it.
Less women BUT the women that did actually wrestle were amazing. Lita, Sable, Luna, Trish and Chyna. Sure there are way more women now but I can count maybe 5, 6 tops that I consider memorable. Becky, Rhea, Nia Jax, Liv, Bianca and Jade. After them, there is a big drop off in talent imo.
The Factions! The corporation and DX, need I say more? The Corporation is by far the most memorable and entertaining faction hands down.
Overall just the energy, the crowd, the sense that nearly every match there was so much at stake and the wrestlers cared. The Rivalries really made you believe that they absolutely hated each other. Rock and mankind I quit match at the Rumble, I mean does it get any better than that?
I could go on and on, I’m not trashing the current product at all. Me and my son enjoy it immensely and we watch every single raw and smackdown and I am so pumped about going to Raw tonight. I do understand that eras are eras for a reason and all good things always come to an end, so this isn’t just an old guy trash talking the current product as it is still very good! I just wanted to take a trip down memory lane and share my two cents.

Recently, I gave some advice about playing the Lannisters, and someone asked for further advice because they struggle to play Lannisters. It’s hard to do something like that in a concise package, but luckily, I like to write. I do it recreationally, and will write about subjects I'm interested in, delete the works afterward because the writing helps me put my thoughts on paper. I happen to have some such essays analyzing the Lannister army!
Mileage varies, and how you feel about some units or strategies in this game is going to depend a lot on how you feel towards reckless gambling. This is most true of the Lannisters, who revolve so much around unreliable mechanics that I earnestly think at this point that it’s part of their doctrine. It seems to me, that the idea behind the Lannisters, is that they’re broken. They’re full of abilities that don’t work, or that only work when you get lucky, or that only work if your opponent does something stupid. It’s up to you, as the person building the list, to figure out how to take those mechanics and make them function in spite of themselves. The way I see it, you can play the Lannisters as Cersei, by throwing dice at ridiculous odds that only rarely turn up in your favor, or you can play as Tywin, by making safe, calculated choices that will achieve the specific results you want.

• The Cards

Potential Fixes: Always run Tyrion, Giant of Lannister
The first problem we run into with all Lannisters is that their main card deck is bad. People will jump in and tell you that some other deck is worse. I’m not saying the Lannisters are necessarily the worst deck, but I am telling you that you could play five unique Lannister cards in a single round, and not see any results. They can all fail via random dice rolls. In my opinion, in a tactics game where a single turn makes a huge difference, in a card game where a single card changes the flow of the game, that is pretty bad. That’s not a situation you want to find yourself in if you like winning games, or even if you just like having fun.
So five cards. That’s half of your deck. That means that at the start of the game, the odds are pretty good you’re going to draw one or two cards that might not provide any benefit at all. The only thing you can do about this is get rid of them. Don’t wait for the perfect timing to play Hear Me Roar. If you keep it in your hand until you opponent is down by two ranks and you can sink in a unit with Vicious so as to maximize your odds, that card might be blocking up your hand for three to six rounds, and then your opponent might still roll boxcars. Play it, discard it, just get rid of it. You do not want those cards wasting space in your hand.
Four cards always need to go right away: A Lannister Pays His Debts, Hear Me Roar, Bribery, and Subjugation of Power. These cards all have the chance of either doing nothing, or are so weak they may as well be nothing. If they stay in your hand, they’re inflicting an opportunity cost – that is, there’s another card waiting behind Hear Me Roar to be drawn. If you keep these cards in your hand, you are preventing yourself from getting the better card, so always get rid of these cards, either by playing them, or by discarding at the end of the round. You may find some nice spots to play them – and that’s great! Bribery, in particular, can be noted as a lifesaver if Wealth has already been covered and you need to slow down a hard-hitter. However, that’s part of the trap: these cards can be good in the right circumstances, but it’s difficult to create the circumstances in which they are useful, so if those circumstances don’t exist now, you should get rid of the cards and look for better ones.
You may notice I said there were five cards that can do nothing. The fifth one is Counterplot, and its design is… elective, to seek a kindly neutral word. It’s a counter-card, which means it is useful, but they designed it so that it has a chance to fail on a dice roll of 1 or 2. You can mitigate that by holding Wealth and Crown, but that’s a tactical askance, and your opponent could play a powerful card on the first turn, so in reality you don’t have very much control over the success of this card. To be blunt, that makes Counterplot a very weak card.
People get up in arms if you say it, but it is. It’s a weak card. First, it’s reactionary, which means it only works if your opponent does something to trigger it – playing a card – which means your opponent has more control of it than you do. Second, the card can only be as valuable as the card it blocks, which means if you use it to block something lame, then Counterplot was also lame. That means you might feel compelled to hold the card until you see a very powerful card, such as Assault Orders, but if you do that, Counterplot creates an opportunity cost that isn’t caused by Assault Orders. Assault Orders is a very powerful card which so good, most players will use it in the round that they draw it, whereas you’d be holding Counterplot, blocking your own hand, for as many rounds as it takes for your opponent to draw Assault Orders. Finally, because it has a failure chance, you might wait for Assault Orders, fail your Counterplot roll, and then be hit by the enemy card anyway, which meant Counterplot weakened you by wasting space in your hand, and then didn’t do anything. That is a bad card.
So you need to play Counterplot earlier than later. You may want to use it on Assault Orders, but you have no control over that, and you can’t know when your opponent is going to draw it. You don’t want your hand to be blocked by Counterplot for multiple rounds, waiting for the ideal opportunity, and you definitely don’t want to do that and then roll a 1. Just play Counterplot on any card that would reasonably benefit your opponent. If they play Assault Orders right afterward, then c’est la vi; you cannot know what cards they’ll have, nor when they’ll play them, nor if Counterplot will even work. Just don’t hold on to Counterplot long enough that the card begins to hurt you.
The fix for this? Always play Tyrion, Giant of Lannister. It’s an attachment that lets you discard two cards and then search your deck for any specific card you’d like. In a deck like the Lannisters, where half your cards have a chance to do nothing at all (and those odds of achieving nothing are close to 50% on the Panic-related cards), you will frequently find yourself with two cards in your hand that might not do anything. Tyrion lets you discard those, and then draw a useful card that does do something. For the Lannisters, that is huge. Without Tyrion, you find yourself suffering through multiple rounds with dead hands, where none of the cards do anything, and your opponent will be pounding you with their own deck. With him, it’s not up to luck, you know your hand will contain at least one good card each round, for as long as Tyrion is still on the field.

• The Units

Having mentioned Tyrion, Giant of Lannister, it’s worth noting he only costs one point. During a casual conversation between players, one of them asked, “Why is Tyrion only one point? Counterstrategy is really good, and Battle Plan changes how they play their deck.” The response from the Lannister players was, in a nutshell, “My infantry sucks, bro.”
A lot of Lannister infantry sucks. They’re very frequently broken to start with because they’re given unreliable abilities, and to get them working, you have to attach something specific to them. Tyrion, Giant of Lannister would be amazing in a unit of Silenced Men, but he does nothing to fix the boondoggle that is the Honor Guard, so it’s hard to get Tyrion to the front lines and have the unit be functional at the same time. As a result, as good as Counterstrategy may be, you often find it stuck in something holding objectives at the back of the field.
That is the core essence of building Lannister army lists. Once you understand that your objective is to fix a broken and screwed up army, everything comes together better. You have to expect you won’t get what’s printed on the unit’s card, unless you take an attachment or specific commander who makes the unit work, and that’s what we’ll focus on in this section.
Gregor, the Mountain that Rides
Potential Fixes: NA
Starting with the cheapest units, Gregor is often taken because he’s only four points, and he can pack a surprising wallop if you’re lucky with the dice. With only three attacks, sometimes he flubs them all, sometimes he punches above average. He dies easily, he will die, but he will give your opponent plenty of reasons to want to kill him. Unfortunately, he’s not viable against Free Folk nor Night’s Watch, because siege units can instantly kill him on round one from across the board, so if you play competitively, make sure he’s not in both of your lists.
Poor Fellows
Potential Fixes: No
Poor fellows are just cheap bodies. They stand on an objective and try to stay out of the fight, and that’s it. They can’t really fight, their armor is paper thin, but because they can heal themselves, they will bounce back from minor harassment and won’t be chipped to death. The best way to run them is naked, or not at all.
Stone Crows
Potential Fixes: No
These guys are an alternative to Poor Fellows that might weather direct attacks a little better, but that will die more quickly to Panic. You can put Tyrion, Giant of Lannister in them for “free”, but it’s like a JC Penny discount where the sale never ends, because it’s not really a sale and the cost of Tyrion is obviously built into this unit. Putting anything besides Tyrion in them would be a pointless disaster.
Lannister Guardsmen
Potential Fixes: Mandon Moore
When new players look at Guardsmen, usually the first thing they note is “Lannister Supremacy” and think about how much damage that might do. Don’t focus on that – it’s an unreliably ability. Instead, look at their 4” movement and their six attacks with a 4+ to hit. This unit is excruciatingly passive. They can’t proactively threaten anything, they can’t easily get to a good position (which means it’d be hard to get them on a center objective), and finally, their ability only kicks off if the opponent was foolish enough to attack them with something that couldn’t wipe the Guardsmen out.
There’s not really anything practical you can do to fix this unit, because they’re really not reaching a five-point value in the first place, and they’re too slow. I’ve seen less experienced players recommend putting Assault Veterans in them to make the Panic Test from Lannister Supremacy more effective, but that doesn’t solve the issue of the Guardsmen being passive - of them being more under your opponent’s control than your own.
However, for kind of a fun fix, you can put Mandon Moore in them, and at that point they have Sundering, they’re hitting on a 3+, have 3+ armor, and archers won’t want to pick on them. It’s not competitive because Mandon compels you to run Joffrey, and Joffrey is a point too expensive, and the unit will still be slow, and they don’t have a great attack profile, but it is kind of fun to have some bargain bin Honor Guard on the field.
Lannister Halberdiers
Potential Fixes: None needed
This is one of the few Lannister units that comes pre-assembled with working abilities and everything. You don’t have to fix them! For that reason, if you’re not shy on points, this is one of the units many players will put Tyrion in.
I think one of the most notable facets of the Halberdiers is that they illustrate how much a good offense creates a good defense. Other players don’t ever seem to respect Guardsmen because the Guardsmen aren’t going to initiate anything on their own, but most players try to avoid running their light cavalry directly into a unit of Halberdiers. They’d take wounds on the way in, and if the Halberdiers haven’t activated, they’ll be wounded again when the Halberdiers attack. If you put Kevan or Bronn in these guys, then that’s even more opportunities to punish any would-be charge.
Basically, if you want a defensive unit, Halberdiers are your best friends. Lannisters have many “defensive” options to choose from, but this is one of the only choices that is actually good at defense rather than being simply passive.
Gold Cloaks
Potential Fixes: No
Kind of like Guardsmen but easier to kill, this is another passive unit with reactive abilities that mostly only benefit itself, if it benefits anything. The main draw for them is their “Laws of the Realm” Order, which reduces the number of ranks the enemy can use to attack. If this ability were long range, they’d be reasonable – of course, it’s not.
Gold Cloaks are pretty fragile, and their abilities are short range; “Oppressive Peacekeeping” incidentally requires controlling Crown, which makes it a tactical dud. Regardless, having a bunch of short range abilities necessitates that this unit be as close to the front lines as possible, where it absolutely cannot survive. A 4+ save, with only 7+ morale, makes these guys a pretty good target for a free victory point. Unfortunately, there’s not really anything too practical that can be done about this, because adding to the cost of this unit is generally only going to make it worse.
On the note of free victory points, I sometimes see players saying things like, “If the enemy attacks my useless units, then I win, because they have wasted their turn.”
This is pretty poor tactical thinking. You should assume that if your opponent kills your Gold Cloaks, it’ll be for a good reason. You can also assume they’ll be very easy to kill, because they are.
Mountain’s Men
Potential Fixes: Roose commander, Assault Veterans, Addam commander, Redcloak assistance, Daario commander, Bronn
Mountain’s Men might be one of the more famously non-working units the Lannisters can field, but unlike Guardsmen or Gold Cloaks, they’re at least not passive dead weight. The main problem with them is that their good abilities – Critical Blow and hitting on 3+ - are conditional.
They also have Vicious and Prey on Fear, and I can see how somebody thought this was a strong combination in theory. In practice, Vicious is the weakest keyword in the game, affecting the outcome of an attack only about 20% of the time. Even with Vicious, the odds of an opponent failing their Panic Test is roughly 50% or less, and I’ve had plenty of games with these guys where their attacks never gained them any wounds back. To make matters worse, once they lose one rank, they only have five attack dice. On turns when they have less ranks than the enemy and the enemy passes their Panic Test, Mountain’s Men are closer to being worth four points than they are to six. All those words on the card don’t count for much when they don’t do anything!
Luckily, there are some things you can do that make Mountain’s Men fun to play with, though not competitive. First, you can lean into the Panic stuff, which is only pragmatic here because Vicious and Prey on Fear are the abilities you know the unit will always have. An Assault Vet can help with this, but isn’t ideal because it increases the price of the Mountain’s Men when they’re already struggling to be worth their value. Instead, you can run Roose as a commander and place him in them. Unfortunately, the Panic approach still relies a lot on luck, and even with the extra -1 on all Panic Tests, you can’t guarantee you’ll get healing when you need it, as the -3 penalty will only impact about a third of any Panic Test.
If you run Red Cloaks alongside the Mountain’s Men, you can increase the odds of getting a benefit from Prey on Fear. Doing this with Roose attached means inflicting an extra wound of damage and increasing the odds of success, but you’ll need to lead very aggressively with the Mountain’s Men to make sure they’re the ones primarily engaged, rather than the Red Cloaks. Red Cloaks are also suboptimal in a lot of ways – but we’ll get to them in a second.
Your alternative here is to try to increase the general fighting effectiveness and survivability of the unit. Since Bronn increases the defense and morale of a unit while you hold Wealth, he can increase the Mountain’s Men to a 3+ save with 5+ morale. Though that is nice, it is also the case that most 7-point units already have 5+ morale by default, along with a better overall profile than the Mountain’s Men have, so once again, adding cost to the unit is only making it worse at the same rate it makes them better. For that reason, you can try adding Daario to the unit, and can use Daario’s “Sellsword Negotiations” card to keep them up to ranks. Additionally, Daario lets them attack with all seven attacks when you hold Wealth. Finally, you can try putting Addam Marbrand in the unit, which will make the Mountain’s Men a little tougher to kill off while also letting them use cards like Valiant Example to get them immediately back up to higher ranks.
None of these fixes are good. The problem with most of them is that they add cost to the unit, require a suboptimal commander, or suffer from adding more conditional complexity to the unit. However, some of these fixes are at least fun and patch some of the problems the unit has… a little.
Crossbowmen
Potential Fixes: Sparrow commander, Bronn
Lannister Crossbows are a perfectly fine ranged unit. They do exactly what you’d expect: shoot enemies. Their only real flaw is that they have 7+ morale, which seems quite fair given they have 4+ armor – which is a lot for a ranged unit. Many players like to run Bronn in these guys, which raises them to a 3+ save with 6+ morale when you claim Wealth. In fact, this combo and the ease of finding targets for your Crossbows make them the most optimal place to put Bronn.
Sparrow also provides a +1 to morale, which means that Crossbows are a fine place for him to sit if you prefer not to place him somewhere else. Sparrow’s “Incite” ability is basically nothing, so it’s not missing out on much to ignore it, and his cards can be applied to any unit on the field.
Red Cloaks
Potential Fixes: Mandon Moore, Gregor commander
Red Cloaks are like a multi-role unit that forgot it was supposed to have more than one role. They can inflict a Panic Test on anything in long range by taking an action, and this occurs every time they take an action, which is a neat mechanic, but it’s also the only thing they do by default. It sounds powerful, but it’s important to remember that attacking a unit will inflict a Panic Test, so if you shoot a unit with a crossbow, they’ll first take damage from the crossbow, and then take a Panic Test. When you factor in the revelation that Red Cloak Panic Tests only succeed a little over half the time, and that only when the Red Cloak unit is at full ranks, you realize they’re just not that good.
People occasionally think to put Preston Greenfield in these guys, but the answer to the problem isn’t to use more activations to spam more Panic Tests. What you need, is to give the unit a second role – that is, melee combat ability, and you can do that by putting Gregor or Mandon Moore in them. Once the unit can actually fight, you can throw it into combat, force a Panic Test before their attack, do a decent amount of damage, then force a Panic Test after the attack.
Although this does patch one major issue with Red Cloaks, they still have a few things going on preventing them from holding up. For one, their attack profile isn’t great: when they lose a rank, they fall to five attacks and their Panic ability weakens. They also only have a 4+ to hit by default, which makes Mandon the more appealing fix since he’ll get them to a 3+, though that does make them cost more. Additionally, the entire unit winds up being wrapped up in needing Crown to function at all, which forces you to play Joffrey ahead of anything they do, and that’s a massive liability.
The Crown liability is one problem you just can’t get around. Needing to play an NCU ahead of the unit to make it worth more than four points in value makes them clunky in a way that a lot of other units don’t have to deal with.
City Watch
Potential Fixes: No
What we’re looking at with the City Watch is a unit that has pretty much the same profile as the Lannister Halberdiers, but they can only get Sundering for one turn and they don’t have Set for Charge. If you want what the City Watch is doing at this price, then you’re better off taking Halberdiers and adding an attachment to them. These guys are easily no more than a five-point value, and even then they’d be outclassed by a lot of other five-point units. For example, a cheaper replacement for these guys is to take some Stormcrow Mercenaries and choose an attachment that grants Sundering.
House Clegane Brigands
Potential Fixes: None needed
Light cavalry. It works! They are a bit fragile, but given their solid maneuverability, this is best dealt with by player skill rather than by slapping any attachments on them. That’s not to say there’s anything wrong with throwing attachments on them, as all the options work perfectly well on these guys. There are only three, after all, but they’re all solid attachments. Their Panic-related ability is going to be as flaky as those things always are, so when you decide to charge a unit, do it based on the performance you expect from their basic attack, not on what you hope might happen if the enemy fails the Panic Test.
Pyromancers
Potential Fixes: Bronn, Sandor, Addam commander, Kevan commander
Here’s a unit I would have no idea how to balance! Every attack ignores armor, and they have both melee and short ranged options to do this, with seven attacks at a 3+ to hit and a profile of 7, 7, 4. Positively every unit in the game has something to fear here, and yet, with only a 6+ save, the Pyromancers have something to fear from every other unit on the field. Dangerous to any one unit, and in danger from four or more units at a time. That means the odds are usually against them, since the opponent has quite a lot of incentive to kill these guys off, and anything on the board generally has the wherewithal to do that.
Using Bronn increases the unit’s armor while giving them a valuable extra attack, with the extra attack being the most notable thing you can do since a “DPS race” is pretty much one of the only options this unit has. Kevan is also valuable for the same reason, and his Wealth of the Rock card can be thrown out for a little extra defense. If you can combine Bronn and Kevan’s card, then for at least two attacks, the Pyromancers can have 4+ defense! That is, of course, a highly situational play that you can’t depend on. Placing Kevan in them and using Crown for a free charge is liable to produce better mileage, as it leaves open a bit more room to safely maneuver.
Addam also does alright in the Pyromancers thanks to a smidge of added tankiness, some healing from his cards, and the potential to play Lash Out when the unit takes a really bad hit (which is all the more wounds the enemy can’t stop). Normally, Addam’s biggest problem is that the enemy will try to ignore whatever he’s in to avoid triggering his nonsense, but they can’t ignore Pyromancers.
Sandor has some potential in these guys, but doesn’t do enough. He might heal two or three wounds after the Pyromancers attack, but as soon as the opponent shoots everything they’ve got at the unit, it’ll be dead before Sandor can heal them again. Plus, Sandor doesn’t work when they make a ranged attack, and his “vulnerable” effect is a bit wasted when the unit he assaults doesn’t get armor saves anyway. Ramsay Snow breaks on the exact same failure point of too much damage, not enough healing, only he costs more, so I don’t rate Ramsay even as a casual fix. The Panic stuff is not reliable and isn’t worth considering.
Still, no matter what you do, this unit is going to draw a ton of attention, and short of straight up killing whatever’s turned on it, it’s not going to survive what comes to destroy it. “Horrific Visage” is a wet paper bag that’s going to miss about half the time or more, and a 50% shot at a Panic Test is a minor risk to getting the Pyromancers off the field.
While not common, it is worth noting that the Pyromancer attacks “do not permit armor saves”, but they are not instant wounds. That means abilities such as Hardened or Resilient can still block or reduce damage dealt by Pyromancers.
Warrior’s Sons
Potential Fixes: Sparrow commander, Daario commander, Addam commander, Champion of the Faith, Sandor, Gate Warden, Mandon Moore, Bronn, Gregor commander
This is one of the units that I like for certain competitive lists, and that I think make the Lannisters stand out in terms of their faction picks. The trick with them is, they are unreliable, like a lot of Lannister infantry, but it’s on the basis of whether or not they have enough of their “Faith” resource. There are commanders and attachments that help them get more Faith, and as long as you’re using the correct stuff, Warrior’s Sons are pretty good.
The obvious commander here is Sparrow, because every single one of his cards is a morale test, and when you pass them, you can add one more Faith Token to the Warrior’s Sons that took the test. This is great! Because it allows you to use the Warrior’s Sons defense while relying on attachments to give them more kick and survivability. Wrath of the Warrior lets them attack with Sundering and +1 to hit while racking up a Faith Token for later use. Mercy of the Mother brings them back and keeps them going. Protection of the Father buffs their defense by re-rolling armor. If you use Tyrion, you can mill-draw these cards each round and make sure your Warrior’s Sons do what you need them to do.
As long as you have those tokens, you can run Sandor or a Gate Warden to maintain their survivability, or you can run Bronn to occasionally increase their armor and take a free attack. So far so good, but what if you don’t want to run Sparrow? Well, things get a little trickier now.
Addam is a common pick because he makes the unit even harder to kill, but he doesn’t have any good morale-at-will cards. He does have Charismatic Leadership, but it’s reactionary and your opponent would have to make the mistake of targeting the Warrior’s Sons with something to trip it off. Frankly, Addam in the Warrior’s Sons means they’re liable to be ignored. If they don’t generate Faith Tokens, their attacks are a bit mediocre for their cost, so you have a problem there.
Daario has a surprising amount of potential. You can mill-draw Sellsword Bravado to produce Faith Tokens while making the enemy weaker at the same time. Afterward, you can use Faith to get some good attacks, or, if you can claim Wealth, Daario gives the unit’s attacks Sundering. Therefore, any time you hold Wealth, this a pretty strong fighting unit. But wait, there’s more! Sellsword Negotiations can restore the health of the Warrior’s Sons while also having you count as holding Wealth, which is a lovely combo for a front-line unit like this, and I think it makes Daario, Stormcrow Captain the leading candidate to be in a unit of Warrior’s Sons. It is also worth considering that when you play Reckless Strikes, Faith will let you re-roll your attacks, so there’s some potential there, but I don’t recommend it, because the card can also auto-wound the Warrior’s Sons, which undermines their function as a scary, offensive wall.
If you still want to use these guys but don’t want to use Sparrow or Daario as your commander, you can put Mandon Moore in them, and at the drawback of needing to field Joffrey as well, they become a powerful fighter and defender both. They’ll run into trouble on the occasions that they fail their Panic Tests and lose their Faith Tokens, so to mitigate that, it’s usually good to avoid spending Faith while they’re at full ranks. You can wait until they’re on the second or last rank, at which point the Faith tokens have higher value, and spend them then.
Champions of the Faith do generate more Faith Tokens while handing out Vulnerable Tokens, or, if you like gambling, Panicked Tokens. Naturally, there’s also always Gregor, who doesn’t highlight the best parts of the Warrior’s Sons that well, but it does do all the bonkers, this-and-the-kitchen-sink cheese that commanders like Gregor do.
This unit is still okay without any attachments, but mainly just for standing on an objective, which is not the best use of seven points. If you’re going to invest that much, it should be to violently and noisily take something from somebody. The other reason I personally prefer Daario for this is because it won’t cost anything extra to place him in the unit.
Casterly Rock Honor Guard
Potential Fixes: Gregor commander, Daario commander, Meryn Trant, Mandon Moore
It’s so depressing to see so much text on a card, knowing you won’t use any of it. Honor Guard trade Condition Tokens for one-off effects that aren’t better than the Condition Tokens. They expend weakness to get Sundering, which is something most units of their cost might already have. They expend Vulnerable to recover wounds, conditionally based on whether or not the enemy lost a rank. They expend Panicked to remove a unit’s abilities for the turn, and though this one is useful if you’d for some reason put a Panicked Token on the board (probably explicitly for this unit’s ability), it’s not an ability that’s universally valuable because not everything has a defensive ability, and it’s hard to guess if your opponent has a card you want to block.
When you use the ability, the token goes away, so you not only have an issue with needing to set up the effect, but it’s ephemeral. Using NCUs to get the tokens is a problem because that necessitates playing the NCU first, likely broadcasting your intent, and giving your opponent an opportunity to respond. There are attachments that generate tokens, but they only do it once per round, and it’s an opportunity cost to generate a token just to quickly take it away.
In my opinion, the only good attachment that makes this unit work is Gregor as a commander. The unit has decent armor, a decent attack profile, and good morale, so once you give them two automatic wounds, immunity to Weakness, Sundering, and all of Gregor’s cards, they are an imminent threat to everyone. That’s not to say they’re actually good. It’s just that Gregor’s so jacked up that he rescues it.
Meryn Trant can be used as a fix for the Honor Guard because he consistently generates Weakness and Panicked tokens before each attack. You could skip the token thing entirely and go for Mandon Moore, though I think Meryn is better since it gets the ability nullification along with attack re-rolls. However, neither of these choices are great because they increase the cost of the unit, force-include Joffrey, and introduce the Crown confound, where you have to play an NCU before you can play the Honor Guard.
Daario can also pick this unit up with Sellsword Bravado, which will generate Weakness and Panicked before an attack, and while you control Wealth, the unit will have Sundering. However, I think Daario works a bit better in the Warrior’s Sons, because the Warrior’s Sons tend to be tougher on defense and sustain for longer when you’re using Sellsword Negotiations to keep them alive. Warrior’s Sons also have more flexibility with how you expend their Faith tokens, and when they use Sellsword Bravado, they can benefit from their Faith abilities without consuming the Weakness and Panicked tokens. Honor Guard destroy your tokens from the card, Warrior’s Sons construct on the morale test and leave the tokens intact.
Knights of Casterly Rock
Potential Fixes: None Needed
Essentially the premiere unit of the Lannisters, the Knights of Casterly Rock are fast, well-armored, and brutal. There’s not much more to say about them! “Lannister Supremacy” makes them a bit risky to shoot at with archers, and when they attack a unit that isn’t as good at fighting, it can give some nasty shocks, but really it’s the basics that make the Knights as good as they are. Generally it’s not a great idea to run attachments on them because they’re already an eight point unit, and the best thing a player can do for them is provide support.
Notable Neutrals
Though I won’t go into detail on all the Neutral options, there are a few things that deserve to be pointed out.
Bolton Cutthroats are doing basically what the Mountain’s Men are but without the stupid caveats, so if you put Sandor in them to give them Fueled By Slaughter, they cost the same, get 3+ to hit default, have a better attack profile, and heal when they attack instead of when an enemy fails a Panic Test. Not a great unit, but it’s more stable and achieves a similar goal without needing you to also run Red Cloaks, Joffrey, and whatever else.
Stormcrow Mercenaries do well with a few different attachments from the Lannisters. Tyrion most notably, who should really be in these guys if you need a nice, affordable place to put him. The Stone Crows have no advantages over the Stormcrows. It’s not even close, the Stormcrows are better.
Lysense Sellswords can bounce back from a lot of damage if you put Sandor in them. Once they’ve got two pillage tokens on them, every attack is going to restore between three to six wounds. Not bad for six points!
Stormcrow Dervishes with Sandor can also be very resilient. Because they can attack on Wealth, they can make up to three attacks per round (or more if you have Assault Orders), and each attack will heal the unit. Since they can retreat, if you still have your activation, you can take an attack from the Tactics Board, retreat, then charge as your activation, which inflicts Vulnerable from Sandor. That’s just one option – this unit is also no slouch when led by Kevan, who can charge when claiming Crown, retreat, then charge again as his activation. In my opinion, this is the best seven point unit the Lannisters can get if your commander isn’t supporting Warrior’s Sons because the Dervishes have the same armor as most of your options, but unlike your units, these guys are reliable and have consistent abilities.
In Summary of Units
To make this really simple, if you want a competitive list, you should probably be using Halberds, Knights, and Crossbows. You can use Warrior’s Sons if you’re set up for it. Brigands are also alright as light cavalry, but you should be very careful with them since they’re so fragile. Beyond those options, Neutrals are probably a better bet, because Neutrals have abilities that are more stable and will require less set-up.
You might have also noticed a few comments like, “When you play this card, this unit really benefits from it.”
Stuff like that is why Tyrion, Giant of Lannister should be in almost every list you make. Some units are going to be bad no matter what commanders or attachments you put in them, but they do get better and are more fun to play if you combo them with specific cards. That doesn’t work if those cards are at the bottom of your deck and you’re stuck drawing dysfunctional duds like Hear Me Roar.

Thank you for taking the time to read my weapon balance essay.
Yes, I feel just as silly typing this as you probably felt reading it.
But every good essay deserves a silly intro. So here we go.
​
The following is a collection of ideas I want to throw at the wall.
I hope that they are largely reasonable and more importantly, fun.
Even hope that someone at Arrowhead will read this.
And I want to see what you guys, the community, think.
​
**Discord Polls**
More of them! More! More!
Arrowhead, you receive such a loud clash of undiscernible noise from the community most of the time;
Why not pick out anything and everything that catches your eye and put it to a vote to find out what the community actually thinks?
It quickly lets people hear about the various ideas they likely miss in the chaos of the discord; Allowing them to discuss the ideas and vote.
Doing more polls will allow you to quickly filter through the bad ideas.
​
**All weapons**
**Better scopes**
We call the current scopes, ACOG.jpg scopes, not because they're good.
Specifically, the futuristic scopes with glowing bits and extra noise.
The scopes just suck trying to see targets through.
The only good sight in the game currently is the LiberatoSickle.
Please, consider real life scopes and pick stuff you guys would like to actually shoot with.
And add ladder sights to low velocity guns.
​
**Bolt Catch on empty mag**
Please Install bolt catches and bolt releases on anything it makes sense to.
Charging the rifle after every empty mag delays our ability to spread democracy.
Not every gun needs this, but it would be a nice little bonus to underperforming ARs.
​
**Energy Weapons**
Give energy weapons fire modes.
For all the beam energy weapons, give them an overclock option.
Something like +50% damage but +100% heat generation.
Or a burst beam with cooldown period; Something like the Halo spartan laser, and have it boost the penetration by one level.
Tweak the numbers to something that's fun and a reason to toggle between modes.
​
**Assault Rifles**
There are several issues and numbers that could and should be brought up.
But the biggest crime I would like to point out is,
A single shot from an AR does the same damage as a *single pellet* from a shotgun shell.
AR-23P does 45 damage, A single pellet from the punisher does 45 damage.
That's a travesty. Someone is staring far too hard at spreadsheets.
​
**MP-98 Knight**
Two things, please add it to the SC store from time to time. ( if agreements allow you to of/c)
And, if you can allow everyone to spend SC to get it, give it tier 3 penetration (medium armor pen).
So there is a reason to take it vs the other smgs.
Say the super scientists got the idea from an old earth TV show about a big circular stargate.
Tweak the fire-rate and magazine carry count to balance of course.
​
**SG-8S Slugger**
"The slugger is too good of a DMR so we nerfed the shotguns trademark stagger", what?
Just revert all the changes on it. Give back the stagger and demolition force.
Then increase the damage fall off a little bit. (and make the diligence a little better)
​
**R-63 Diligence**
Give the diligence 2 or 3 round burst fire or something.
​
**R-36 Eruptor**
shrapnel is the guns thing. so give it back.
Shrapnel killing chargers? Shrapnel killing helldivers randomly?
Reduce the shrapnel damage. That's what should have happened.
It did like 150 or 200 damage per shrapnel and it generated up to 20 of them.
That's 4000 damage. what.
Dropping shrapnel damage to 50 and boosting the base explosive to 200 should be a fair compromise.
tweak from there.
​
**LAS-5 Scythe**
Give the scythe the same scope as the Sickle. That's really the biggest thing it needs.
And the overclock fire-mode would be nice or the burst charge that boosts penetration would be better.
​
**PLAS-101 Purifier**
This thing is just sad.
Ok, so lets make this fun. Give it 3 firing modes. you select what the max charge is from the weapon wheel.
Each charge level takes one more ammo. and at level 2 or 3 charge, make it the first primary to penetrate tier 4 armor or heavy or whatever you want to call it. Also, at a full charge, or 'overcharge' have it blast the user backwards rag-dolling them.
Example numbers----
Base shot about 60 rate of fire, projectile: 3 pen 150 damage + 50 explosive damage, 1 ammo use.
Slower than the scorcher, but that's fine. The charge shots are what we're here for.
​
Charge shot +1 second to charge, projectile: 4 pen 200 damage + 150 explosive damage, 2 ammo use.
It can now penetrate Scout Walkers, and do more damage vs medium targets. has a little AoE.
​
Overcharge shot +3 seconds to charge, Projectile: 4 pen 250 damage + 250 explosive damage, 3 ammo use.
It now has a punisher sized AoE. And more comically, blasts the user backwards rag-dolling them. Probably make it so the user just falls backwards on his butt.
Now that sounds like a fun gun. Tweak the numbers of course as they're only given for rough examples. Give it a nice boom.
​
​
**RS-422 Railgun**
Just make it a primary
Tweak/nerf the numbers a little bit.
Likely nerf down to tier 4 pen for safe shots, and if you kept unsafe, probably let it have tier 5 pen.
Making this a primary would add to the variety of builds and stratagems that people will bring.
Extend the safety period/grace period of full charge; Add the charge gauge to the 3rd person hud cursor, And give it the liberators scope.
This would be such a nice boost to the die hard fans of the gun. And be a second primary with tier 4 pen. (and maybe the first with tier 5?)
​
​
**LAS-99 Quasar Cannon**
"Due to the ongoing war effort I.C.E production for the Quasar has worsened causing full charge shots to now take 15 seconds to recover from."
"So the techs have decided to hack in half power shots for half the cooldown recovery time."
Add a fire-mode that's half the damage for half cooldown time.
So we have at least one anti-tank weapon that does some sort of different damage.
​
**LAS-98 Laser Cannon**
Please, give this overclock or spartan laser.
I'm voting for the halo spartan burst laser firing mode.
Charge it for 3 seconds then you get a nice strong PEW. Give that tier 5 pen and make it the first support weapon at tier 5 pen!
So it's not quite at the level of anti-tank, but gives more options to deal with enemy heavy spam in high tiers!
Would give bug laser enjoyer's a option to fight titans with, and allow other options when dealing with several other common heavy enemy types.
​
Ideally, hopefully, more things are just fun. Numbers can always be tweaked. But more fun fire-modes will go a long way.
​

Previous Update discussion All Update Threads
 
New official Wiki at https://spaceengineers.wiki.gg/wiki/Space_Engineers_Wiki
 
Hello, Engineers!
The new Signal update is here! “Signal” lays the foundation for a new era of Space Engineers. 2024 will be a year of exploration, battle, and survival. This update focuses on our framework for a new standard in player versus environment.
Signal adds new choices to your creative arsenal with new blocks, specifically created for this occasion. With this new set of blocks, your remote automation can act with an entirely new level of autonomy. Where the wildly popular “Automatons” update added remote mining operations, automated drones, welding assistants and so much more, “Signal” empowers these systems to communicate! Reactive updates, straight-to-chat, as well as complex systems communicating over multiple ships, stations, or any combination are now possible!
Get live chat updates from your remote satellite array, mining drone fleet, or automated defense sentinels in Signal!
Please join us in 2024 as we explore Space Engineers like never before. We can’t wait to see what you create!

• Marek's Blog post: https://blog.marekrosa.org/2024/05/space-engineers-signal.html
• Broadcast Controller / Transponder Guide: https://www.spaceengineersgame.com/broadcast-controller-action-relay-guide/

Update 1.204 - Signal trailer (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4Me_6tcxLw)
 
Features

• Scenario selection menu overhaul for Steam Version and XBOX/Microsoft Store
• New Red Ship Starting Scenario (Quick Start) / Quick Start button in Main Menu
• Death and Respawn improvements (A Reason for your death, Cryopod death message)
• Added reload bar for static weapons
• New NPC Grid Claiming
• Reputation System Rebalance
• Improving performance of NPC Grids
• Improvements to Cargo Ship flight paths
• Added warning notifications when grinding Components to Scrap
• Block info/stats improvements (charge efficiency, production blocks)
• Cargo Container Destruction improvements, Temporary Containers
• Disabled scrap item spawning from damaged blocks by default in new Worlds
• Non-unique items can be stacked in the inventory
• Adjustment to Tree collisions
• Lightning damage disabled by default for worlds
• Improvements to F1 help screen
• Npc changes, modding (possibility to spawn paired loot in container), Drone Spawning Improvements, New Loot Container Options

 
Added new Blocks - Base Game

• Broadcast Controller (1 block, L + S grid)
• Action Relay (1 block, L + S grid)
• Additional Round Armor Panels (4 blocks, L grid + 4 blocks, S grid)
• Compact Antenna (1 block, L grid)

 
Added Content to existing DLCs:

• Scaffolding (4 blocks, L grid) (added to Deco Pack 3 )
• 9 music note sheets, concert version of in-game soundtrack (added to Deluxe Edition)

 
Signal Pack

• Official Store
• Steam
• PlayStation
• Xbox

 

• Truss Set (7 blocks, L grid + 2 blocks S grid)
  • Truss Light - S + L grid
  • Truss Pillar - S + L grid
  • Truss Pillar Diagonal - L grid
  • Truss Pillar Offset - L grid
  • Truss Pillar T - L grid
  • Truss Pillar X - L grid
  • Truss Decoy - L grid
• Corridor Blocks (8 blocks, L grid)
  • Corridor - L grid
  • Corridor Corner - L grid
  • Corridor Double Windowed Sides - L grid
  • Corridor Light - L grid
  • Corridor T Intersection - L grid
  • Corridor Windowed Roof - L grid
  • Corridor Windowed Side - L grid
  • Corridor X Intersection - L grid
• Narrow Corridor (1 block, L grid)
• Narrow Corridor Stowage (1 block, L grid)
• Narrow Door (2 blocks, L grid)
• Inset Walls Set (6 blocks, L grid)
  • Inset Wall - L grid
  • Inset Wall Corner - L grid
  • Inset Wall Corner Inv. - L grid
  • Inset Wall Diagonal - L grid
  • Inset Wall Light - L grid
  • Inset Wall Pillar - L grid
• Decorative Console Blocks (5 blocks, L grid + 5 blocks, S grid)
  • Console Module - S + L grid
  • Console Module Buttons - S + L grid
  • Console Module Corner - S + L grid
  • Console Module Corner Inv. - S + L grid
  • Console Module LCD - S + L grid
• Bay Windows Set (5 blocks, L grid + 4 blocks, S grid)
  • Bay Window - S + L grid
  • Bay Window Corner - S + L grid
  • Bay Window Dome - S + L grid
  • Bay Window End - S + L grid
  • Bay Window Railing - L grid
• 9 Tracks added to Jukebox
  • Approaching the Start [concert version]
  • The Dust
  • A New Dawn
  • Liftoff [concert version]
  • Uncharted Territory [concert version]
  • Fight Like One [concert version]
  • Warfare Trailer [live]
  • Out of Early Access [live]
  • We Are Engineers

 
Official Blueprints

• Official Blueprints: https://www.spaceengineersgame.com/community-hub/
• Weaver Shipping Platform
  • https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3242490483
  • https://mod.io/g/spaceengineers/m/weaver-shipping-platform
• Buddy Bot
  • https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3242722188
  • https://mod.io/g/spaceengineers/m/buddy-bot1
• Signal - Guide Grid
  • https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3242724302
  • https://mod.io/g/spaceengineers/m/demo-grid

 
Fixes & Improvements

• Changed ModAPI behavior for mechanical blocks to accept Attach/Detach only once per tick
• Fixed an issue where pixelated flickering would appear near large amount of light sources
• Fixed a crash when grinding down a parachute hatch at the moment of it being deployed
• Fixed an issue where clicking View (Camera block, etc...) when remotely connected to a grid beyond sync distance would kick you to spectator
• Fixed an issue where NPCs would fall through the planet upon death
• Changed Admin teleport behavior using Ctrl+Space when seated in a station. Character will be unseated and then teleported. Dynamic grid and character behavior unchanged
• Fixed an issue where "Target is out of range" would appear even to other players not currently trying to lock a target on DS
• Fixed an issue where trees would fly away after cutting them down
• Changed hand drill behavior so that at most 15 floating ore objects spawn from single voxel change, floating ores over this number are combined into bigger chunks
• Fixed an issue where the first world in the list would get published instead of the one selected by controller
• Fixed an issue where the deployed parachute would still slow the grid down even after the block was ground down into construction stage
• Fixed an issue where the AI Offensive block would get stuck in an unresponsive state while shooting
• Fixed an issue where a drone would forget "Flee to" GPS on DS
• Fixed an issue where a conveyor line to Hydrogen Tank would not get interrupted even when part of it was ground to construction stage
• Fixed an issue where a Hydrogen Tank would not fill up when the conveyor connection was built in Survival
• Fixed an issue where an alarm in Space Standoff would remain active with a dead enemy character in the area
• Fixed an issue where the removal of an item from Build Planner queue was prevented by the selection of an N/A blockvariant
• Fixed an issue where a Sensor block would fail to detect manually placed asteroids
• Fixed an issue where a Connector status would get desynchronized and appear unlocked for some and locked for others on DS
• Fixed an issue where copypasting Body location GPS would try converting the date and time into coordinates
• Fixed an issue where player would get kicked from DS after trying to weld projection too fast
• Fixed an issue where spherical safe zones would fail to identify what is and what isnt contained in the field
• Fixed an issue where ModAPI IMyTurretControlBlock.Target returned itself
• Fixed an issue where graphical artifacts appeared when weather was present due to precision loss
• Fixed an issue where safe zone would reject and continue rejecting a grid, accelerating it to max speed
• Fixed an issue where Idle movement would not work for Searchlight in MP
• Fixed a crash when attempting to crush a grid with another grid
• Fixed an issue where a turned off Sensor would still visualize the Show sensor field range
• Fixed an issue where a character would jump low and near in low artificial gravity
• Fixed an issue where the Day duration slider and description in Advanced world settings would break visually
• Fixed an issue where the info about Help keybinding would not change on the HUD when key was rebound
• Fixed an issue where NPCs would not be able to follow player onto a ramp of sufficient height and elevation
• Fixed an issue where NPCs would get stuck on steep surfaces or could not follow player near trees
• Changed NPC behavior when they cannot reach a target to wander around instead of stopping and waiting
• Fixed an issue where turning off Saberoids/Spiders on DS would not make them despawn
• Fixed an issue with Z-fighting on the small grid oxygen tank
• Fixed an issue where a copied Rocket turret in combat would continue actively shooting after pasting without having a target
• Fixed an issue where block's destroy particles would not scale with its dimensions
• Fixed Enable drones and Enable voxel hand toggles in Advanced World Settings not having a tooltip
• Fixed an issue where lootable NPCs would not be displaying their names when highlighted
• Fixed an issue where the muzzle flash particle would look as a 1 pixel wide line above the iron sights when in that mode by adding support for ironsight particle
• Fixed an issue where NPCs would stop their AI after reloading a save
• Fixed an issue where a ship would have trouble orientating itself along recorded path in gravity
• Fixed an issue where a server could start with a 3rd party generated or incorrect password salt causing connecting Clients to crash on join
• Fixed an issue where one of the Mission Briefing datapads in the Space Standoff would contain old version of the text
• Fixed an issue where the Space Credits icon would not be displayed in economy screens on PlayStation
• Fixed an issue where the direction of shooting would follow the decoupled crosshair in 3rd person and not the direction the character and weapon was facing on DS
• Fixed an issue with Z-fighting on the Inset Bed block
• Fixed an issue where all Barrel blocks would be under Block Weapons tab. Explosive Barrel moved under Warheads, others moved to Cargo section
• Fixed an issue where Assault turrets would continue to spin after being turned off during idle movement
• Fixed an issue where LCDs would be too bright, causing the text to be harder to read
• Fixed an issue where UI opacity could be set too low, preventing the player from seeing completely
• Fixed an issue where Willis Duct Light would have incorrect research dependency
• Fixed an issue where Small grid Railgun collision models would be too large
• Fixed an issue where ModAPI for IMyExhaust, IMyPowerProducer and IMyReactor interfaces would extend the in-game variants
• Fixed an issue where h2/o2 Generator would mirror incorrectly
• Fixed an issue where a newly added item to a Jukebox playlist would advance the Jukebox UI to the last song but still remain playing the current one
• Fixed an issue where Event Controller would forget assigned blocks on paste on DS
• Fixed an issue where ModSDK tools ModelViewer and BehaviorTree would produce an exception on startup

 
Support Site Fixes

• Fixed a crash when deleting a cargo filled with non-stackable items
• Fixed a crash when splitting a grid with an LCD in a construction stage
• Fixed a crash when Event Controller was set up to attach/detach a mechanical block top part at the same time
• Fixed a crash when a Connector would try to repeatedly attach or detach while already attaching/detaching
• Fixed an issue where the upper parts of an o2/h2 Generator would not have mountpoints
• Fixed an issue where the collisions of small grid Autocannon and Assault cannon turrets would be too large
• Fixed an issue where the Custom Turret Controller would forget assigned weapons and settings after grid split/merge
• Fixed an issue where the Pirate Base on the Moon would spawn drones with Atmospheric thrusters
• Fixed an issue where an LCD with too long of a text would freeze or crash the game. Now text max 65k characters long. Title max 512 characters.
• Fixed an issue where a CTC powered rocket launchers would not lead a target
• Fixed an issue where small grid Small Connector was able to connect from the sides
• Fixed an issue where an assigned toolbar action would work even through a physical connection like Landing gear instead of logical like Connector
• Fixed an issue where it was possible to receive an invite dialog from a multiplayer game other than SE, resulting in an error
• Fixed an issue where CTC selected weapons would not persist through save/restart on DS
• Fixed an issue where an AI offensive block with intercept would be prevented from retargetting by collision avoidance
• Fixed an issue where an AI recorder would not trigger setup actions at the waypoints
• Fixed an issue where the time to target lock was too long. When the target is a grid, the locking time is 5 seconds down from 10 seconds.
• Fixed an issue where purple texture would get used on voxels after changing graphics settings
• Fixed an issue where Alt+mouse camera control would not work when controlling CTC
• Fixed an issue where Preserve aspect ratio would not work on curved LCDs
• Fixed a crash when entering a cockpit with specific toolbar setup
• Fixed an issue where it was impossible to access interactive elements of other blocks obscured by the Holo LCD
• Fixed an issue where it would spawn players under the ground if the spawn point was embedded in voxel
• Fixed an issue where AI offensive block would lose assigned weapons on grid split
• Fixed a crash when a missile type projectile hit a door subpart while mid open/close
• Fixed an issue where the Flare launcher had an incorrect dummy
• Fixed an issue where the the Safezone would incorrectly determine if something was in or not
• Fixed an issue where a character in jetpack on a DS would start copying rotation of a nearby spinning grid
• Fixed an issue where the small grid Rocket turret would have a hole in its model
• Fixed an issue where the displayed mass of a grid would not update on change due to the calculation not taking multipliers into account
• Fixed an issue where the UV textures on the ladder block decals would not be correct
• Fixed an issue where small grid Landing gear collision models would be too large
• Fixed an issue in the Industrial cockpit model
• Fixed an issue where large grid Connector collision models would be too large
• Fixed an issue where small grid Ship drill collision models would be too large
• Fixed an issue where Oxygen farm collision models would be too large
• Fixed an issue where small grid Rotor collision models would be too large
• Fixed an issue where small grid Advanced Rotor collision models would be too large
• Fixed an issue where Ship Welder model would have a see-thru seam around the conveyor port
• Fixed an issue where {player_count} in server Motd would count NPCs as players
• Fixed an issue where the Medical room block had incorrect mounpoints
• Fixed an issue where the grid would explode after attaching it to a fallen tree with a Landing gear
• Fixed an issue where the large grid Ship welder was not able to touch the conveyor with its conveyor port
• Fixed an issue where the Oxygen farm model was not able to touch the conveyor with its conveyor port
• Fixed an issue where hydrogen would not flow through sorters in the opposite way
• Fixed an issue where the AI blocks would not calculate with the mass of subgrids as well
• Fixed an issue where NPCs would attack through closed doors
• Fixed an issue where a Beacon would interfere with Remote control and remote connection to a grid
• Fixed an issue where the base of a large grid Antenna was not centered
• Fixed an issue where Large oxygen tank conveyor port models would intersect with conveyor lines a bit
• Fixed an issue where large grid Large cargo container conveyor ports would not touch with other connected blocks
• Fixed an issue where the small grid Gyroscope would appear to levitate above the surface
• Fixed an issue where Jump drive had holes in its model
• Fixed an issue where smal grid Small cargo models would not visually connect
• Fixed an issue where Ion thruster models did not visually connect
• Fixed an issue where Atmospheric thruster model would have a gap in it
• Fixed an issue where Programmable block API for Laser antenna was not working
• Fixed an issue where the Offset door collision models would be too large
• Fixed an issue where filled gas Tanks would show damage effects after being ground below functional
• Fixed an issue where the Chat spam protection would time out even Admins
• Fixed an issue where the scrollable server Player list would not fit all players
• Fixed an issue where Aquarium bubbles would show and animate in projections
• Fixed an issue where Inset couch would mirror incorrectly
• Fixed an issue where the Sensor block would not be able to detect players laying in beds
• Fixed an issue where the small grid Beacon did not require radio components to be functional
• Fixed an issue where the Pillar model construction stages were rotated by 90 degrees
• Fixed an issue where the player would not be informed that they are unable to spawn outside of the world size limit
• Fixed an issue where Alt+MMB would allow for items to pass through sorters the wrong way
• Fixed an issue where Solar panels either worked when they shouldn't or did not work when they should
• Fixed an issue where left CTRL would get ignored for crouching in localised languages, right CTRL would always be ignored when key was bound to it
• Fixed an issue where small grid Blast door edge collision models would be too large
• Fixed an issue where AI blocks would be ignored in the power priority rankings and lose power
• Fixed an issue where a multiplayer lobby would fail to download specific mods
• Fixed an issue where control of a remote grid would not persist through save/restart of a server
• Fixed an issue where a Piston would not allow other Pistons being placed around it
• Fixed an issue where a Drone collision avoidance would try to avoid its own subgrids and refuse to fly to Waypoints
• Fixed an issue where there would be less planetary boulder spawning
• Fixed an issue where AI Offensive block would continue shooting even after target was destroyed
• Fixed an issue where it would not be possible to place a block onto the top part of a piston placed horizontally on a surface
• Fixed an issue where sounds would be almost inaudible in the right channel of a Stereo setup
• Fixed an issue where a leftover Debug Draw would appear when target pattern was set to hit and run on AI Offensive block
• Fixed an issue where AI recorder would name waypoints differently in the Detailinfo than in the Waypoints list
• Fixed an issue where Offensive word filter would try to protect player even in non-shareable areas of the UI

 

• Official patch notes (PC)
• Official patch notes (PlayStation)
• Official patch notes (Xbox)

 
Hotfixes will be listed in a reply comment below:
 

Hello, I'm looking to sell off my micro 4/3 gear as I recently made the jump to full frame. I really enjoyed using this compact kit and am hoping someone else can continue to enjoy it. I would prefer to sell everything as a kit, but if it goes unsold long enough I might consider selling off items individually.
Timestamp Album
Olympus OM-D E-M1 Mk II SHUTTER COUNT: 13,322

I bought this camera used from MPB in the condition it is in now. There are a few cosmetic blemishes, particularly at the top of the view finder housing, but functionally it is in near perfect condition. The front dial is slightly less "clicky" than the rear dial, but this is a known phenomenon with this generation of Olympus cameras and does not in any way impact the actual function of the dial.

Olympus 12-40mm f/2.8 Pro

This lens has been an excellent lens the entire time I've used it. Optically it is in like-new condition, absolutely no issues to speak of. Cosmetically it is in good condition with one or two small blemishes in the paint but nothing that I would consider actual damage. The lens hood could benefit from being more securely glued together as the factory friction fit is starting to show its age, but it is still perfectly functional and operates as it should. I would consider this camera and lens a classic combination, extremely well balanced together and similarly compact.

Olympus 14-150 f/4-5.6 II

I used this as my default lens before getting the 12-40 and it was surprisingly great as a walk-around lens. The focal range is incredible, providing a full-frame equivalent of 28-300mm in a lens that is smaller than a can of soda. To top it off, the lens is also weather sealed which, when combined with a weather sealed camera, means you can essentially leave the house with just this lens and be prepared for anything. This particular copy is in essentially new condition, I struggle to find any indication that it is used.

Panasonic Lumix 25mm f/1.7

I grabbed this lens as an impulse purchase so it unfortunately has not been used that much. It is an extremely compact lens, when paired with the E-M1 it is almost pocketable. It is a very good performer and an excellent prime lens for street/portrait photography. I bought this one used and as a result it did not come with anything. I bought an aftermarket lens hood/cap that is shown in the images.

Olympus 9-18mm f/4-5.6

This lens was actually thrown in for free with one of my other purchases because it is only partially functional. When zoomed in past ~14mm the lens loses connection with the camera and stops working, requiring the camera to be turned off before it can be used again. It does perform perfectly well in the wider focal ranges, so I used it more as an ultra-wide angle prime lens. Cosmetically it is in great condition.

Olympus HLD-9 Battery Grip

The battery grip is in like-new condition both functionally as well as cosmetically. This allows the camera to have two batteries while also making portrait orientation much more comfortable.

Accessories

Other than the items already listed I am also including an additional battery (non-OEM), an OEM battery charger and an OEM remote trigger.

PRICE: $1,250 Shipped As I said up top, I prefer to sell everything as a kit. I can accept either PayPal or Zelle depending on your trade history on the subreddit. I can have everything shipped out withing a day or two of payment and will ship in a USPS Priority Flat Rate box.