A new Camp and Chill Event starts today!
This 2 day event will run from Tuesday, May 14 until 19:00 GMT Thursday, May 16, and is open to all players with version 11.3.0 or above, a minimum of 250 dragon power, and a stable and reliable internet connection.
Points are earned by tapping items, opening chests, and other simple tasks completed in Camp. The Event Capsule Store appears after earning 500 points; free Bronze Capsules containing Event Points can be collected every 3 hours after that.
Please keep questions and strategy discussions about the event in this thread while it is live; good luck and happy merging!
 

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

Event Notes

• So far, all seems normal

Elsewhere in the Game

• Some issues affecting gameplay have been reported with version 11.4.0; that release has been paused while the programmers sort out a fix. (Link)
• As of May 1, Game Management will no longer give advance notice of Shiny Days mini-events. Odds are we’ll still get one every week or every other week, with the most frequent dates being the gap days between bigger events — so Mondays or Thursdays are most likely for now, at the usual 19:00 GMT start time.
• A new mini-event called “Race Event” is out for beta-testing to a small number of players; it’s described as a player-vs-player competition. (Link 1, Link 2)
• Popular Links:
  • Dens List
  • Friend Tag Exchange
  • 2024 Event Schedule

 

EVENT PRIZES

1. Sprouting Dragon Tree, lvl 2 - requires earning 70 points
2. Prism Flower Buds, lvl 2 - 1,290p
3. Blue Belly Shrooms, lvl 5 - 1,840p
4. Daily Chest (Super Egg Fragment) - 3,190p
5. Watering Hole, lvl 5 - 4,790p
6. Aged Glowing Dragon Tree, lvl 4 - 6,420p
7. Nice Zen Temple, lvl 3 - 7,990p
8. Golden Sapling, lvl 2 - 9,610p
9. Wood (A) Dragon Kid, lvl 2 - 11,210p
10. Jester (AS) Dragon Kid, lvl 2 - 13,590p

Total to collect all prizes: 60,000 points
 

STRATEGY TIPS

This is the only type of event where point producing items can be stockpiled ahead of time; for info and links to guides on bubbling as a storage option, please visit the Community FAQ.
The following are the most efficient or most frequently recommended ways to earn points:

• Tier 2 Nests of most breeds yield 900 points per tap, for a total of 3,600 to 6,300 points per nest.
• High level Goal Stars are an excellent source of points; the exact number of taps available varies by level and random chance.
  • L6 Star- 1056, L5 Star- 330, L4 Star- 99
• Level 2 Materials Chests offer unlimited quick and easy points; stockpiling stone bricks gives more flexibility than buying specific chests ahead of time:
  • Spectral Chest- 1305, Summoned Chest- 820, Chest of Beasts- 300, Solid Gold Chest- 80, Phobos Chest- 40
• Higher level free chests all yield well:
  • Treasure: L7- 1690, L6- 530, L5- 165
  • Grimm: L4- 792, L3- 240, L2- 72
  • Season: L4- 330, L3- 100
  • Bountiful (Level) Chests- 150
  • Kala’s Rucksacks- 250
• High level Life Trees can be harvested for quick points:
  • Life Orbs: L9- 1560, L8- 500, L7- 160
• These chains recharge fast and give unlimited taps; note that multiple mid-level items may earn more than one or two higher-level items.
  • Fruit Trees: L10 Watermelon- 34, L9 Pineapple- 30, L8 Dragon Fruit- 26, L7 Pear- 23
  • Prism Flowers: L7- 42, L6- 36, L5- 29, L4- 23
  • Midas Trees: L11- 145, L10- 135, L9- 125, L8- 115, L7- 105, L6- 95, L5- 85, L4- 75, L3- 65, L2- 55
  • Bushes: L5- 35, L4- 25, L3- 15
  • Graves: L8- 75, L7- 65, L6- 55, L5- 45, L4- 35
  • Fountains: L6- 136, L5- 105, L4- 75, L3- 45

 

ITEM POINTS

(Tap the name of the chain to go to its wiki page)
Alien Obelisks (Requires cash purchase)

• Alien Obelisk - 45
• Radioactive Alien Obelisk - 135
• Pulsing Alien Obelisk - 450
• Galactic Alien Megalith - 1485

 
Bushes

• Tiny Cabin - 10
• L1 Shrub Sprout - 1
• L2 Budding Shrub - 5
• L3 Nice Shrub - 15
• L4 Flowering Shrub - 25
• L5 Gorgeous Shrub - 35

 
Fruit Trees

• L4 Grape Tree - 10
• L5 Raspberry Tree - 14
• L6 Banana Tree - 18
• L7 Pear Tree - 23
• L8 Dragon Fruit Tree - 26
• L9 Pineapple Tree - 30
• L10 Watermelon Tree - 34

 
Goal Stars and Dragon Stars (points per tap)

• L1 Star - 3 (2-3 taps)
• L2 Star - 9 (2-3 taps)
• L3 Star - 30 (3-4 taps)
• L4 Star - 99 (3-4 taps)
• L5 Star - 330 (3-4 taps)
• L6 Star - 1056 (6-7 taps)
• L1 Dragon Star - 30 (2-4 taps)
• L2 Magnificent Dragon - 90 (7-11 taps)

 
Graves

• L4 Doom Cross - 35
• L5 Fiend’s Resting Place - 45
• L6 Tomb of the Innocent - 55
• L7 Tomb of the Forgiven - 65
• L8 Tomb of the Righteous - 75

 
Life Orbs (single tap)

• L0 Life Essence - 1
• L1 Tiny Life Orb - 1
• L2 Small Life Orb - 2
• L3 Life Orb - 3
• L4 Furious Life Orb - 5
• L5 Wondrous Life Orb - 15
• L6 Great Life Orb - 50
• L7 Giant Life Orb - 160
• L8 Life Orb of Souls - 500
• L9 The Life Orb of Heavens - 1560

 
Midas Trees

• L2 Golden Sapling - 55
• L3 Golden Tree - 65
• L4 Midas Tree - 75
• L5 Glowing Midas Tree - 85
• L6 The Orb Holder - 95
• L7 The Crystal Catcher - 105
• L8 The Moon Bearer - 115
• L9 The Star Mother - 125
• L10 Greater Midas Tree - 135
• L11 Divine Midas Tree - 145

 
MonsteMythical Idols (single tap)

• L1 Kattryx - 3
• L2 Guardian Sphinx - 9
• L3 Young Cerberus - 30
• L4 Noble Gryphon - 99
• L5 Mythical Ogopogo - 330
• L1 Gromblin - 5
• L2 Capricorn - 15
• L3 Dragon Idol - 50
• L4 Rising Phoenix - 165
• L5 Mythical Pegasus - 550

 
Mystic Topiaries (single use only, number of taps depends on level)

• L1 Bunny - 10 (1x tap)
• L2 Bear - 90 (1x tap)
• L3 Rex - 150 (2x taps)
• L4 Swan - 250 (3x taps)
• L5 Seahorse - 550 (5x taps)
• L6 Dolphin - 880 (10x taps)

 
Nests/Eggs

• Tier 1 nest - 20 per tap, 60 to 140 total
• Tier 2 nest - 900 per tap, 3,600 to 6,300 total (except for Star Dragons)
• Mystery Egg Nests - 10 per tap, 40 to 70 total
• Supernest - 20 per tap
• Meganest - 20 per tap
• Ultranest - 20 per tap
• Shimmering Ultranest - 20 per tap
• Activated Super Eggs - 600 (30 per dragon)

 
Prism Flowers

• L1 Sprouting Prism Flower - 3
• L2 Prism Flower Buds - 10
• L3 Opening Prism Flowers - 16
• L4 Prism Flowers - 23
• L5 Blossoming Prism Flowers - 29
• L6 Gorgeous Prism Flowers - 36
• L7 Brilliant Prism Flowers - 42
• L8 Spectral Prism Flowers - 49
• L9 Glowing Prism Flowers - 55

 
ShimmeSecret Fountains (per tap)

• L1 Fountain of Legend - 3
• L2 Ancient Spring - 15
• L3 Shimmering Spring - 45
• L4 Fountain of Faith - 75
• L5 Fountain of Rebirth - 105
• L6 Heroic Dragon Spa - 135
• L1 Secret Lifespring - 30
• L2 Spectral Lifespring - 150

 
Coin Vaults and Stone Yards

• L1 Tattered - 1
• L2 Basic - 5
• L3 Nice - 15
• L4 Great - 25
• L5 Opulent - 35
• L6 Mythical - 45
• L7 Gigantic - 55
• L8 Bottomless - 65

 
Chests (single tap only)

• Treasure Chests
  • L1 Ordinary Chest - 2
  • L2 Nice Chest - 5
  • L3 Chained Chest - 15
  • L4 Sunken Chest - 50
  • L5 Noble Chest - 165
  • L6 Glowing Chest - 530
  • L7 Giant Treasure Chest - 1690
• Grimm Chests
  • L1 Grimm Chest - 24
  • L2 Grimm Chest of Decay - 72
  • L3 Grimm Chest of Despair - 240
  • L4 Grimm Chest of Suffering - 792
• Season Chests
  • L1 Little Seasons chest - 10
  • L2 Big Seasons chest - 30
  • L3 Great Seasons chest - 100
  • L4 Magnificent Seasons chest - 330
• Materials Chests
  • Moon/Phobos Chests - 10/40
  • Golden/Solid Gold Chests - 25/80
  • Dangerous Chest/Chest of Beasts - 100/300
  • Occult/Summoned Chest - 270/820
  • Pearlescent/Spectral Chest - 435/1305
• Dragon Chests Note: Points depend on chest contents
  • Egg Chests - 30 to 80
  • Radiant Egg Chests - 80 to 120
  • Nest Vault - 150 to 200
  • Huge Nest Vault - 400 to 500
• Super Nest Vault - 500
• Mega Nest Vault - 2500
• Ultra Nest Vault - 5000 (limited availability)
• Kala’s Rucksacks - 250
• Daily Chest (Super Egg Fragment) - 150
• Bountiful (aka Level or Timed) Chests - 150
• Chest of Stones - 10
• Chest of Nightstones - 50

 
Camp and Chill Event Items

• Capsules - 0
• Pile of Camp Event Points - 5
• Great Rucksack of Event Points - 10 per tap, 20+ total
• Wondrous Chest of Event Points - 25 per tap, 125+ total
• Mythical Coffer of Event Points - 50 per tap, 450+ total

 
Miscellaneous Items

• Life Flower Seeds - 3
• Rain Clouds - 5
• Cloudy Summit - 11
• Misty Mountain - 35
• Ancient Dragon Skull - 5
• Unearthed Skeleton (aka Bone Pile) - 5
• Most Wonders - 100 per tap, totals vary
• Legendary Glowing Tree - 1087 per tap
• Shangri-La - 200
• The Last Relic Artefact - 330
• Mystic Lantern - 35 per tap, 105 total
• Totems (all) - 20 per tap
• Pile of Riches - 3 per tap
• Mound of Rich Stuff - 15 per tap
• Heap of Glimmering Riches - 45 per tap
• Mountain of Wild Riches - 75 per tap
• Evil Fog - 20 per section unlocked
• Dimensional Jars - varies based on the object
• Event Trophies - 25
  • Spawned items also give 25 points (both L1 and L2)
  • Exceptions: Pomegranate, Temple, and the Enormous Lucky Coins do not give points, nor do their tappables

 
Combo Merges Note: this is a partial list — most chains seem to work, with points increasing by item levels and length of chain.

• Coins - 5, 10, 30, 60 (started with L2)
• Life Flowers - 5, 10, 15, 20, 40 (start w/L1)
• Life Flowers - 15, 40 (started w/L5)
• Life Orbs - 5, 10, 15, 20, 40 (Started w/ heart)
• Life Orbs - 5, 20, 45, 80 (started w/ L3)
• Living Stones - 5, 10, 15, 40 (start w/fresh stones)
• Stone bricks - 5, 10, 15, 40, 60 (start w/L1)

 
No Points Given

• Currency (Coins, Stone Bricks, and Gems)
• Loot orbs
• Dimension Jars
• Dragon Homes
• Haunted Houses
• Boutique exclusive chains
• Lobelia Topiaries
• Ornate/Jeweled Statues
• Small Fluffs
• Chocolate Fountain chain
• Dust Bunny Crates
• Weekly Den Chests
• Opulent Chests
• Season Bonus Chests
• Star Chests
• Star Dragon T2 nests
• New items and anything in limited release for beta testing

 

EVENT TROUBLESHOOTING

If the event is not showing up correctly or if glitches are affecting your play:

1. Check that you meet the version and dragon power requirements.
2. Try hard-closing and then relaunching your game.
3. Try rebooting your device (ie, turn it completely off, then back on and allow it to fully boot up before relaunching the game). If you are on wifi and have access to the router, try rebooting that, too.
4. Try switching to a completely different internet source.
5. Try clearing your game’s cache (google for instructions for your specific phone type).
6. If you’re suddenly experiencing multiple issues like lagging or error messages (or if the event vanishes completely), close the game and try again after 2-3 hours. Events are internet-based, and sometimes issues with the servers can cause temporary problems — all we can do for that is to wait it out.
7. If none of the above helps, contact Gram Games Support through the in-game link or the Support Web Portal for help figuring out what’s wrong.

• NOTE: Cloud Save is still unreliable: according to the developer, it is not safe to be used and should be left turned off.
• NOTE: Saving your Progress: Make sure to save your progress by traveling to the World Map screen (and waiting there until everything’s fully loaded) regularly, and especially before closing your game.

 
Edits are ongoing

With all the new players entering the game as of late, a lot of the same questions get asked - specifically, ones like "How can I make the perfect team for classic/endless/etc.?". The guide ahead is an attempt at answering more common questions on the former end, from the perspective of someone who almost exclusively plays Classic and many wins under my belt in doing so. Community feedback welcome; hopefully something like this can expand into something like a wiki/full guide so we can help new players down the line, too!
Classic and You: Starting Out
So you just picked up the game, but not sure where to start. "Which starters are best?" "What team should I go with first?" "I unlocked [x] - can I beat Classic with this?"
Let me reassure you: you can beat Classic with anything. (Yes, even something like Caterpie.)
That said, it's understandable to not know where to start, especially if you don't know all the starters, or maybe haven't played all the various generations of Pokemon through the years. Many of them have their own strengths and weaknesses, and some are built stronger than others. For example: Fuecoco is commonly the #1 recommended starter out of the base selection you get when first starting the game. Why? His final evolution, Skeledirge, naturally learns Torch Song, which is a hard-hitting fire move that guarantees a Sp. Attack buff each time it hits. This lets you snowball fairly quickly, as each attack makes you stronger and stronger during battles. Many starters have "specialty" tricks like this that give them an edge - Sprigatito's final evolution, for instance, gets Flower Trick, a hard-hitting grass move that always crits (and therefore always ignores opponent defensive boosts and/or your own negative debuffs). Even with all these being the case, though, there's no "perfect" team to start with that will guarantee a win - and in fact, getting a win on your first run can be exceedingly difficult. Your starters all only have 10 IVs, neutral natures, and no egg moves - they're the bare bones minimum to get going. And that's okay. But it means you need to temper your expectations.
Pokerogue is a rogue-like - and in classic rogue-like form, you build upon what you start with little by little. Your primary goal shouldn't be to get a Classic win at the start. It's certainly doable, but even if you win, you're still likely without any reliable starter to take on Endless just yet, so there's no sense in rushing there. Instead, focus on that concept of building - specifically, building your starter pool. Every time you catch something, you unlock it as a starter (if you don't have it yet). You also get candies, which can be used to power up those starters by either unlocking a passive ability (unlocking additional features) or reducing their point cost, letting you bring more starters to each run (or more powerful ones!). Catching things with higher IVs also make your starting stats better - catching a 31 Speed IV Pidgey, for instance, means your Pidgey starter now permanently has 31 Speed IVs. More stats = more power, and getting higher IVs on your starters is probably the biggest early jump you can get on pushing your team further.
With this in mind, making a "perfect" team is less important than just making A team, so that we can go out and catch some things. As for what to catch, though, here's a list of things I'd keep an eye out for:

• Anything with a missing and/or "dark" pokeball under their name. Just like in some of the main Pokemon games, Pokemon in Pokerogue will be marked with a pokeball if they've been captured before. If it's missing, and you want it as a starter, catch it! More importantly, though, is the "darkened" icon of the pokeball - this indicates that you've unlocked the starter, but this one has something you don't have yet; maybe a gender, or maybe an ability you don't have yet. For instance, a Meowth starter that you have may only have Pickup, but the one in battle before you now has Technician. Catching these "darkened ball" pokemon will unlock more options for your starters, letting you switch between these unlockables at the pokemon select screen when you start your later runs. I generally recommend catching as many of these as possible - in the beginning, it'll seem like every pokemon has a dark ball, but that's because you don't have many things unlocked yet. As you unlock more things, they'll get rarer - and more importantly, when you start looking for those elusive Hidden Abilities (HAs), these darkened balls will help you discover them more easily when you have everything else already unlocked. Remember, this is a rogue-like - we're building our starters here for future runs!
• Anything "rare". This is somewhat subjective, because "rare" can mean anything from "hard to find" to "legendary". In general, though, I recommend keeping an eye out for things you don't see often - starters, for instance, or legendary/pseudo-legendary/ultra beast/etc. "boss" monsters at the end of every 10 waves. But catching duplicates serves a secondary purpose - remember, it also gets you candies, which you can use to power up those rare pokemon starters you have later. Getting candies from friendship is certainly doable, but especially for rarelegendary pokemon, this can take a loooooong while. Catch them if you can to make it easier on yourself later. (A sub-point of this: If a rare or starter is available in a daily run, consider "farming" the daily run over and over to catch them again and again! Many of the daily run guides point these out intentionally for this reason - daily runs can sometimes be the best way to target farm candies in this way.)
• Anything you plan on using a lot. Somewhat of another sub-point of the above, catching duplicates of things you know you'll use often can be useful for candy collection. Specifically, this works well for things you know you'll use often - your first few shinies, for instance, or general-use pokemon that have Pickup. Build your Zigzagoon army! Candy collecting is especially useful for these to reduce costs, letting you take more of them with your legendary into Endless mode when you get to that point.
• Any shiny. This goes without saying for many, but shinies are the lifeblood of Pokerogue. You need them...a lot of them. They come in three flavors - starting from the weakest, a yellow shiny (Luck 1), then blue (Luck 2), and finally red (Luck 3), with the color being the "star" marker of the shiny pokemon on their HP bar. Eventually you'll want as many Luck 3 shinies as you can get your hands on, but when you're starting out, you're building from 0 - so catch any you see, even if it means failing your Classic run to do so. A new run takes an hour to start back up; a new shiny could take days or even weeks to find in Classic. (Ideally, though, don't be afraid to refresh/"save scum" to try and find a way to catch it without sacrificing your run if you can, and if you're willing. No sense in wasting all that work.)
• Don't neglect your team. Remember, our eventual goal is to win Classic...but more importantly, we're hoping to get as far as we can, and 190 if possible. The sprint from 180-190 is the most profitable floor in Classic for egg vouchers, with each Elite 4 member & the Champion at 190 giving them upon victory (Plus, first time wins get you bonus achievement vouchers too - two for one!). With this in mind, you want to make sure to balance your team out as you go, and don't neglect it as you progress. Perhaps your team needs a good rock-type wall to throw in the way of hard-hitting trainer pokemon. Maybe you're looking for a Ground-type to soak all those electric moves you keep running into in the electrical biomes. Good team building will carry you further than any IV or egg move ever could. Even the strongest legendaries can fold to a weakness.

This "starting out" phase doesn't have a specific length of time to get past - everyone progresses at their own pace, and some will get luckier with egg pulls and catches than others. Don't get discouraged. Just keep building on what you have - that's your initial goal, and it only gets easier as you do it.
As you start going through your Classic runs, the main resource you're looking to accumulate at first is egg vouchers - as many as you can get your grubby little new player hands on. Beating gym leaders, Elite 4 members, the Champion, and beating Classic all reward you with them. Doing the Daily Run each day also rewards you with a 10x pull voucher. Rarely, they can even show up after beating a stage in the item choice rewards - if so, pick them, usually over most anything else. Eggs build on your starters, and usually with either massively boosted IVs or egg moves to give them considerable bumps in power. Rarely, you can even get shinies from them.
And speaking of the egg gacha: only pull from the Shiny gacha at first. The entirety of your goal as a new player should be accumulating shinies. The legendary gacha is misleading - you only get increased odds for the shown legendary, not all of them (at least as of this post), and even then legendaries often have a huge starter cost tacked onto them, making teambuilding difficult early on. Once you build up your starter collection with a good few handfuls of shinies, and are cruising along in Endless vacuuming up vouchers, you can spend some on the other gachas for specific niches if you like (move gacha for egg moves, legendary gacha for legendaries), but for the most part the shiny gacha is where the money's at. Besides, the shiny gacha can hatch legendaries, too - so you're not missing out on legendaries by not hitting its specific gacha.
I Got a Few Shinies And Legendaries - What Now?
Alright, so you've been cruising along, catching everything you see and building your starter pool like the rockstar rogue-like player you are. Keep building from here, but now you have more options - you can start bringing shinies on your Classic runs to improve the quality of item rewards you get at the end of each floor; you can maybe even bring a legendary/ultra beast along to have an easier time against the end boss and get that first win. At this point, if you haven't gotten that first win yet, now's the time to start knuckling down and making a serious go at it. Some general points of advice for Classic success I haven't yet covered:

• Early on, focus on 1-2 pokemon. Ignore the rest. Same advice as in Endless works here. This perhaps sounds counter-intuitive, but until at least floor 30-40, try your absolute hardest to only focus on leading with 1-2 pokemon (and that second one should ideally only be necessary to cover the weaknesses of the first). Your immediate early-game hurdles are the two rival battles at floors 8 and 25 (and maybe a Gym Leader battle at 20), and if you try to level everyone evenly you're going to find it harder to win. The Exp All and Exp Charms you get from rival battles and item rewards will more than catch your team up later even if you don't ever use them...so don't worry about them for now. Right now, you're creating the Ultimate Early Game Juggernaut(s) to get you through the initial hurdles.
• Be frugal with your money in the beginning. In Endless, it's common practice to reroll often to look for specific items - candy jars, rare candies, etc. That's because in that mode, once you get set up you have almost unlimited income. In Classic, your income is much more limited (usually hovering ~$100k or so by the mid to late floors), and you don't have the luxury of blindly rerolling for optimal results. The option to "save scum" your re-rolls exists, if you were willing - after winning a floor, check the rerolls, and if you don't like any of the offerings, refresh the page. This will "start the floor over", resetting the rewards and refunding your money. This isn't really necessary, though; in fact, I rarely reroll rewards at all until floors 180-200, and often settle with generic healing/item rewards. Why? You'll notice through your runs that in the midgame (floors 50-150, mainly), you'll accumulate quite a bit of gold; instead of using this gold for rerolls then, where it doesn't help much, you should instead wait for the later floors where you start to take on the toughest opponents of the run - the Elite 4 and Champion on floors 180-190, the final rival battle at 195, and the final boss at 200. Specifically, 180-190 is where you'll buy more healing items than perhaps the rest of the run combined (to keep your team healthy in between each Elite 4/Champion battle), and 190-200 are where you really want to look for things like X [stat] items to give your team that extra "oomph". Even the strongest legendaries fear a Butterfree packing +4 X Specials and an X Speed. Money saved early on lets you dump it into rerolls later where it matters most. (Don't ruin your run by being *too* frugal, though - if your party is near death early on, spend it. You can't spend it later on if you're dead.)
• Pickup is NOT necessary (but it is helpful). I see a lot of general advice in posts on pokerogue that tell new players to stack Pickup team members on Classic. This isn't necessary, or even arguably desirable past maybe the first 20-30 floors unless you're running a very strong carry that can solo all 200 floors (which is extremely unlikely, and far more difficult to boot). I've won Classic many times without using Pickup at all, and I can't say as I miss it when I don't have it. More importantly, you need to be cautious which items you're picking up - the end boss can and WILL use them against you, so things like Sitrus/Enigma/stat boosting berries that you picked up along your 200 floors suddenly seem a lot less useful when they're in enemy hands. That said, if you bring someone along with Pickup, be generous with handing out berries and other items to your party regularly using the "Transfer" option, so you can reap the benefits all throughout your 200 floors. Sitrus, Enigma, and the speed/attack boosting berries in particular are great in trainerival battles where you expect to take hits and want to revenge kill things. In the endgame against the final boss, though, perhaps load everything on a party member you hope never to bring out (such as your Pickup mon) so they don't get stolen. (Hot take: I prefer to use no berries at all in my Classic runs if possible, with one exception: Lum! Lum is amazing for healing status effects, especially when it feels like some trainers have all the hacks against you, and it doesn't feel bad if/when it gets stolen later.)
• The same goes for Pokerus. The biggest advantage to having pokerus is capping out your levels faster; even without it, in the later floors you'll still cap your levels by each final stage so long as you pick up a charm or two along the way (which you'll usually do, pokerus or not). It's also a decent help for that floor 11-25 range where you're at your weakest and that second rival challenge comes knocking. In Endless it's common practice to take a pokerus pokemon so your carry can keep up with the level gains of the floors until you get fully set up; in Classic, the scaling doesn't feel nearly that punishing. If you can bring a good pokerus pokemon, though, it's more helpful than not - just don't go out of your way for it or feel like it's "necessary".
• Understand how biomes work, at least somewhat. Many of them chain into each other naturally, which is part of where the memes come from regarding "endless water biomes" or similar. As you start to expand your starting 2-3 into a full 6, know what biomes you need to look for and what to avoid. This is part of why the Map is one of my favorite item rewards to pick early on - it lets you target farm the remaining members of your team much easier, and towards the last 50-80 floors you can choose the easier ones to coast through while you finish building your team. In particular, routes you need to keep in mind:
  • You always start in "Town" and move into "Plains"; this is 100% guaranteed in every Classic run. This means the first 20 floors are always weighted heavily to normal- and grass-types. When building your starting team, it's helpful to keep this in mind - for instance, picking up things strong against these two types (shoutout to Flamigo/Hawlucha!) and maybe not bringing a grass type knowing that you're likely to catch one early on if you're desperate for filler.
  • "Metropolis" vs. "Lake" vs. "Grass": Moving out of Plains, these are your three options available if you have the Map by now. The biome you leave Plains for is the biggest observation you can make for your run - it will dictate how you form the rest of your team as you progress into the midgame. If you get diverted to Lake, but need an Electric-type (for instance), you need to find a way to get the map to divert to "Construction Site" or loop back to Plains, or you may be hard pressed to find an Electric-type at all in your entire run. The same goes for Fairy- and Steel-types - "Fairy Cave", the biome with the largest quantity of fairy types, is only accessible through "Meadows", which requires you to go through the forest biomes first. If you're not looking like you're going through those areas, you'll need to be less picky about what fairy-types you come across if you hope to snag one. (I recommend visiting the wiki for their nice little flowchart diagram if you ever want a more nuanced look into each path and where they can potentially lead, along with what spawns in each.)
• Build a well-rounded team. Building mono-type teams is cute, but ultimately extra work. Focus on coverage and being able to handle anything that comes along - remember, the last floors feature a variety of Elite 4 members and the Champion, all of which will require a varied approach on what types of Pokemon to bring for best results. By floor 100, you should either have most of your team set or a plan to fill the rest out by the time you reach ~170. By 180 it's likely too late (with the exception of maybe getting a last Mushroom or TM to fill out a moveset).

I am not saying I don't like the sprite, I do. But it is JUST this one detail that annoys/unnerves me:
The face is now directed in 3/4ths Rather than a side view like the other terraria npcs. I get it, "Calamity is not supposed look anything like vanilla" which I know? Doesn't mean something can't feel jarring to me. I just liked S.Cal being a terrarian humanoid boss as she felt like a true npc that is partially of the same humanoid race as true terrarians, and as a side bonus it made cosplaying her in different outfits for others easy and allowed other role-players (yes that's apparently a thing) to play as one of the people of her race. I get it, no one cares and I am in the minority. But I wanted to get this off my chest.
Again, not saying it is bad. It's just the direction she is now looking in (with the sprite making it seem like she has no nose) is the one off setting thing. The only other thing to me is now it feels like one of those characters in videogames with exaggerated pauldrons (sort of like old warcraft and some older WoW characters, namely the fighters) with touches of chibi-ness. If it was a separate optional vanity cosmetic (like how ironically Dungeon Defenders 2 does with female characters having a anime skin that is optional to toggle) that wasn't on the boss itself nor dropped by the boss, I would feel A-okay with this.
Again, not saying it is a bad resprite of the humanoid form. If anything, it is a 8/10 for me considering everything, with the og humanoid sprite (the one right before this recent one) being a 9.5/10. My nitpick of the chibi-ness +bloated body parts being the minus 0.5, and the face being a minus 1.0 for the direction it faces.
I know it was changed to fit more with the dev vanities from what I heard, but still, I wish we had a toggle option so we could have different S.Cal's sprites of humanoids. Like how we can change the health, mana, and border frames in the UI system of terraria. That way people who want a more """^vanilla""" style of S.Cal can do so while others enjoy the new.
Also would love the vanilla npcs to get the same treatment from the MAIN mod instead of having to download an OPTIONAL mod to make the other terrarian humanoid npcs & enemies tonally consistent. I mean music is no longer optional, why not a mod that makes the npcs consistent to S.Cal who looks halfway at the fourth-wall?

On the wiki it says using a rare candy increases friendship by 5. If you have candy jars, does each jar add an extra 5 friendship per rare candy, or is it always 5 regardless of how many levels you gain?

I was reading “Food in Chinese Culture” by K.C. Chang when I noticed the author casually mentioning anthropophagy and moving on

Pickling, aside from boiling and drying, also seems to be a favorite method for anthropophagy ; famous historical personages that ended up in a sauce jar include the marqui of Chiu (of Shang ) ( ' "Yin Pen Chi," Shih chi) and Tzu Lu (a disciple of Confucius) ( "T'an Kung," Li chi).

Admittedly this really disturbed me and led me down a rabbit hole of Chinese canabalism. I did a little digging on Tzu Lu on Wikipedia and found this

According to the Book of Rites, after Zilu's death, his body was chopped into pieces and pickled.[9] When Confucius learned of his fate, he ordered that all the pickled goods in his house be thrown away.[10] Overcome with grief, Confucius could not eat for days. He soon fell ill and died in 479 BC.

I then found this Wikipedia page
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannibalism_in_Asia
That had a section on cannibalism in China. Outside of famine, they list examples of cannibalism for purposes of desecration and cannibalism by ways of costly signaling ie sacrificing a part of yourself for the (perceived)benefit of a member higher up on the Confucian hierarchy.
However they also list examples where cannibalism was done for pleasure. Members of the elite who would eat human flesh for its flavor. I’ve also heard of an anecdote where a restaurant said they sold “two legged mutton” as a euphemism for human meat.
I’m wondering if anyone here can give a little context on this subject and maybe shed light on whether or not this was a common occurrence. I would also love to know if this was a uniquely chinese phenomenon or if other East Asian countries had similar practices.

package testing; import java.awt.EventQueue; import javax.swing.JFrame; import javax.swing.JLabel; import javax.swing.LookAndFeel; import javax.swing.UIManager; import com.formdev.flatlaf.intellijthemes.FlatArcDarkIJTheme; import com.formdev.flatlaf.themes.FlatMacDarkLaf; import java.awt.Font; import javax.swing.JButton; import com.jgoodies.forms.layout.FormLayout; import com.jgoodies.forms.layout.ColumnSpec; import com.jgoodies.forms.layout.RowSpec; public class test { private JFrame frame; /** * Launch the application. */ public static void main(String[] args) { EventQueue.invokeLater(new Runnable() { public void run() { try { UIManager.setLookAndFeel(new FlatMacDarkLaf()); test window = new test(); window.frame.setVisible(true); } catch (Exception e) { e.printStackTrace(); } } }); } /** * Create the application. */ public test() { initialize(); } /** * Initialize the contents of the frame. */ private void initialize() { frame = new JFrame(); frame.setBounds(100, 100, 675, 516); frame.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE); frame.getContentPane().setLayout(new FormLayout(new ColumnSpec[] { ColumnSpec.decode("72px"), ColumnSpec.decode("320px"),}, new RowSpec[] { RowSpec.decode("187px"), RowSpec.decode("68px"), RowSpec.decode("76px"), RowSpec.decode("38px"),})); JLabel lblNewLabel = new JLabel("Hello world"); lblNewLabel.setFont(new Font("Times New Roman", Font.PLAIN, 22)); frame.getContentPane().add(lblNewLabel, "2, 2, fill, fill"); JButton btnNewButton = new JButton("New button"); frame.getContentPane().add(btnNewButton, "2, 4, fill, fill"); } } 

With thanks to all who helped create this guide!
This event will run from Friday, May 10 until 19:00 GMT on Monday, May 13; to participate you will need version 11.3.0 or higher, at least 100 dragon power, and a high quality, stable internet connection.
Please keep all event related questions and strategy discussions in this thread while the event is live; good luck and happy merging!
 

ANNOUNCEMENTS

Event Notes:

• Getting the fast dragon first is possible.
• Warning: An L2 Blossom Birdhouse Infinite Harvestable is a required key in this event, with dead land behind it; once this lock has been opened, it is safe to delete low-level Infinite Harvestables.
• A Moonflower is slightly obscured by the Plumeria lock graphic, but is not actually in the locked zone itself.
• To make a Dark Rose, you’ll need to work up through the Zomblin -> Spirit Lantern -> Spirit Rose chain.
• Note: There’s a good bit of strategy discussion in the megathread for the first edition of this event (in the FAQ section below), if anybody’s looking for tips.

Elsewhere in the Game

• An official Mother’s Day Giveaway has been posted, offering a Hummingbloom Dragon Kid to some lucky respondents.
• Some issues affecting gameplay have been reported with version 11.4.0; that release has been paused while the programmers sort out a fix. (Link)
• A new mini-event called “Race Event” is out for beta-testing to a small number of players; it’s described as a player-vs-player competition. (Link 1, Link 2)
• Usually, a free, event-related trophy breed egg can be claimed from the game’s online store for a limited time. (Link)
• Popular Links:
  • Dens List
  • Friend Tag Exchange
  • 2024 Event Schedule

 

LINK TO EVENT IMAGE GUIDE

Tap the link above to open the Image Guide as a Google Slides document; it can be saved as a pdf for viewing elsewhere.

1. Cloud Key Map
2. Cloud Key Chart
3. Tile Healing Map
4. Infinite Harvestables Map
5. Event Quests Chart
6. Event Rewards Chart

 

CLOUD KEY LIST

Tap a key item to go to its wiki page for more info and hi-def images

• L2 Life Flower (dead land)
  • Tanzanite Plains Grass (clear)
• L3 Twin Flowers (dead land)
• L2 Blossom Birdhouse (dead land)
• L4 Lost Vases (dead land)
• L4 Tiny Spirit Vial (dead land)
• L2 Restored Gaia Statue (dead land)
• L7 Cute Bloomling (dead land)
• L6 Plumeria (dead land)
• L8 Ancient Columns (dead land)
• L2 Dark Rose (dead land)
• L3 Spectral Rose Bush (dead land)
• Tanzanite Mystery Nest (clear)
• Golden Capsule (clear)
• Fallen Star (clear)

 

EVENT-SPECIFIC CHAINS

• Point items: Garden Objects
• Infinite Harvestables: Garden Buildings
• Consumable/Limited Harvestables: Gardening Equipment
• Event Chests: Garden Chests

 

EVENT QUESTS

• 1.1 Merge 5 of Anything — 150 times
• 1.2 Creat a Level 7 Point Item (Cute Bloomling) — 5 times
• 1.3 Harvest from a Level 3 Consumable Harvestable (Flowering Ewer) — 75 times
• 2.1 Harvest from a Twin Life Flower — 200 times
• 2.2 Harvest from Dead Plants — 75 times
• 2.3 Create a Life Orb of the Heavens — 3 times
• 3.1 Heal Land — 35 tiles
• 3.2 Have Healed Land — 350 tiles
• 3.3 Have Healed Land — 675 tiles
• 3.4 Heal All the Land — 988 tiles

 

EVENT POINT REQUIREMENTS

• Prize 1: 3 pts (3 total)
• Prize 2: 22 (25)
• Prize 3: 235 (260)
• Prize 4: 420 (680)
• Prize 5: 640 (1,320)
• Prize 6: 960 (2,280)
• Prize 7: 4,470 (6,750)
• Prize 8: 5,400 (12,150)
• Prize 9: 6,570 (18,720)
• Prize 10: 11,230 (29,950)

 

FEATURED REWARDS:

^{A = featured in Arcadia; S = Shiny capable; N = New}

• Main trophy breed: Hummingbloom Dragons
• Secondary trophy breed: Cool Dragon (AS)
• Tertiary breed: Tribal Dragons
• Event Trophy Item: Mother’s Overjoyed Seedling
  • Spawned eggs: Seth Dragon (AS)
  • Tappable eggs: Hummingbloom Dragons

RUSH REWARDS

^{Note: Rewards shown are for Event Portal Level 16}

• Legend (under 12 hours)
  • Main Breed: 20x nests, 5x L1, 5x L2, 3x L3, 3x L4
  • Secondary Breed: 20x nests, 5x L3, 3x L4
  • Tertiary Breed: 7x L2
  • 3x L4 Fruit Trees
• Champion (under 24 hours)
  • Main Breed 1: 11x nests, 6x L1, 5x L2, 3x L3
  • Secondary Breed: 9x nests, 2x L3, 1x L4
  • Tertiary Breed 3: 12x L2
  • 2x L4 Fruit Trees, 1x Super Egg Fragment
• Hero (under 36 hours)
  • Main Breed: 5x nests, 4x L1, 3x L2, 3x L3
  • Secondary Breed: 5x nests, 3x L3
  • 1x L4 Fruit Tree, 1x L2 Hill, 1x Super Egg Fragment

 

EVENT FAQs

• The Event Shop and Capsules appear after you’ve healed 30-70 tiles; after that a free Bronze Capsule can be collected every 3 hours.
• It takes 5 or 6 level 9 Life Orb of the Heavens to clear all the 5k+ land, depending on how much you heal by merging items off dead land.
• To collect both the full set of Points Prizes and any level of Rush Rewards, you will need to earn 29,950 points.
  • Reaching this amount requires 1x Level 9 points item, 1x L8 item, 2x L7 items, and 2x L6 items (or just aim for 2x L9 points items).
• There’s always enough material to merge by 3s when making Key items.
• Caves must be tapped to spawn a Zomblin; only one event Zomblin lives in each cave, and it turns into Stinky Cheese when killed.
• The Gold Capsule, Fallen Star, and Tanzanite Nest are hiding near the far edge of the map, on tiles requiring 50k energy to heal.
• Infinite Harvestables:
  • There are usually 9x Level 1, 3x L2, 1x L3, 2x L4, and 2x L5 Garden Buildings Infinite Harvestables on the map; you can delete one level 1 and one level 2 and still have enough to make a level 6, as long as you 5-merge whenever possible.
  • WARNING: The L2 Blossom Birdhouse is a required key in this event, with dead land behind it.
• Consumable/Limited Harvestables:
  • Each 1x2 Flowering Ewer can be harvested 25 times; 75 total harvests are needed to complete Quest 1.3.
  • Each harvest of the big 2x2 Blossom Wagon at the back of the map yields a 10% chance of spawning an extra Flowering Ewer.
  • Once all available Flowering Ewers and the Blossom Wagon are gone, there is no way to get more.
• Strategy advice:
  • Spending money or gems is NEVER required to complete an event, nor is using an auto-clicker or other exploits.
  • The number and level of possible Point and Rush reward items is determined by your Event Portal level; working to raise that to its maximum of L16 is one of the best ways to boost your overall progress in the game.
  • A good basic introduction to events is available here on the Fandom Wiki; there’s also some Wiki event guides and tips articles here and here, and a whole collection of general guides and tutorials here
  • Additional general event strategy advice (active vs passive or idle play, etc) can be found in the Community FAQ and in these threads: Link 1, Link 2, Link 3, and Link 4.
  • For active players wanting more dragons, the Prism Flower method is a good option: Link 1, Link 2, Link 3. Note: this technique is only for active play; since only 2 dragons at a time will harvest when left on their own, having more will actually slow down idle harvesting.
  • A recently shared strategy using the Hills chain here can greatly increase Life Flower production, but it usually takes a few gems (maximum of 80, but less if you get some in capsules)
• Mother’s Embrace event theme’s main wiki page.
• Similar past events:
  • May 2023 - Mother’s Embrace
  • February 2023 - My Sweet Valentine
  • January 2023 - Realm of Dreams
  • February 2022 - My Sweet Valentine
  • November 2021 - Rekindling the Flame
  • June 2021 - Red Rose
  • February 2021 - My Sweet Valentine

 

EVENT TROUBLESHOOTING

If the event is not showing up correctly or if glitches are affecting your play:

1. Check that you meet the version and dragon power requirements.
2. Try hard-closing and then relaunching your game.
3. Try rebooting your device (ie, turn it completely off, then back on and allow it to fully boot up before relaunching the game). If you are on wifi and have access to the router, try rebooting that, too.
4. Try switching to a completely different internet source.
5. Try clearing your game’s cache (google for instructions for your specific phone type).
6. If you’re suddenly experiencing multiple issues like lagging or error messages (or if the event vanishes completely), close the game and try again after 2-3 hours. Events are internet-based, and sometimes issues with the servers can cause temporary problems — all we can do for that is to wait it out.
7. If none of the above helps, contact Gram Games Support through the in-game link or the Support Web Portal for help figuring out what’s wrong.

• NOTE: Cloud Save is still unreliable: according to the developer, it is not safe to be used and should be left turned off.
• NOTE: Saving your Progress: Make sure to save your progress by traveling to the World Map screen (and waiting there until everything’s fully loaded) regularly, and especially before closing your game.
• Glitch: Missing sell/delete option If your task bar is missing the option to delete dimension jars or other items, you can start with the standard troubleshooting methods; if those don’t trigger a fix, replaying a few levels or working in your camp for a while have reportedly helped.
• Glitch: Event level only shows clouds If your event screen shows only clouds instead of the map, check that you are zoomed all the way out. If you are and it still won’t show, try collecting one of the free Bronze Capsules (you may need to wait for the timer to count down).
• Glitch: Missing rewards/Game crashes after collecting rewards Exiting directly from the event level to your Camp can trigger a crash and loss of items; always exit to the World Map screen first — and pause there until everything’s fully loaded — to trigger the game to save your progress, then enter your Camp.

edits are on-going

I liked the "since the race'" info we got about this week's eliminated team. But I honestly can't remember another time when we got any info like that about a team. It just felt a little jarring and out of place, even though obviously it's nice news for Yvonne and Melissa and I'm happy for them and all. But we've never seen any other teams get this kind of info on air... Usually only in their wiki profile or online on social media or whatnot.
Is it just because of the unusually long gap between filming and airing S36? But even at that, we've had no info about any of the other eliminated teams since the race. Do you think this was production's way of making up for the invisible edit they got all season?

Welcome to our second discussion of Thinking, Fast and Slow! The Marginalia post is here. You can find the Schedule here.
This week, we will discuss Chapters 5-10. If you're feeling a little overwhelmed or frustrated by the content, just hold a pencil in your mouth pointing left to right and you'll be primed to feel better in no time! You can also read through the chapter summaries below for a refresher.
This is a nonfiction text so it's obviously not plot-driven, but we still want to be respectful of the experiences of other readers. So, if you've read ahead or made connections between the concepts in this book and other media, please mark spoilers using the format > ! Spoiler text here ! < (without any spaces between the characters themselves or between the characters and the first and last words).
Chapter Summaries:
CHAPTER 5 - Cognitive Ease: Kahneman shows us how System 1 and System 2 work together to create states of cognitive ease or cognitive strain when we are presented with information or other stimuli. Cognitive ease is a state of comfort where things are going well, while cognitive strain is the opposite end of the spectrum where there is a problem which causes discomfort.
Our brains constantly assess how things are going, using automatic System 1 processes, and monitoring whether the extra effort of lazy System 2 is needed. When experiencing familiar inputs and in a good mood, our brains are in a state of cognitive ease, which leads to positive feelings and trust of the situation or information. When System 2 needs to get involved, we experience cognitive strain and can develop negative feelings and skepticism. Kahneman asserts that these states can be “both a cause and a consequence” of how we feel about things and relate to them.
On the “cause” side, cognitive ease can make you notice and believe things more readily because your brain is already used to them. (Cognitive strain can make you reject unfamiliar messages.)

• An illusion of memory is caused by more easily noticing things that we have recently been exposed to. An example would be picking out a few names as minor celebrities from a long list just because you recently saw those names in a different context.
• Similarly, an illusion of truth is experienced as more readily believing something just because you've heard a certain phrase or sentence often. System 2 will sometimes slow this down a bit to comb through relevant background information that could verify or refute the statement, but cognitive ease will result in belief if it can't be quickly confirmed. (Remember, System 2 is lazy AF.)
• Our brains default to the good vibes of cognitive ease, and Kahneman points to the career of Robert Zajonc whose research on the mere exposure effect drives this point home. Zajonc proved that just by exposing people repeatedly to a word or object, they would develop a more positive association with it. The more exposure, the more likely people are to favor something. This is true of a random word on a newspaper cover, a pronounceable stock market symbol, or even stimuli provided unconsciously. It is also true for nonhumans, as tones played for chicken embryos will get a more positive response from the chicks after they hatch. This is because, evolutionarily speaking, it is safer for animals to be initially skeptical of novel stimuli, and also to learn to trust repeated stimuli as safe. Darwin would be proud!

On the “consequence” side, cognitive ease can be induced if we are presented with things that feel easy and familiar, or if we are put into a good mood first. (Cognitive strain can be induced in the opposite ways.)

• When psychologists ask their subjects to think of happy or sad experiences first, it affects how intuitive they are and whether they experience cognitive ease or strain in the tasks that follow.
• Experiments have also shown that no matter the content of a message, people will intuit it as more or less believable depending on how much cognitive ease or strain results from the presentation of said information.
• Kahneman points out that the effects of cognitive ease on people's beliefs might have been proven by psychologists, but authoritarian regimes have always known it works. (Gulp!) Let's assume you are not a dictator and you have a truthful, impactful message that you want people to pay attention to. If you keep in mind that System 2 is lazy and people will avoid things that cause cognitive strain, you can bolster the efficacy of your message with the following tips: use an easy-to-read font, high-quality paper, simple phrasing, bright colors, and sources with easily pronounceable names. Yes, System 2 will balk at your report if your sentences are too fancy and your font is too small or squiggly. You can also add rhymes. Apparently it is proven true if rhyming's what you choose to do! (Please enjoy this relevant sitcom clip.)

Now here's where things get surprising. Cognitive ease and strain are not binary good/bad things. Sure, cognitive ease makes you feel happier and more confident, but you're also more likely to be duped and rely on your automatic System 1 impressions. Cognitive strain feels uncomfortable and makes you work harder, but it also boosts your creativity and gets you to think more analytically, so it can lead to better decisions and outcomes. You would probably do better on a test printed in a challenging font because your brain would be forced to pay more attention! Maybe I should've written this summary in a smaller font…
CHAPTER 6 - Norms, Surprises, and Causes: System 1 is compared to a powerful computer in this section, because it can quickly make links between networks of ideas. System 2 is our ability to set search parameters and program the computer to detect certain bits of data more easily. Let’s check out how awesome - and limited - System 1 is!
Surprise is the spice of life, and System 1 works with surprising events to help explain what we observe and decide if it is “normal”. Surprises come in two kinds: consciously expected events that will surprise you if they don’t happen (eg, your kid coming home from school), and passively expected events that are normal in a given scenario but it won’t surprise us if they don’t happen (eg, when I give my students a test someone will probably groan). System 1 helps us adjust our expectations: an event may seem normal if we’ve been exposed to it before (such as bumping into the same friend unexpectedly on two vacations) or become an expected occurrence (such as looking for an accident in the same stretch of road where you saw a big one earlier). Linking up events is another talent of System 1. Kahneman and his colleague Dale Miller worked on norm theory together: when observing two events, the first may be surprising but when a second event occurs your System 1 thinking will work out a connection between the two, making a narrative of sorts that diminishes how surprising the second event seems. This also makes it hard to pick out small errors, but easy to pick out glaring ones, such as the difference between reading “Moses put animals on the ark” and “George Bush put animals on the ark”.
System 1 likes to create narratives with these linked events. It helps us understand stories in a common way across the culture, and it allows us to make sense of the events in our daily lives and in the world.

1. Associative coherence creates links between events to help make an understandable story about what is going on. If a friend tells you they had fun sightseeing in a crowded city but later discovered their wallet was missing, you would probably jump to a conclusion about pickpockets (rather than assuming your friend absent-mindedly left it at a restaurant) because of the associations between crowds, cities, and crime.
2. The illusion of causality occurs when we “see” physical causation in scenarios even if there isn’t an actual cause-and-effect relationship. Having seen that an object will move when something bumps into it, psychologist Albert Michotte explains that we will transfer this assumption even to pictures of objects. We know there was no real physical contact, but if picture A moves immediately after picture B “touches” it, our System 1 thinking still explains picture B as causing the movement.
3. We assume intentional causality because humans are excellent at personifying nonhuman subjects. Heider and Simmel demonstrated that people do this by assigning things feelings and personality traits, forming a narrative around what might be happening. Here is a video of their animation of the bullying triangle. Considering it is a bunch of shapes, I think it is quite harrowing!
4. We separate physical and intentional causality, and this may be an explanation for how humans are wired to easily accept religious beliefs. According to Paul Bloom in The Atlantic, we are born with the capacity to conceive of “soulless bodies and bodiless souls” which allows us to accept religious explanations of God and the immortal soul. Religious belief may be baked into System 1 thinking!

Unfortunately, relying on causal intuitions like these can cause misconceptions, especially where statistical thinking is necessary to draw appropriate conclusions. Guess who we need for statistical thinking? System 2! Too bad for us that it’s easier and more pleasant to just go with the narrative of System 1.
CHAPTER 7 - A Machine for Jumping to Conclusions: System 1 is that machine, and it does this without our awareness. This works out just fine when making a mistake wouldn’t be a big deal and our assumptions are probably going to be correct (such as hearing “Anne approached the bank” and thinking of an institution of finance rather than a river’s edge). It gets more serious - and needs the help of System 2’s analysis - if it would be risky to make a mistake and the situation is unfamiliar or vague. We rely on System 1 to draw conclusions about ambiguous information without ever having to ponder the uncertainties, and most of the time this works out just fine! But it can also lead to biases.
Confirmation bias occurs when we fall back on our associative memories to evaluate information. System 1 likes to confirm things and will rely on examples related to the wording of a statement or question. It is gullible and will try to believe things if it can. Fortunately, System 2 is deliberate and skeptical; it can step in to help us interpret things more correctly or “unbelieve” things that are false. The bad news is that, if System 2 is already busy or feeling lazy (eg, if you are experiencing cognitive strain) then System 2 might not kick in and you might be duped. Don’t watch those influencer marketing posts while exhausted, kids!
Even when not under strain, System 2 will still default to searching for evidence that proves a statement or question rather than seeing if it can be disproved. This is contrary to the science and philosophy rules for testing hypotheses, but hey, Systems 1 and 2 are gonna do what they’re gonna do. If someone asks if a person is friendly, you’re going to think of times they did nice things; but if someone asks if they're unfriendly, all their jerky behaviors will come to mind.
The Halo Effect is another bias to watch out for. We are prone to make assumptions based on our initial experiences and observations. For instance, a fun conversation at a party might lead you to assume your new friend is generous, even though you have no knowledge of their charitable behaviors (or lack thereof), and in turn their assumed generosity will make you like them even more! This is the halo effect, where we generalize about something based on initial impressions: if you like a person, you tend to like everything about them (and vice versa). Your mom was right: first impressions are important!
You can avoid the halo effect by decorrelating errors. This essentially means you should crowdsource information and opinions from a lot of independent sources who aren’t allowed to collaborate before sharing their thinking, and the average of this information will provide a clear understanding. It is the reason police don’t allow multiple witnesses to “get their stories straight” and why Kahneman believes everyone should write a short summary of their opinions before engaging in open discussion at a meeting. It is also a great way to cheat at those guessing jar challenges: just wait for everyone else to write down a number, then sneak a peek at the guesses and take the average as your own guess! (You can also use math if you’re a goody-two-shoes.) You’re welcome!
The principle of “What You See Is All There Is” (WYSIATI) leads to many other biases. Sure, it’s beneficial to think quickly and make sense out of complex situations using System 1 and the evidence at hand. It’s not always prudent or possible to stop and mull over whether we have all the information, so usually we rely on WYSIATI. The downside to this is that, when System 1 jumps to conclusions, it doesn’t care about the quantity or quality of the information it has to go on; it simply wants a coherent narrative. Since we almost always have incomplete information when making decisions or judgements, we rely on System 1 to put together the best possible conclusion based on what we see. We never stop to ask what we don’t know. This creates biases that can lead to incorrect assumptions. These include:

• overconfidence: we love a good story and will stand by it even if we don’t know very much at all
• framing effects: we will feel different ways about the same scenario based on how it is presented to us
• base-rate neglect: we disregard statistical facts that can’t be readily brought to mind in favor of vivid details we already know

Detecting errors like these is the job of System 2, but you may have heard that it is LAZY! This means that even System 2 is often relying on the evidence at hand without considering what else we don’t yet know. This reminds me of a silly-sounding statement by a certain American politician from the early 2000s.
CHAPTER 8 - How Judgments Happen: Like a curious toddler, there is no limit to the number of questions System 2 can ask. And like a teenager, there is a good chance that System 1 will make a snap judgment in place of the real question being asked. System 2 is good at both generating questions and searching memory to answer them, while System 1 is good at continuously and effortlessly making quick decisions, literally without giving it another thought. System 1 has features that support these basic assessments of intuitive decision-making, and they lead us to substitute one judgment for another.
Basic assessments are the immediate judgments that human brains have evolved to make constantly to ensure safety. Whether you are dodging taxis while crossing a city street or avoiding lions while trekking through the savannah, your brain can immediately judge a situation as threat (to avoid) or opportunity (to approach). We do the same with other people’s faces, immediately deciding whether they are friend or foe based on face shape and facial expression. While this can be great for deciding whether to talk to that intimidating guy on the subway, it’s not so great that voters tend to fall back on these System 1 assessments when picking a candidate. Basic assessments of candidates’ photos showed that politicians with faces rated more competent than their opponent (strong jaw + pleasant smile) were likely to be the winner of their elections. Apparently we could save a lot of time and money with campaigning and just hand out headshots. Yuck.
Here are some other examples of basic assessments that System 1 uses to answer an easier question in place of System 2’s more complex query:

• Sum-like variables: finding the total (sum) of a set is a slow process, so System 1 will use the average or think of a prototype (representative image) to get an immediate idea
• Intensity matching: System 1 is great at matching where things fall on different scales such as describing how smart someone is by relating it to a person’s height (reading at 4 years old would be like an impressive but not outrageous 6’7” man while reading at 15 months old would be like an extraordinary 7’8” man). In an experiment straight out of Dante’s Inferno, participants match the loudness of tones to a crime or its punishment and increase them based on severity (murder is louder than unpaid parking tickets), and they report feeling a sense of injustice when the tones for a crime and its punishment do not match in volume!
• The mental shotgun: Just as you can’t aim at a single target with a shotgun because of the spray of pellets, so your System 1 is constantly making basic assessments that it wasn’t asked to and should probably have minded its own beeswax about. It’ll slow you down when identifying rhyming words that are spelled differently (vote/goat) and it’ll make you pause in looking for true sentences when a false statement could have a metaphorical meaning. You weren’t asked to think about spelling the rhyming words or making metaphors out of comparative statements, but System 1 just can’t help itself! Thinking about one aspect of the question triggers System 1 to think about a bunch of other connected associations.

CHAPTER 9 - Answering an Easier Question: You are almost always right, and you know it. Admit it, your System 1 keeps you pretty sure that you know what to think about most people and situations. Kahneman points out that we rarely experience moments when we are completely stumped and can’t come up with an answer or a judgment. You know which people to trust, which colleagues are most likable, and which initiatives are likely to succeed or fail. You haven’t collected detailed research and statistics or swiped anyone’s diary; your System 1 just knows. That’s because it answered an easier question!
Let’s talk heuristics. According to George Pólya, a heuristic is a simpler problem that can be solved as a strategy for tackling a more difficult problem. Kahneman borrows the term to describe the substitutions made by System 1 instead of answering a tricky System 2 question. If you don’t get an answer to a question pretty quickly, System 1 will make some associations and use those to come up with a related and easier question. You won’t even notice that your brain has pulled a switcheroo, and you’ll feel confident in your answer to that tricky question (even though you did not in fact answer it). Here’s how System 1 pulls it off:
Brain: Hmm, I don’t know the answer to this complex question. It requires some deep analysis!
System 2: Hard pass. You may have heard I’m hella lazy.
System 1: I got you, bro! That deep question reminds me of this super fun fact I know, so I’ll throw this out there instead. Does your fancy schmancy query make sense now?
System 2: Umm, probably? It’s good enough for me. I’m gonna go back to my nap.
System 1: Eureka! We’ve got an answer!
Brain: I am so smart! I totally answered this really complex question thoughtfully and reasonably.
Here are some example heuristics:

• 3-D Heuristic: This is an optical illusion. When you are shown a drawing that appears to give a three dimensional perspective, your brain will automatically interpret it as if you were looking at objects in a 3-D setting. You didn’t forget that the paper and drawing are 2-D and you aren’t confused about the questions asked. You just automatically substitute 3-D interpretations because that is how your brain is used to seeing the world and it’s easier to continue that way.
• Mood Heuristic: It would take a lot of consideration to give an accurate answer to how happy you have been feeling lately, because there are so many factors to evaluate. When asked about happiness and then about dating, there is no correlation between the two answers: overall happiness is not really influenced by how many dates people have recently had. However, if someone primes you by asking about your dating life first, your answer about happiness will be very strongly correlated to your love life because System 1 is actually using the easy dating question to easily answer the more complex happiness question. This also works with other topics like family relationships and finances.
• Affect Heuristic: Your opinions or feelings about a certain topic will affect how you judge its strengths and positives as well as its weaknesses and negatives. Things you view favorably will seem to have many benefits and few risks, while things you are averse to will appear riskier and less beneficial. Your political preferences will influence your attitude towards policies and other countries even if there is evidence to the contrary. This doesn’t mean that we can’t learn or be convinced by new information, and that we will never change our minds. It’s just that lazy System 2 is also not very demanding; it tends to apologize for System 1’s snap judgments and emphasize the information that backs it up, rather than seeking out and examining the evidence to the contrary.

We end Part I with a chart listing the characteristics of System 1. This is a good review of how System 1 tends to operate. Then, we embark on Part II: Heuristics and Biases.
CHAPTER 10 - The Law of Small Numbers: People are bad at statistics - we struggle to draw intuitive conclusions based on a statistical fact. Even statisticians are bad at intuitive interpretations of statistics! This is because of the law of large numbers. Keep in mind that large samples are more precise than small samples. When randomly sampling a group, a large sample will yield more predictable results (less extremes) than a small sample would. Kahneman gives us two examples: rates of kidney cancer could seem unusually high or low if the populations of the counties sampled are small, and getting all of the same color marble instead of half and half will occur more often if you’re pulling just a few marbles from an equally mixed jar instead of pulling a big handful. (Your System 2 is really working hard right now, isn’t it? I had to bite a pencil just to make myself feel better in the statistics section. I’m not crazy; please refer to Chapter 4!)
The law of small numbers is the belief that the law of large numbers applies to small numbers, too. (It doesn’t.) Not only do average people fall for the law of small numbers, so do researchers and statisticians. There is a mathematical way to compute the number of participants that researchers need to sample in order to avoid statistical anomalies and ruin their results. Instead, researchers trust their intuition and go with traditional sample sizes, never stopping to calculate the number of participants actually needed for a safe sample size. Even authors of statistical textbooks couldn’t manage to avoid falling for the law of small numbers. This explains why my math-teacher-husband always pops a blood vessel when I quote him statistics from a newspaper article.
We are biased towards confidence rather than doubt. System 1 is not wired for doubt because it looks for coherent messaging. System 2 is wired for doubt, but not very good at it because it’s hard work. When we analyze and draw conclusions, we tend to put too much emphasis on coherent explanations. We are “not adequately sensitive to sample size” and end up believing that even a very small group matches up with the truth about the entire population. Essentially, it’s us saying “Kids these days…” because one random toddler was being obnoxious at the grocery store.
Statistics do not indicate the cause of an event; they only describe it in relation to what could have happened instead. But people are predisposed to make associations and creative coherent narratives, so we look for patterns and assume causality where none exist. Many events in life are random chance and this is true whether you consider the sequence of the sex of babies born in a single day, the bombing locations in a city or fatality rates of air squadrons during war, or the “hot hands” of a basketball player who appears to have a streak of success. The problem is that we fall for the law of small numbers in our small samples, we create associative narratives to explain what we see, and we are biased towards believing our own conclusions because they ring true. Even really smart and successful people like Bill Gates make these mistakes, and sometimes this results in millions or billions of dollars wasted and national educational policies shifted on the basis of random chance. Oops! WYSIATI, even in statistics!

[Chapter 1] ; [Previous Chapter] ; [Discord + Wiki] ; [Patreon]
​
​
Chapter 166 – The undisputed masters of hyperspace James felt every hair in his body stand up as the Sun jerked slightly under his feet. Meanwhile, the previous 'U.F.O.' alert had been replaced by a full on 'hostile ships' alert.
What the hell was going on out there?
A few moment later, the door to the safe-room opened, a large group of people waiting on the other side. It seemed that the active alert really had kicked the securing of all non-essential personnel into high-gear.
James stood back and watched quietly as people flooded in, taking passive notice of the people themselves. Medical personnel and people from med-enge took up a large portion of them, and they all walked in a practiced and orderly fashion. Drills for this sort of situation were not an uncommon thing on board of a military ship like this, so even though this was under much more serious conditions, the endless repetition of what to do in such a situation kept people calm and 'in their roles' so to speak. After the first large group of people had passed the doors and moved to the far-side of the room, there was a second group still waiting outside, which now began the process of gradually pushing medical beds into the promised safety.
Luckily, the Sun's intensive care units weren't exactly filled to the brim at the time, meaning there were just three patients currently sick enough that they required their beds and some machinery to be brought along with them in this part of the ship.
James' very own former surgeon Dr. Schram was next to one of them, currently monitoring a dark-haired patient who, by the look of things, appeared to be recovering from the recent attaching of a prosthetic hand.
Another one appeared to be a nervous looking young mother, whose hair was sticky with sweat that also covered her entire face as she did her best to hide any nervousness while holding a tightly bundled-up newborn against her chest, gently bouncing it with on arm while tightly clutching the hand of an out-of-uniform soldier who James recognized from a few very brief meetings with the other.
And of course, the third one...
James rushed up to the bed, positioning himself next to Tuya who was currently helping the medical personnel push Nia into the room while a female doctor with long blonde but already graying hair seemingly monitored her patient with the medical devices that were still attached to James' unconscious sister.
“Is everything alright?” he asked nervously, doing his best to stay out of the way even though he really wanted to get right next to her.
“Your sister is stable, Lt. Aldwin,” the Doctor confirmed for him without delay. “Luckily, she started breathing on her own again a few hours ago, so the ventilator is simply a precaution now. If she continues to take to the treatment as she did, she should wake up in the near future.”
James released a shaky breath that was nonetheless filled with relief at the fact that Nia appeared to be in no mortal danger from needing to be moved.
Tuya gave James a brief, encouraging smile before pushing the bed onward together with some nurses, quickly making sure that their patients wouldn't take up too much of the safe-room's space.
Forming the anchor behind the hard-to-move beds, a last group comprised of soldiers finally entered the room as well. They were mostly ground-troops who, much like James, wouldn't be of much direct use in a confrontation between ships, meaning that they were instead stationed within the safe-rooms in order to guard those inside in case they would need protection for any reason after the worst possibly occurred.
However, in this case, a few not-quite-fit for duty figures were among them as well, some of them dragging themselves into the room with as much of a problem standing up with their own strength as James had.
Koko especially seemed to be entirely out of it and had to fully rely on Andrej to hold her upright as James' entire team was feeling the aftereffects of the previous night.
Well...almost James' entire team.
“Whe...” he said as he walked up to them, glancing over the group a couple of times to make sure he didn't miss anyone as a queasy feeling rose up in his stomach. “Where is Shida?”
Among all of the many, many humans that had entered the room together to find relative safety, there wasn't a myiat in sight.
“Where-?” James tried to ask again before the gaze of Athena suddenly hit him, her icy blue eyes boring into his.
“Went to the hangar,” she said, and although she was definitely feeling the effects of the alcohol, the Captain's voice had a severity to it that James only knew from their past missions together. “She's got a job to do.”
In all honesty, she might as well have shot right through him with one of her rifles, as James stood there turning paler and paler as all blood rushed right out of his face.
They traveled around together so much and were usually so close to each other that it was quite easy to forget but...Shida wasn't like him. She wasn't some planet-side grunt; she was Lieutenant-Commander. Unlike him, she knew damn well how to fly a ship, and she was more than capable of holding her own in a space battle. Well, at least James had to assume so. It wasn't like he had ever seen her truly in action.
And, unlike the rest of the team, she couldn't have alcohol either, meaning as the only one of them, she was stone sober when the alarm blared.
His eyes twitched over to Koko for a moment. Usually, she'd be out there with her. Not only that, but as Commander, she would coordinate a large number of the ships out there. But now, she could barely stand. She could barely stand because she and James had decided to 'make the evening count'. And make it count they did. And now...she was completely down for the count.
“Whoa there!” one of the uniformed soldiers announced as James suddenly felt two strong arms reaching under his armpits, catching him and holding him in place. He hadn't even noticed himself tipping over. His legs had just lost their strength all of a sudden.
“This...can't be-” he mumbled but couldn't even get the whole sentence out as the world suddenly began spinning around him again. So far, the adrenaline as well as other chemicals both natural and not had done quite well at warding off the effects of his intoxication and had kept him going for a bit.
But now, all at once, he suddenly only felt how his stomach churned.
–
“Destruction of eleven enemy ships confirmed,” a middle-aged zodiatos trumpeted in jubilation, thrusting her trunk up into a y-shape as she lifted her head up so quickly that she almost reared up onto her hind legs for a moment. “The system's of one more are heavily damaged, leaving it incapacitated.”
Nahfmir-Durrehefren closed his eyes for a moment. Unlike his inferior, he didn't cheer or even so much as smiled. With his eyes closed, he held his breath while slowly lifting his split trunk over his shoulder. Using its end that had half of it missing, he slowly glided along the scar on the right side of his body, following the ridge of bumpy, calloused skin all the way from his brow down to his back, until he could reach no further. Even after many years of having it, the sensation of injured flesh rubbing against injured flesh never felt quite right, and yet the feeling somehow grounded him. Kept him in the moment. Gave him a feeling of purpose.
“The human ship?” he then finally asked, using the sentence to release the breath that he had been holding in a slow and controlled manner. They must have been prepared for an attack. Their hyperspace generators had been ready for a jump. They likely prepared it long before the shots were fired.
“Made a very short jump,” the answer to his question came not even a second later from another one of his officers. “Reemerged immediately around a light-second away.”
A light-second jump? Maybe they weren't as prepared as he thought. They must've barely gotten the generators fired up enough for travel.
“Immediately fire more Orderguards in their direction,” he ordered. “We cannot allow them a clean shot with their weaponry.”
“Yes, Sir,” his gunner replied with eagerness. The young bull was a good bit smaller than Nahfmir-Durrehefren and nowhere near as well-built, however he certainly didn't lack in motivation as he used his terminal to fire at the newly re-positioned enemy. He had already given his other ships the order to fire in the direction of the other two human combatants, even as they remained too far away to actually be threatened by the Orderguards. A direct hit from one of their FTL-weapons would spell an almost certain end for one of his ships, so he had to make sure to keep obstacles between them at all times.
“Once those rounds are out, remove the remaining coluyvoree,” Nahfmir-Durrehefren then added onto his orders. His fellow coreworlders were by far the lower threat and could be taken out with conventional weaponry as long as the Orderguards provided cover for his own ships.
Hopefully, they would realize they were outmatched and would use this brief grace-period that he granted them to mount their escape. Killing them was a shame, truly, but he had his orders. And he would fulfill them to his last breath if he had to.
“Be smart and fall back,” he thought to himself as he looked at the pristine white ships that hadn't been turned into scrap yet. With eleven ships destroyed and one out of commission, the coluyvoree may have technically still outnumbered his own little attack fleet, but still, they had to realize they stood no chance. There was no need for them to die a senseless death here.
Although of course, they didn't know that. Surely their hearts burned with the same sense of duty as his did, as they simply had to assume that their home was under attack, and that they were the only ones who could yet defend it.
How much he wished that he could've told them otherwise.
Nahfmir-Durrehefren lowered his gaze slightly as his ears began to flap. As always, the slit splitting his right-ear in two caused some mild, pulling pain whenever it moved a bit too fast, but he was so used to it that he barely noticed. Still, it reminded him of how he had gotten it.
“Just like old times, old friend,” he quietly mumbled to himself, thinking of the good lives that would be tragically and senselessly lost.
“Travel-sized hyperspace-stretches detected!” one of his officers yelled out, pulling him out of his melancholic yet nostalgia filled thoughts.
“They are jumping again?” he wondered, looking up to the screen. Were they already dodging? Probably. They had seen how destructive these weapons could be. However, stretches -plural- implied the other ships were moving as well. They were too far away to be afraid of the incoming fire. Maybe a strategic repositioning?
“Keep up the fire on the Flagship's new position,” he ordered first to make sure his gunner wouldn't forget to keep their cover up. Then he turned his attention to the currently more strategically important targets. “Where have the cruisers moved? Are they closer?”
As he asked, his eyes already moved over to the screen before him to confirm their position for himself. However, as they fell upon it, they found that the readings they saw there were quite...confounding.
“Negative, Sir, none of the ships have moved from their position!” his officer shouted, all the while his eyes were treated to the sight of the indicators for large hyperspace-stretches rising and falling on his screen, jumping up and down like a frequency or...like a heartbeat. The activity was so large and constant that it was hard for the sensors to even pin down how many stretches were being generated and where they emerged. Space was stretched and pulled constantly like a deflated balloon in the hands of a toddler, not truly allowed to fully settle for even a moment as stretch after stretch tugged at its integrity.
Feeling his eyes widen, he exhaled slowly, and once again ran his permanently injured trunk over his scar.
“All ships! Fire a protective volley immediately!” he then ordered. He didn't know what was going on, but he wasn't going to take any chances with it. They were going to completely protect themselves while they figured it out. There was no way he was going to let himself be blindsided while he thought.
All gunner complied immediately, and soon enough the ship vibrated ever so slightly as it shot out the massive projectile that, along with its brethren, soon formed the protective bubble of destructive energy around his forces.
“Visuals?” he then asked, causing the officer to switch her attention to a different window on her terminal.
“Should be reaching us any second, Sir,” she then finally replied. “I'm putting it through to you.”
Nahfmir-Durrehefren nodded and lifted his gaze. Viewed on a screen through the feed of a camera, void-sickness was luckily a much smaller problem, especially for someone as experienced as he was, as he looked upon the video-broadcast of the black, human ship hovering in space.
To say that he 'saw' the ship would've been an overstatement. It was so dark that any direct features were nigh impossible to make out. The only reason it was somewhat visible at all was that it blocked enough light to become perceivable as a dark shadow pushing itself through space.
Soon enough, the hazy energy around the Orderguards was already taking away his vision again as it built up, but not before he saw what had happened that had caused his sensors to become so overloaded with input.
Bright sparks came from the human ship, lighting up its dark shape against the empty space, briefly making its form appear in its full glory before turning dark again. First there was one, but it was almost immediately followed by another. Then another. Then two more. Five more. Ten more.
More and more sparks of light poured out of the ship up like shooting stars, lighting up the void for fractions of seconds at a time in a colorful spectacle that Nahfmir-Durrehefren could only truly compare to fireworks rapid-firing out of a pyrotechnics machine.
However, in reality, they could only be one thing...
“They're sending out fighters!” he announced loudly. It was unlikely that none of his officers had made the connection themselves yet, but it was important that he got everyone onto the same wavelength quickly. “Prepare ships for interception!”
They didn't have long. Luckily the Orderguards were protecting them, otherwise it may have already been too late.
“Shooting out their fighters through hyperspace...” he mumbled to himself once things were set into motion for his own ships to engage the incoming crafts, figuring that the flagship must've rapid-fire generated the small stretches for the fighters to inject into so they wouldn't be vulnerable as they emerged from their hangars and also so they would reach their targets of attack much, much faster. “Almost stupidly daring, but clever...very clever.”
However, thanks to some quick thinking, it would ultimately be pointless. Their targets were protected from them right now. And once the protective bubble fell, they would have to deal with his own fighters. And that was a fight that even the humans weren't going to win, even if the numbers were on their side.
It was still peculiar to see these new models of fighters as they emerged from his ship and into the view of his cameras. They were comparatively small and round, and in each direction an extremely long 'spike' stuck out of their hull, much longer than the ships themselves were. It really was a good thing that one didn't have to worry about aerodynamics in space, otherwise the design would've looked even more utterly foolish than it already appeared.
However, there was method to the madness, as their foes on the battlefield would soon find.
The fighters flew in a widespread formation, leaving a lot of room between each of them as they positioned themselves along the corners of the generated grid of cubes that space had been divided into by their computers. And once they had reached their place in the formation, the long 'spikes' began to show their purpose as their ends 'activated' and erupted in the Orderguards' hazy energy, forming a protective network of spheres around them just like the one that had just temporarily protected their mother ships – just on a much smaller and more manageable scale. The ship itself was then situated in a small, empty space in the middle between the spheres.
The spikes were made of a durable and very conductive alloy, specifically designed to withstand the extreme energy output on a small scale as the emerging spheres protected the ships, leaving them nigh-invulnerable to enemy fighters' attacks.
The humans may have been valiant warriors, but this was not a conflict they were going to win. “Keep pushing the fighters with more shots,” he ordered, knowing it would be bad if he gave the small fighter craft swarming around his ships the chance to freely use their numbers to their advantage too much. Luckily, the Orderguards' wide sphere of effectiveness was quite efficient when it came to pressuring small craft specifically, as they would have to divert whatever they were doing to get out of the way of the massive projectiles. If they were caught lacking, there was a good chance a whole group of them would even get inevitable caught in the path of one.
“Yes, Sir,” his gunner replied, the enthusiasm in his voice not wavering one bit. It seemed that he was eager to shoot a couple of the primates out of the sky.
The protective bubble of their fired projectiles now gradually dispersed as they flew too far apart for their spheres to still interlock with each other – leaving the stage open for the fighters to engage with each other.
Despite their reduced size, one of the zodiatos ships was easily thrice the size of a human vessel, even when not counting the enormous shield that surrounded them. This made the human ships a good bit faster and more maneuverable, however his own fighters had the advantage that they could comfortably pursue human ships in close combat as any contact with their shields would be utterly devastating for such small vessels and the chance of retaliation against the shield was absolutely minimal.
And then there was of course the supporting Orderguard fire from the larger ships – something that the humans had to worry about a lot more than the zodiatos with their own shields.
Soon enough, the barely visible human fighters pushed into the gaps between the drifting-apart spheres like shadows creeping under a door – however Nahfmir-Durrehefren's own loyal pilots were already awaiting them there.
In the corner of his eye, he also saw his ever-motivated gunner get a glint in his eyes as he realized just how splendid of a funnel the Orderguards had formed for the human ships, leaving many of them to fly in what may as well have been in single file, with a lot of momentum carrying them right in the direction of his cannons.
A dream shot for an artilleryman if Nahfmir-Durrehefren had ever seen one. And the young man was clearly not going to miss it.
As the ship shook ever so slightly as the youngster took the shot, Nahfmir-Durrehefren looked upon the visual broadcast of the engagement. Just how would the humans react to such a foe like they had never faced before? At the very least, he could respect that they were facing it head-on.
Some simple fire was exchanged as soon as the combatants 'laid eyes on' each other, and the result was expectedly one-sided. The human ships were forced to swivel and swerve in evasive maneuvers to avoid the shots while their own projectiles and explosives simply fizzled against the zodiatos' shields.
In his head, Nahfmir-Durrehefren remembered a very old saying that he had once been told while visiting a museum that told of combat.
“When given the choice between the axe and the shield, the wise warrior will always choose the shield.”
For a very long time in their modern world of spacial warfare, that choice had never existed, so everyone had run around looking to find the biggest and sharpest axe to beat the others out with it. But now the rules had changed.
And once again, the wise warriors had gone for the shield.
After their pilots had received the message of the incoming fire-support as well as its travel path along the grid, their formation burst apart and reformed in an even wider arch that ultimately resembled a slowly closing maw around the human fighters.
With the Orderguard on its way, the pilots began herding as many of their deathworld opponents into its path as possible while blocking their possible routes of escape with weapons' fire as well as their very own shields, forming a very hard to escape funnel-net to catch these flies in.
Meanwhile, many of their possible ways to back out were still blocked by the previous volley of Orderguards that gradually drifted out into space.
All his ships had to do now was to keep up their formation and fire at any humans trying to escape the trap and making themselves an easy target. The rest would be handled by the heavy weaponry. “Remember to keep a barrier between us and the larger ships,” he once again reminded his soldiers, still not eager to be on the receiving end of one of their shots.
Though still, his attention was mostly drawn to the human fighters. He was still curious how they would try to deal with this kind of opponent. After all, there would be a lot to learn from their reaction to facing an unknown force, even if their chances at victory were slim.
They must have realized by now that they were drawn into a trap. He was sure of it. They didn't seem like the kind to not notice it. But knowing one had walked into a trap only mattered if one knew how to escape it. Would they make a break for it? Maybe try to sacrifice some while letting a larger part escape?
“Show me your trunk, humans...” he mumbled silently as he observed.
And the humans indeed turned from their current course. Though, to his surprise, they didn't actually fly a curve at all. Instead, they seemed to shut off most of their engines for a moment, only using some front thrusters to turn themselves away from their current direction while still being carried onward by their own momentum.
Like that, they drifted along for a moment, turning in their motion to face their opposing fighters head on.
“A last stand?” Nahfmir-Durrehefren wondered quietly to himself, seeing just how much of their speed the human ships had sacrificed in that slow turn. Even if they still had some momentum, it would be a very close call for them to speed up enough to avoid the incoming Orderguard that they had to know was coming by now. And that wasn't even mentioning how open they were leaving themselves to fire from the zodiatos fighters with speed this low. Might they be throwing everything they had at their opponents in a last blaze of glory, consequences be damned?
Though, with an interested tilt of his head and a slight lift of his trunk, Nahfmir-Durrehefren realized after a brief moment that the humans' drifting wasn't quite as uncontrolled as he had figured, because once they had reached the angle that they seemingly desired and stopped their turning momentum, he noticed that the human fighter vessels were now drifting in rows of three, always two ships lining up behind one leading one closest to the outside barricade of his forces, and each ship in one row was just ever so slightly offset from the ones in front of it so that they didn't quite form a perfect line. Clearly there was method to it.
By now, the newly fired Orderguard heading right down the funnel was growing to a size that threatened this newly formed human formation, also slowly blocking the sight of it from Nahfmir-Durrehefren. By now, it was probably too late for them to get out of the way after they did whatever they were planning there. A blaze of glory it was...
In the corner of his eyes, there was a bit of movement catching his attention all of a sudden. On one of his other screens, the sensors were once again going wild.
“Hyperspace detected!” his officer yelled out as her head snapped up, her posture stiffening severely as he watched the same thing unfold as Nahfmir-Durrehefren himself witnessed. The detected signatures were incredibly different from the ones that typical, stable hyperspace meant for travel exuded.
They knew the humans possessed this technology, of course. Now, it was time to see how their axe would stack up against his shield.
“Have at thee...” he mumbled as the apes took their last stand.
His direct sight of the small ships was already taken away by the expanding sphere of energy heading towards their destruction at this point. However, he didn't need to see them to know what was happening right there.
Especially not as the rainbow-colored flashes shot out from their obscured position, just before the deadly sphere would make contact with the first of the fighters.
Oh, how he wondered if the shots were going to penetrate. So much so that he dared not look away, even as the bright flashing lights burned themselves into his eyes in a brief vision of infinity.
Of course, everything happened so incredibly, unthinkably fast that what truly occurred was only comprehensible after the fact, as everything moved faster than a thought could even be formed; as even a single firing of a synapse occurred almost indefinably slow in comparison to the action itself. Faster than thought. Faster than light. Faster than even the universe itself could react.
He saw the large explosion as enormous quantities of energy erupted outwards from the impact as shots indeed connected with the shields, but...something was wrong. His subconscious knew it long before any reasoned thought could be formed as the picture was burned into his eyes, but something. Was. Wrong.
There were more lines now. More lines than the ones that had shot outwards from the ships and the shots...the shots had come from the wrong direction.
He never got to satisfy his lust to know whether the shields could withstand a shot of those weapons, as far more than just one hammered into the backs of each individual ship, battering them down with an unloading of energy that was too much for pretty much anything to withstand on such a small scale. And as soon as the shields were burst apart, even more shots hammered the ships on the inside, obliterating them in fiery balls that were contained by the remaining, still-active shield generators for just a moment before those lost power as well and left the brightly glowing, super-heated remains to float in place as temporary miniature suns.
Nahfmir-Durrehefren's eyes shot around to the sensors. They had been flanked by a so far unseen regiment? Where did those ships come from? Another one of the surrounding 'funnels' must have been breached...
However, that wasn't the case. Because at all of the other opened corners and gaps of their dispersing temporary shields, it seemed like this exact phenomenon was occurring at the same time.
But if the other fronts were also only broken now, then where did those-
Suddenly, something zapped past his camera with a bright glow, leaving an afterglow in his eye. And then there was another. Then another. Then ten more. Soon enough, he had to avert his eyes as the screen stopped showing him the darkness of space with the occasional light. And it was instead filled with a brightly glowing web of lines. No...not lines. Stretches. Hyprspace-stretches – multiple dozens of them. All of them dispersing as soon as they appeared, only to be near immediately replaced by another one.
The entire void all around the zodiatos ship became light from the sparkling stretches, outshining even the system's nearby star. Meanwhile all of the sensors that could even remotely detect a stretch went absolutely haywire.
Was...was each of the fighters..?
One of the stretches then dispersed right in their view, leaving the black ship that emerged from it standing out in amazing contrast from the bright background with its near true-black color. The ship drifted there for less than the blink of an eye – only just long enough to fire off a single shot of its physics-defying weaponry – before it immediately disappeared in yet another flash of light.
A strong tremor suddenly shook the ship so heavily that the ground was momentarily pulled out from under Nahfmir-Durrehefren's feet. Reacting quickly, he managed to land back on all fours again, even if the sudden unwanted jump caused some jolting pain in his ankles as he landed. Some of his officers weren't so lucky and toppled over where they stood, grunting out in pain as their massive bodies hit the ground.
Grimacing against the pain and wrapping his trunk firmly around a nearby railing to anchor himself, Nahfmir-Durrehefren didn't need the ship's blaring alarms to tell him that they had suffered a hit. A brief glimpse at the diagnostics on his screen told him that their engines had been struck. The shot must've come from right behind them – from the inside of their ships' formation. They had...just flown past them...right through their formation...
The scene replayed before his inner eye. A hyperspace jump that was nowhere near far enough to justify using such an engine. A brief emergence to fire a shot. And then an immediate retreat back into hyperspace. Repeated, all around him, who knew how many times each second...
They could generated it that fast...and not for a moment did they appear so much as disoriented...
He was out of it for a moment, just staring wide-eyed. But then, he let go of the railing again, as his trunk found its way to his scare once more, grounding him. He let out a long exhale.
“Well, old friend,” he said to himself as he felt scar tissue rub along scar tissue, once again thinking back to the day that he had received this injury. “Guess things are going as planned after all...”
–
“12-12, A-D,” a message reached Shida's ear, causing it to slightly twitch as the voice talked right into it through the strapped-on headphones that wrapped around her head.
“I'm aware, thanks D-F,” she replied through the comm herself, having already noticed the ship as soon as she had emerged back in normal space.
The thing was huge and almost entirely obscured by whatever that weird, opaque stuff was that these things generated. As it noticed that she had emerged so closely to it, it seemed to see its best chance at getting her by accelerating to ramming-speed.
Shida pulled at her steering a bit, but it was no use. With that mass of undefined energy barreling towards her, she wouldn't have enough time to turn for a shot. Better cut her losses.
Pulling the break for a moment, she activated one of her forwards thrusters as she adjusted to the stated and predicted routes of her surrounding allies on the grid so she wouldn't accidentally intercept with any of them as she jumped away.
This caused her to drift sideways for a moment, which in turn caused the charging wall of energy to gain on her as she slowed down, while also allowing her a better view of it through her front window.
She turned her head to the side a bit and adjusted the goggles over her eyes slightly as the ball of hazy death headed right for her broadside, becoming exponentially larger to her eyes by the second. She delayed her jump a smidge just to look at it a moment longer. It was almost beautiful in a strange way. So strange, so...alien.
However, before she could get into serious trouble in case the pilot of that thing decided to actually pull the trigger instead of just rushing her, she hit the engines and jumped out of there.
It was like blinking. For half a heartbeat, everything outside of her windows went entirely black. Then, she was already in another place, still drifting sideways the same way she had done before the jump. Only now, the nose of her ship was pointed right at a target that way.
As she pulled the trigger, her brightly glittering shot flew right past one of those burning orbs that the enemy fighters were turning into whenever their destruction was contained by their own shields.
But unlike a real star, these miniature versions were by far not enough to make her shot curve and pull away from its target, meaning that it crashed right into the fighters' shield.
Those things were impressive. A direct hit with a relativity canon, and yet the fighter was still going. Those shields were tough as boars. Though...it seemed they could only pull that trick off one time before they hard to regenerate, as the rear shield burst apart with the hit of her weapon, dispersing the energy of the impact all around, leaving the ship wide open for another shot from this angle.
Still, if these things could tank a relativity shot, even if it was just a small one from an unkindness-class, there couldn't be much else that could get through those shields. Just what was that strange haze...?
“A-D-” another comm sounded into her ear, however she was already in the process of hitting the engines.
“I got it,” she said as she jumped again, quickly flashing out of the way of an incoming rocket.
As she reappeared in normal space, she could the explosion of the thing go off far in the distance within the corner of her vision, not even seconds away from actually hitting her ship had she not moved.
Say what you will, but these bastards were persistent...

With thanks to all who helped create this guide!
This event will run from Tuesday, May 7 until 19:00 GMT on Friday, May 10; to participate you will need version 11.2.0 or higher, at least 100 dragon power, and a high quality, stable internet connection.
Please keep all event related questions and strategy discussions in this thread while the event is live; good luck and happy merging!
 

ANNOUNCEMENTS

Event Notes:

• AAAND they’ve done it again, and told us we were getting the “same as last edition” but instead given us something new, so once again it’s crowd sourcing time! Please share the info you’ve discovered in the comments below; it will be added to the main guide as soon as possible.
  • Looks like we’ve got the Summer Delight theme’s items on the Frozen Seas map — be careful of changes, though
• It is possible to get the fast dragon first.
• No Infinite Harvestables are used as keys, and it is safe to delete low-level IH if needed.
• A spare Lost Bud is located near the Gaia Statue lock.
• The Gold Capsule has been switched for a Silver one, but so far reports differ on what’s behind it.

Elsewhere in the Game

• A new update is rolling out; to avoid problems it is not recommended to update during an event — you may need to turn auto updates off.
• Popular Links:
  • Dens List
  • Friend Tag Exchange
  • 2024 Event Schedule

 

NEW SUMMER SHIMMER CLOUD KEY MAP

 

LINK TO OLD FROZEN SEAS IMAGE GUIDE

Tap the link above to open the Image Guide as a Google Slides document; it can be saved as a pdf for viewing elsewhere. WARNING: some stuff has changed beyond just the event items; check comments for the latest info.

1. Cloud Key Map
2. Cloud Key Chart
3. Tile Healing Map
4. Infinite Harvestables Map
5. Event Quests Chart
6. Event Rewards Chart

 

CLOUD KEY LIST — Mostly confirmed, but needs double checking

Tap a key item to go to its wiki page for more info and hi-def images

• L0 Life Essence (dead land)
  • L1 Lost Bud (clear)
  • L4 Three Graces (dead land)
  • ⁠L6 Precious Amphorae (dead land)
• L3 Crude Shadow Tree (clear)
  • L6 Ghastly Shadow Tree (dead land)
• L7 Hat (clear)
• L2 Restored Gaia Statue (dead land)
• L3 Foxfire (clear)
  • L10 Zeus's Cup (dead land)
• ⁠L5 Fancy Spirit Bottle (dead land)
  • ⁠L8 Broadleaf Autumn Tree (clear)
• Tanzanite Mystery Nest (clear)
• Silver Capsule (? - conflicting reports — possibly an A/B test variable, so look out)
• Fallen Star (clear)

 

EVENT-SPECIFIC CHAINS

• Point items: Summer Objects
• Infinite Harvestables: Summer Shops
• Consumable/Limited Harvestables: Summer Bags
• Event Chests: Summer Chests

 

EVENT QUESTS

• 1.1 Merge 5 of Anything — 150 times
• 1.2 Creat a Level 7 Point Item (Hat) — 5 times
• 1.3 Harvest from a Level 3 Consumable Harvestable (Posh Summer Bag) — 75 times
• 2.1 Harvest from a Twin Life Flower — 200 times
• 2.2 Harvest from Dead Plants — 75 times
• 2.3 Create a Life Orb of the Heavens — 3 times
• 3.1 Heal Land — 35 tiles
• 3.2 Have Healed Land — 350 tiles
• 3.3 Have Healed Land — 675 tiles
• 3.4 Heal All the Land

 

EVENT POINT REQUIREMENTS

• Prize 1: 3 pts (3 total)
• Prize 2: 22 (25)
• Prize 3: 235 (260)
• Prize 4: 420 (680)
• Prize 5: 640 (1,320)
• Prize 6: 960 (2,280)
• Prize 7: 4,470 (6,750)
• Prize 8: 5,400 (12,150)
• Prize 9: 6,570 (18,720)
• Prize 10: 11,230 (29,950)

 

FEATURED REWARDS:

^{A = featured in Arcadia; S = Shiny capable; N = New}

• Main trophy breed: Cool Dragon (AS)
• Secondary trophy breed: Woodwhisper
• Tertiary breed: Sharp (S)
• Event Trophy Item: Camp Summer Shop
  • Spawned eggs: Cool Dragon
  • Tappable eggs:

RUSH REWARDS

^{Note: Rewards shown are for Event Portal Level 16}

• Legend (under 12 hours)
  • Main Breed: 20x nests, 5x L1, 5x L2, 3x L3, 3x L4
  • Secondary Breed: 20x nests, 5x L3, 3x L4
  • Tertiary Breed: 7x L2
  • 3x L4 Fruit Trees
• Champion (under 24 hours)
  • Main Breed 1: 11x nests, 6x L1, 5x L2, 3x L3
  • Secondary Breed: 9x nests, 2x L3, 1x L4
  • Tertiary Breed 3: 12x L2
  • 2x L4 Fruit Trees, 1x Super Egg Fragment
• Hero (under 36 hours)
  • Main Breed: 5x nests, 4x L1, 3x L2, 3x L3
  • Secondary Breed: 5x nests, 3x L3
  • 1x L4 Fruit Tree, 1x L2 Hill, 1x Super Egg Fragment

 

EVENT FAQs

• The Event Shop and Capsules appear after you’ve healed 30-70 tiles; after that a free Bronze Capsule can be collected every 3 hours.
• It takes 5 or 6 level 9 Life Orb of the Heavens to clear all the 5k+ land, depending on how much you heal by merging items off dead land.
• To collect both the full set of Points Prizes and any level of Rush Rewards, you will need to earn 29,950 points.
  • Reaching this amount requires 1x Level 9 points item, 1x L8 item, 2x L7 items, and 2x L6 items (or just aim for 2x L9 points items).
• There’s always enough material to merge by 3s when making Key items.
• Caves must be tapped to spawn a Zomblin; only one event Zomblin lives in each cave, and it turns into Stinky Cheese when killed.
• The Gold Silver Capsule, Fallen Star, and Tanzanite Nest are hiding near the far edge of the map, on tiles requiring 50k energy to heal.
• Infinite Harvestables:
  • There are usually 9x Level 1, 3x L2, 1x L3, 2x L4, and 2x L5 Summer Shops Infinite Harvestables on the map; you can delete one level 1 and one level 2 and still have enough to make a level 6, as long as you 5-merge whenever possible.
  • NOTE: No Infinite Harvestables are used as keys, and it is safe to delete low-level IH if needed.
• Consumable/Limited Harvestables:
  • Each 1x2 Posh Summer Bag can be harvested 25 times; 75 total harvests are needed to complete Quest 1.3.
  • Each harvest of the big 2x2 Summer Tent at the back of the map yields a 10% chance of spawning an extra Posh Summer Bag.
  • Once all available Posh Summer Bags and the Summer Tent are gone, there is no way to get more.
• Strategy advice:
  • Spending money or gems is NEVER required to complete an event, nor is using an auto-clicker or other exploits.
  • The number and level of possible Point and Rush reward items is determined by your Event Portal level; working to raise that to its maximum of L16 is one of the best ways to boost your overall progress in the game.
  • A good basic introduction to events is available here on the Fandom Wiki; there’s also some Wiki event guides and tips articles here and here, and a whole collection of general guides and tutorials here
  • Additional general event strategy advice (active vs passive or idle play, etc) can be found in the Community FAQ and in these threads: Link 1, Link 2, Link 3, and Link 4.
  • For active players wanting more dragons, the Prism Flower method is a good option: Link 1, Link 2, Link 3. Note: this technique is only for active play; since only 2 dragons at a time will harvest when left on their own, having more will actually slow down idle harvesting.
  • A recently shared strategy using the Hills chain here can greatly increase Life Flower production, but it usually takes a few gems (maximum of 80, but less if you get some in capsules)
• 2024 Event Schedule
• Summer Delight event theme’s main wiki page.
• Similar previous events:
  • July 2023
  • September 2022
  • August 2022
  • June 2022
  • June 2021

 

EVENT TROUBLESHOOTING

If the event is not showing up correctly or if glitches are affecting your play:

1. Check that you meet the version and dragon power requirements.
2. Try hard-closing and then relaunching your game.
3. Try rebooting your device (ie, turn it completely off, then back on and allow it to fully boot up before relaunching the game). If you are on wifi and have access to the router, try rebooting that, too.
4. Try switching to a completely different internet source.
5. Try clearing your game’s cache (google for instructions for your specific phone type).
6. If you’re suddenly experiencing multiple issues like lagging or error messages (or if the event vanishes completely), close the game and try again after 2-3 hours. Events are internet-based, and sometimes issues with the servers can cause temporary problems — all we can do for that is to wait it out.
7. If none of the above helps, contact Gram Games Support through the in-game link or the Support Web Portal for help figuring out what’s wrong.

• NOTE: Cloud Save is still unreliable: according to the developer, it is not safe to be used and should be left turned off.
• NOTE: Saving your Progress: Make sure to save your progress by traveling to the World Map screen (and waiting there until everything’s fully loaded) regularly, and especially before closing your game.
• Glitch: Missing sell/delete option If your task bar is missing the option to delete dimension jars or other items, you can start with the standard troubleshooting methods; if those don’t trigger a fix, replaying a few levels or working in your camp for a while have reportedly helped.
• Glitch: Event level only shows clouds If your event screen shows only clouds instead of the map, check that you are zoomed all the way out. If you are and it still won’t show, try collecting one of the free Bronze Capsules (you may need to wait for the timer to count down).
• Glitch: Missing rewards/Game crashes after collecting rewards Exiting directly from the event level to your Camp can trigger a crash and loss of items; always exit to the World Map screen first — and pause there until everything’s fully loaded — to trigger the game to save your progress, then enter your Camp.

edits are on-going

A couple of months back there was a fairly popular post by u/Bluedot55 :https://www.reddit.com/Helldivers/comments/1azh9fw/weapon\_damage\_isnt\_what\_you\_think\_and\_isnt\_what/
He made some testing, came to a conclusion that aligned with his data, but I saw there were weapons missing on this table, and redid the experiment using all of the game's primaries and secondaries along with some support weapons. That was over a month ago and I've been having sleepless nights over the results since.

• The initial conclusion didn't account for armor (observed by white/red hit maker), making it flawed to begin with.
• If Lib Pen has a higher headshot multipler than Liberator, why isn't it doing more damage to Helldiver heads?
• The same applies to Devestator heads. Both Lib and Lib Pen need 3 shots. Defender needs 2. Signs point to Dev heads having 120-125 HP given how Counter-Sniper oneshots at close enough ranges, but then stops doing that.

We have both, independently, continued to dig into the matter, and a lot of other people have as well.
More extensive testing of this nature was performed by u/Key_Negotiation_9726, now compiled in his excellent DiversDex: https://www.reddit.com/Helldivers/comments/1cec9l4/diversdex_your_pokedex_but_for_helldivers_2/
The tests have not made a point of firing every shot at point-blank. That's fine for practical purposes. You can simply refer to the charts and know how many shots you'll roughly need to kill a thing. For the purposes of deducing the exact damage values and enemy HP, I still needed to dig deeper. For those out of the loop, testing has confirmed that damage drops off over distance for the majority of weapons:
https://www.reddit.com/Helldivers/comments/1bwbo78/guns_lose_damage_over_distance_as_soon_as_they/
Progress in datamining by people much smarter than I am reveals a second damage number for each source of damage. I was made aware of it through this thread: https://www.reddit.com/Helldivers/comments/1c40xkg/weapon_armor_penetration_values_helldive
At the time I didn't know what to make of it. After joining heads with other researchers and testers at the Helldivers wiki (https://helldivers.wiki.gg/) we were able to make leaps of understanding on the matter. I couldn't have gotten to this point without their data and extensive testing.
This extra damage value is sometimes referred to as "Durable damage" or "Damage vs massive body parts". This number is 6 for Liberator (close to the 10% suggested by Pilestedt) and 15 for Penetrator (more of a 33%). For Dominator this is 90, which is about 33% of full damage. The answer to "Is Dominator doing explosive damage?" can be concluded with "yesn't". Glad I could clear it up and prevent any future debates on that one.
The majority of explosions have 100% durable damage, and support weapons are all over the place, generally leaning into "More than a primary, that's for sure". I have listed these values on my stat site as far as I know them:
https://invadersfromplanet.space/helldivers-2/
The wiki might add them once they've been verified more thorougly. The general rule of thumb is that durable damage is 10%, rounded down. Liberator is 60/6, Diligence is 125/13 (or 125/12, it's unclear to me).
Some noteworthy high rollers on durable:

Weapon	Dmg	Dur	Ratio	Notes
AC-8 Autocannon	410	410	100.00%
SG-8P Punisher Plasma	250	200	80.00%
PLAS-1 Scorcher	200	150	75.00%
ARC-12 Blitzer	250	175	70.00%
R-36 Eruptor	380	265	69.74%	Pre-nerf
LAS-98 Laser Cannon	350	200	57.14%	DPS
SG-225IE Breaker Incendiary	250	120	50.00%
CB-9 Exploding Crossbow	420	200	47.61%	:[
MG-206 Heavy Machine Gun	100	35	35.00%
SG-225SP Breaker Spray & Pray	192	64	33.33%
JAR-5 Dominator	275	90	32.27%
APW-1 Anti-Materiel Rifle	450	135	30.00%
SG-8S Slugger	250	75	30.00%
SG-8 Punisher	405	108	26.67%
RS-422 Railgun (Unsafe)	600	120	20.00%
SG-225 Breaker	330	66	20.00%
AR-23P Liberator Penetrator	45	15	33.33%
AR-23C Liberator Concussive	65	15	23.07%
LAS-5 Scythe	350	70	20.00%
ARC-3 Arc Thrower	250	50	20.00%
RS-422 Railgun (Safe)	600	60	10.00%

All the rocket launchers and grenades seem 100% as well.
Does this explain Brood Commander's head? Not yet. If you just plop in the results 16 x 5 vs 8 x 15, you find that this time it's base Liberator that needs significantly less damage than Lib Pen. Just like Lib Pen is an in-between gun, Brood Commander's head is an "in-between" massive body part. A body part can be anywhere between 0%-100% durable, and it seems like Brood Commander's is 60%.
What does this mean? It means take 40% damage from normal damage, 60% from durable. For Liberator that's: (60 * 40 + 5 * 60) / 100 = 27
But hitting armor it reduces to half and becomes 13.5
Lib Pen is (45 * 50 + 10 * 50) / 100 = 30
Lib Pen exceeds the light armor and stays at 30.
8 * 30 vs 16 * 27 suggests Brood Commander's head has 200 HP.
Now you may object and say "Maybe armor isn't 50%, it's a 60%, that's why Lib Pen needs that much less shots. Your mechanic is made up." The recent balance change brought about an interesting counter-example: Liberator Concussive. Defender (70/7) needs 13 shots to kill Brood Commander's head, but Liberator Concussive needs only 12 (65/15) owing to its secretly buffed durable damage. With two guns having an equal amount of penetration yet the lower damage gun needing fewer shots for a kill, it's clear that there has to be more going on. Accounting for 60% durable, Defender is 33.2 damage per shot, and Lib Con is 35 before armor reduction.
That leaves one oddity, which is how a 400 damage impact grenade doesn't immediately pop Brood Commander's head. I believe this to be because radial attacks have no interaction with brood commander heads, just like with helldiver heads. (Rockets headshotting you kill you because of the rocket's direct damage, the explosion is not multiplied.) Notice how some weapons like Plasma Punishere kills Brood Commander faster with body shots than headshots. The direct portion (70 partial) goes to the head, then the explosion (150) touches the body behind the head instead, and these two have seperate health pools.
So what's the takeaway from all of this?

• Weak spot multipliers vs enemies is not a real thing. If it is, no difference has been found between weapons in this department.
• Laser Cannon enjoyers have already figured this out, but this was, and to an extent still is a great weapon for durable targets. 300 sustained, durable DPS isn't bad, and 200 isn't awful either. Autocannon and AMR are still ahead of the pack on this in the short-term.
• Lib Pen should be alright on gunships and tank vents compared to competition. Use it on medium armor durable kill spots, as low as the supply of those are.
• With some weapons, body shots can be preferable.
• Chargers are still a black hole of research into which you can pour hours of your time and understand less than before you started.
• Please show durability damage in-game.
• My soul can finally rest, but probably won't.

I watched Phantom Menace for umpteenth time this week, but for the first time in theaters. And, to me it's still a big mess to try to wrap my head around, like it's less of comprehensible movie experience and more like a tableau of twenty five years of Star Wars discourse.
Do you rate it like someone walking out of theatre in 1999 would coming off of Return of the Jedi?
Do you rate it is a summer kid's movie?
Do you rate it with hundreds of hours of wiki walks and supplemental material from two canons in your head, and several critics lambasting or praising it depending on the era? After watching Snar Wors 1?
This isn't a prequel film thing strictly, I think Attack of the Clones is schlock except for Jango Fett stuff. I think Revenge of the Sith is a good movie with a fuckton of issues.
Phantom, well, here we are. I can't rate it, not after every other line is a fucking meme coming out of my mouth while the six year old next to me is confused how I know them while he watches it for the first time. Not while I am in awe of how anyone could cause Jake Lloyd to want to kill himself. Not while Ahmed Best was discarded by basically everyone for two decades. Not while, hey is Padme flirting with Anakin? Or is she just oblivious to this nine year olds obvious crush? I mean, Padme you are talking six inches from his face. Padme, I dunno man. You've been seeming sus lately.
Speaking of Ahmed Best, you see Darth Jar Jar sabotages Anakin's pod because he wants Anakin to connect to the Force despite the fact that Qui Gon already is betting on the boy and wanting to take him off-world and Anakin already wants to go. You see, Anakin wouldn't leave his mother if wins the Boonta Eve. Classic in a intact pod, right? Right? Darth Jar Jar truly is the mastermind of the Prequel Era.
It's a movie that is simultaneously undercooked and overcooked at times with the budget of a small country.
It's great, it's terrible, it's CBT. Which there is a video of Yoda undergoing on YouTube.
Anyway, May the Force be with you.

I'm trying to open a cobblemon server, I've tried both fabric and forge and i still get the same issue, works fine without the mod, wondering if there is anything I'm doing wrong.
​
C:\Users\fallo\Desktop\server>java -Xmx4G -XX:+UnlockExperimentalVMOptions -XX:+UseG1GC -XX:G1NewSizePercent=20 -XX:G1ReservePercent=20 -XX:MaxGCPauseMillis=50 -XX:G1HeapRegionSize=32M -jar fabric-server-mc.1.20.1-loader.0.15.3-launcher.0.11.2.jar nogui
Starting net.fabricmc.loader.impl.game.minecraft.BundlerClassPathCapture
[13:09:11] [main/INFO]: Loading Minecraft 1.20.1 with Fabric Loader 0.15.3
[13:09:12] [main/INFO]: Loading 68 mods:
- appleskin 2.5.1+mc1.20
\-- cloth-config 11.0.99
\-- cloth-basic-math 0.6.1
- architectury 9.1.12
- balm-fabric 7.2.1
- clumps 12.0.0.3
- cobblemon 1.4.1+1.20.1
- collective 7.26
- dismountentity 3.2
- fabric-api 0.91.0+1.20.1
-- fabric-api-base 0.4.30+7abfd51577
-- fabric-api-lookup-api-v1 1.6.35+4d8536c977
-- fabric-biome-api-v1 13.0.12+215bbe9677
-- fabric-block-api-v1 1.0.10+92a0d36777
-- fabric-block-view-api-v2 1.0.0+92a0d36777
-- fabric-blockrenderlayer-v1 1.1.40+b3afc78b77
-- fabric-client-tags-api-v1 1.1.1+97bb207577
-- fabric-command-api-v1 1.2.33+f71b366f77
-- fabric-command-api-v2 2.2.12+b3afc78b77
-- fabric-commands-v0 0.2.50+df3654b377
-- fabric-containers-v0 0.1.63+df3654b377
-- fabric-content-registries-v0 4.0.10+57aed33f77
-- fabric-convention-tags-v1 1.5.4+a1a980da77
-- fabric-crash-report-info-v1 0.2.18+aeb40ebe77
-- fabric-data-generation-api-v1 12.3.3+d7b148e077
-- fabric-dimensions-v1 2.1.53+8536527b77
-- fabric-entity-events-v1 1.5.22+b3afc78b77
-- fabric-events-interaction-v0 0.6.1+e91849a877
-- fabric-events-lifecycle-v0 0.2.62+df3654b377
-- fabric-game-rule-api-v1 1.0.39+ae9f657a77
-- fabric-item-api-v1 2.1.27+b3afc78b77
-- fabric-item-group-api-v1 4.0.11+d7b148e077
-- fabric-key-binding-api-v1 1.0.36+fb8d95da77
-- fabric-keybindings-v0 0.2.34+df3654b377
-- fabric-lifecycle-events-v1 2.2.21+b3afc78b77
-- fabric-loot-api-v2 1.2.0+96dfa95977
-- fabric-loot-tables-v1 1.1.44+9e7660c677
-- fabric-message-api-v1 5.1.8+d7b148e077
-- fabric-mining-level-api-v1 2.1.49+b3afc78b77
-- fabric-model-loading-api-v1 1.0.2+709a987177
-- fabric-models-v0 0.4.1+9386d8a777
-- fabric-networking-api-v1 1.3.10+eeb8eb3677
-- fabric-networking-v0 0.3.50+df3654b377
-- fabric-object-builder-api-v1 11.1.2+4ee0bc6077
-- fabric-particles-v1 1.1.1+201a23a077
-- fabric-recipe-api-v1 1.0.20+b3afc78b77
-- fabric-registry-sync-v0 2.3.2+4df89eb277
-- fabric-renderer-api-v1 3.2.0+39a511ba77
-- fabric-renderer-indigo 1.5.0+39a511ba77
-- fabric-renderer-registries-v1 3.2.45+df3654b377
-- fabric-rendering-data-attachment-v1 0.3.36+92a0d36777
-- fabric-rendering-fluids-v1 3.0.27+b3afc78b77
-- fabric-rendering-v0 1.1.48+df3654b377
-- fabric-rendering-v1 3.0.7+b3afc78b77
-- fabric-resource-conditions-api-v1 2.3.7+29de845d77
-- fabric-resource-loader-v0 0.11.9+132c48c177
-- fabric-screen-api-v1 2.0.7+b3afc78b77
-- fabric-screen-handler-api-v1 1.3.29+b3afc78b77
-- fabric-sound-api-v1 1.0.12+b3afc78b77
-- fabric-transfer-api-v1 3.3.3+c81d263177
\-- fabric-transitive-access-wideners-v1 4.3.0+6c31357e77
- fabricloader 0.15.3
\-- mixinextras 0.3.2
- ferritecore 6.0.1
- java 22
- krypton 0.2.3
\-- com_velocitypowered_velocity-native 3.2.0-SNAPSHOT
- letmedespawn 1.2.0
- lithium 0.11.2
- memoryleakfix 1.1.2
- minecraft 1.20.1
- monsters_in_the_closet 1.0.3+1.20
- netherportalfix 13.0.1
- showmeyourskin 1.6.11+1.20
-- cardinal-components-base 5.2.1
-- cardinal-components-entity 5.2.1
\-- cicada 0.4.0
- slimyfloor 1.20-1.2.8
- starlight 1.1.2+fabric.dbc156f
- superflatworldnoslimes 3.2
- threadtweak 1.20.2-0.1.1
[13:09:12] [main/INFO]: SpongePowered MIXIN Subsystem Version=0.8.5 Source=file:/C:/Users/fallo/Desktop/servelibraries/net/fabricmc/sponge-mixin/0.12.5+mixin.0.8.5/sponge-mixin-0.12.5+mixin.0.8.5.jar Service=Knot/Fabric Env=SERVER
[13:09:12] [main/INFO]: Compatibility level set to JAVA_17
[13:09:12] [main/INFO]: Loaded configuration file for Lithium: 115 options available, 2 override(s) found
[13:09:12] [main/WARN]: Force-disabling mixin 'alloc.blockstate.StateMixin' as rule 'mixin.alloc.blockstate' (added by mods [ferritecore]) disables it and children
[13:09:12] [main/WARN]: Force-disabling mixin 'world.player_chunk_tick.ThreadedAnvilChunkStorageMixin' as rule 'mixin.world.player_chunk_tick' (added by mods [krypton]) disables it and children
[13:09:12] [main/WARN]: Error loading class: net/minecraft/class_310 (java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: net/minecraft/class_310)
[13:09:12] [main/WARN]: u/Mixin target net.minecraft.class_310 was not found monsters_in_the_closet.mixins.json:MinecraftClientMixin from mod monsters_in_the_closet
[13:09:12] [main/INFO]: [MemoryLeakFix] Will be applying 1 memory leak fixes!
[13:09:12] [main/INFO]: [MemoryLeakFix] Currently enabled memory leak fixes: [biomeTemperatureLeak]
[13:09:12] [main/INFO]: Initializing MixinExtras via com.llamalad7.mixinextras.service.MixinExtrasServiceImpl(version=0.3.2).
[13:09:12] [main/INFO]: ThreadTweak config initialized
[13:09:17] [main/INFO]: Booting LaxPermissionValidator, permissions will be checked using Minecrafts permission level system, see https://minecraft.fandom.com/wiki/Permission_level
[13:09:17] [main/ERROR]: No data fixer registered for cobblemon:pokemon
[13:09:17] [main/ERROR]: No data fixer registered for cobblemon:empty_pokeball
[13:09:17] [main/ERROR]: No data fixer registered for cobblemon:boat
[13:09:17] [main/ERROR]: No data fixer registered for cobblemon:chest_boat
[13:09:18] [main/INFO]: Starting the Best Spawner...
[13:09:18] [main/INFO]: Loaded 5 spawning condition types.
[13:09:18] [main/INFO]: Loaded 5 spawning context types.
[13:09:18] [main/INFO]: Loaded 1 spawn detail types.
[13:09:18] [Cobblemon Showdown/INFO]: Starting showdown service...
[13:09:18] [Cobblemon Showdown/ERROR]: Uncaught exception in thread "Cobblemon Showdown"
java.lang.ExceptionInInitializerError: null
at org.graalvm.polyglot.io.FileSystem.newDefaultFileSystem(FileSystem.java:486) ~[Cobblemon-fabric-1.4.1+1.20.1.jar:?]
at com.cobblemon.mod.common.battles.runner.graal.GraalShowdownService$createContext$1.(GraalShowdownService.java:75) ~[Cobblemon-fabric-1.4.1+1.20.1.jar:?]
at com.cobblemon.mod.common.battles.runner.graal.GraalShowdownService.createContext(GraalShowdownService.java:73) ~[Cobblemon-fabric-1.4.1+1.20.1.jar:?]
at com.cobblemon.mod.common.battles.runner.graal.GraalShowdownService.openConnection(GraalShowdownService.java:59) ~[Cobblemon-fabric-1.4.1+1.20.1.jar:?]
at com.cobblemon.mod.common.battles.ShowdownThread.run(ShowdownThread.java:40) ~[Cobblemon-fabric-1.4.1+1.20.1.jar:?]
Caused by: java.lang.IllegalStateException: Failed to initialize execution listener class.
at org.graalvm.polyglot.io.IOHelper.initImpl(IOHelper.java:196) ~[Cobblemon-fabric-1.4.1+1.20.1.jar:?]
at org.graalvm.polyglot.io.IOHelper.(IOHelper.java:186) ~[Cobblemon-fabric-1.4.1+1.20.1.jar:?]
... 5 more
Caused by: java.lang.reflect.InvocationTargetException
at jdk.internal.reflect.DirectMethodHandleAccessor.invoke(DirectMethodHandleAccessor.java:118) ~[?:?]
at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:580) ~[?:?]
at org.graalvm.polyglot.io.IOHelper.initImpl(IOHelper.java:192) ~[Cobblemon-fabric-1.4.1+1.20.1.jar:?]
at org.graalvm.polyglot.io.IOHelper.(IOHelper.java:186) ~[Cobblemon-fabric-1.4.1+1.20.1.jar:?]
... 5 more
Caused by: java.lang.NoSuchMethodError: 'void sun.misc.Unsafe.ensureClassInitialized(java.lang.Class)'
at com.oracle.truffle.api.library.LibraryFactory.ensureLibraryInitialized(LibraryFactory.java:384) ~[Cobblemon-fabric-1.4.1+1.20.1.jar:?]
at com.oracle.truffle.api.library.LibraryFactory.getUncached(LibraryFactory.java:364) ~[Cobblemon-fabric-1.4.1+1.20.1.jar:?]
at com.oracle.truffle.api.library.LibraryFactory.(LibraryFactory.java:210) ~[Cobblemon-fabric-1.4.1+1.20.1.jar:?]
at com.oracle.truffle.api.interop.InteropLibraryGen.(InteropLibraryGen.java:175) ~[Cobblemon-fabric-1.4.1+1.20.1.jar:?]
at com.oracle.truffle.api.interop.InteropLibraryGen.(InteropLibraryGen.java:166) ~[Cobblemon-fabric-1.4.1+1.20.1.jar:?]
at java.lang.Class.forName0(Native Method) ~[?:?]
at java.lang.Class.forName(Class.java:529) ~[?:?]
at java.lang.Class.forName(Class.java:508) ~[?:?]
at com.oracle.truffle.api.library.LibraryFactory.loadGeneratedClass(LibraryFactory.java:791) ~[Cobblemon-fabric-1.4.1+1.20.1.jar:?]
at com.oracle.truffle.api.library.LibraryFactory.resolveImpl(LibraryFactory.java:740) ~[Cobblemon-fabric-1.4.1+1.20.1.jar:?]
at com.oracle.truffle.api.library.LibraryFactory.resolve(LibraryFactory.java:733) ~[Cobblemon-fabric-1.4.1+1.20.1.jar:?]
at com.oracle.truffle.api.interop.InteropLibrary.(InteropLibrary.java:2873) ~[Cobblemon-fabric-1.4.1+1.20.1.jar:?]
at com.oracle.truffle.polyglot.PolyglotValueDispatch.(PolyglotValueDispatch.java:156) ~[Cobblemon-fabric-1.4.1+1.20.1.jar:?]
at com.oracle.truffle.polyglot.PolyglotImpl.initialize(PolyglotImpl.java:166) ~[Cobblemon-fabric-1.4.1+1.20.1.jar:?]
at org.graalvm.polyglot.impl.AbstractPolyglotImpl.setConstructors(AbstractPolyglotImpl.java:271) ~[Cobblemon-fabric-1.4.1+1.20.1.jar:?]
at org.graalvm.polyglot.Engine$1.loadAndValidateProviders(Engine.java:940) ~[Cobblemon-fabric-1.4.1+1.20.1.jar:?]
at org.graalvm.polyglot.Engine$1.run(Engine.java:900) ~[Cobblemon-fabric-1.4.1+1.20.1.jar:?]
at org.graalvm.polyglot.Engine$1.run(Engine.java:894) ~[Cobblemon-fabric-1.4.1+1.20.1.jar:?]
at java.security.AccessController.doPrivileged(AccessController.java:319) ~[?:?]
at org.graalvm.polyglot.Engine.initEngineImpl(Engine.java:894) ~[Cobblemon-fabric-1.4.1+1.20.1.jar:?]
at org.graalvm.polyglot.Engine$ImplHolder.(Engine.java:139) ~[Cobblemon-fabric-1.4.1+1.20.1.jar:?]
at org.graalvm.polyglot.Engine.getImpl(Engine.java:363) ~[Cobblemon-fabric-1.4.1+1.20.1.jar:?]
at jdk.internal.reflect.DirectMethodHandleAccessor.invoke(DirectMethodHandleAccessor.java:103) ~[?:?]
at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:580) ~[?:?]
at org.graalvm.polyglot.io.IOHelper.initImpl(IOHelper.java:192) ~[Cobblemon-fabric-1.4.1+1.20.1.jar:?]
at org.graalvm.polyglot.io.IOHelper.(IOHelper.java:186) ~[Cobblemon-fabric-1.4.1+1.20.1.jar:?]
... 5 more

First Previous Next
Patreon Official Subreddit Series Wiki Royal Road
Dragon’s Heart Tower, Level 23, Residence 30, Ilunor and Thalmin’s Bedroom. Local Time: 00:10 Hours.
Ilunor
Anger was not an unknown color to the lupinor’s palette of expressions.
In fact, most of what I’d known of the man had been a mix of anger, frustration, with a healthy dose of aggression mixed in when the odd shouting match erupted.
Yet despite that, never had I known what true anger looked like until now.
Never once was I privy to this particular side of the lupinor.
And perhaps, it should have stayed that way. Not for my own sakes, but for the sake of the man I’d hazard to call an acquaintance in any other instance, but in the wake of recent events… had become something of a necessary ally within exterminating circumstances.
“Thalmin?” I spoke softly, taking a few tentative steps towards the man who sat there, gazing pensively out the bedroom’s main window. “Is there something you wish to speak about?”
“Now’s not the best time for your nightly stories, Ilunor.” The man grumbled back, his tone carrying with it that same timbre of annoyance, but hiding beneath it a heavy and palpable burden.
“No, no. I wasn’t about to regale you with another one of my many tales.” I stood there proudly, if only to uphold that facade that if it were to fall, would’ve caused me a great degree of personal abashedness.
I didn’t want to admit what I was doing.
Because it felt… abnormal, almost alien, to offer up genuine empathy that wasn’t merely empty platitudes or a rehearsed and well choreographed speech.
It felt like I was offering as much of myself up, as the lupinor was.
And I didn’t like that feeling.
Yet despite that, something within me urged me to continue.
“So what is it then? Go on, and stop beating around the bush.” The lupinor urged with another growl, an act that felt more defensive than typical posturing compared to our usual banter.
“I… merely wished to inquire as to your well being.” I finally managed those words out, all but allowing them to emerge with any degree of the associated expectant decorum.
This finally seemed to garner some form of a response within the lupinor, as he raised a brow at me quizzically, as if second-guessing exactly what he was hearing.
“Did Emma put you up to this?” He asked sternly. “Because if she did, then tell her I appreciate her trying to tame your noble smugness, but that I don’t need anyone to dig into my battles.”
“I find it somewhat telling that you would even consider Emma as being the impetus behind this earnest intent to express my…” I paused, taking a moment to cycle through my breaths. “... genuine concerns. I am just as capable of empathy, despite any allusions to the contrary.”
That response didn’t seem to make a dent on the lupinor’s otherwise stalwart and monolithic posture.
A stare down quickly ensued, if only for a few moments, as his otherwise stoic features and that unyielding gaze soon finally cracked, if only slightly, with a well timed sigh. “I am fine, Ilunor. I just simply need a moment to recollect my thoughts.” A pause soon followed, but not enough that it granted me the ability to respond just yet. “I assume you haven’t been on the precipice of death before, have you?” He added, almost out of nowhere, baffling me with exactly where this conversation could be headed.
“If you count the curse placed upon me by Mal’tory and the near-death experience there, then yes. Yes I have been on the precipice of death before, Prince Thalmin.” I replied a-matter-of-factly.
“Allow me to rephrase.” The lupinor responded, shifting his entire body, bearing his gaze down on me. “Prior to Mal’tory. Have you or have you not been on the verge of death? Have you known with nearly absolute certainty that the breaths you’re currently taking could be your last? That the thoughts currently running through your mind, may end as abruptly the cessation of a yantor’s croak? That your legacy, following that one moment in time, was to end with your entire life amounting only to your actions up to that point?”
I felt a genuine pang of nausea taking over, as my heart sank, and my whole body shivered in place.
“Perhaps not… perhaps, the incident with Mal’tory, was the closest I have truly been as you described, Thalmin.” I acknowledged slowly.
“Then allow me to give you some advice, Ilunor.” The lupinor somehow began shifting the momentum of the conversation towards me instead. As he wrestled the reins of this particular subject matter with a surprising degree of deftness and ease. “The sorts of emotions we feel following such events… they do not get better, at least not immediately. Over time, and given enough distractions, they will. Especially in the midst of those who have experienced similar trials and survived to tell the tale. What I am experiencing, and what you are no doubt also experiencing, will subside. That’s all there is to it.” He paused for a moment, getting up from his seat, striding effortlessly towards the bathroom.
“I… I do not see how this relevant to-”
“The only reason you’re approaching me, and addressing this subject matter right now is because you’re finally feeling something other than your typical daily drives to ceaselessly vapid talking points. Am I wrong?” Thalmin spoke bluntly, more or less seeing through my facade, or lack thereof at this point.
“You’re basing your assumptions on a picture of an unfinished mosaic, Prince Thalmin.” I shot back indignantly.
“And exactly what parts am I missing?” He inquired with a quirk of his brow.
I elected to answer that only with silence.
“I’m only advising you out of practicality, Ilunor.” The lupinor finally filled in the silence with a sigh. “I would rather have you be productive, and a contributing member of this group. To accomplish this, I wish to impart on you the same lessons I have faced in hardships you probably have never experienced. Which means addressing certain obstacles I foresee before they can manifest into something truly harmful; to you, and the rest of the group by extension. With that, I bid you goodnight.”
With a soft clack of the door, I was once more left alone with my thoughts.
As I began to question just why I’d even felt that urge to address Thalmin in the first place.
And whether or not… it was truly a result of that rare sense of empathy, through not just shared experiences, but shared adversity.
In a way, this was perhaps the first time I truly connected with the man on any level. As macabre as it might seem, this most visceral of similar experiences served to bridge a gap that I never once thought would need bridging.
And I didn’t know what to, or how to, feel about that.

Dragon’s Heart Tower, Level 23, Residence 30, Emma and Thacea’s Bedroom. Local Time: 00:20 Hours.
Emma
Despite the constant distractions, and despite having disengaged from the outside world entirely by hopping back into my tent… I couldn’t help but to feel stuck in the perpetual, insidious, cycle of anxious thought.
“It’s not possible, right?” I began, my heart thumping beneath my chest, and my expression stuck in a perpetual state of worry. “He couldn’t have made it. Thacea, I’ve mentioned to you time and time again how he got hit point-blank with that explosion. An explosion that, mind you, blew up an entire warehouse! An explosion that literally caused the deaths of everyone else, even other magic users, and blew up a magical carriage for crying out loud!” I paused, sitting down on the fold-out chair and burying my face deep within both of my palms. “He even got hit with a dragon’s tail. A fricking dragon’s tail, Thacea. I showed you the footage, didn’t I?”
“Indeed you have, Emma.” Thacea acknowledged, her voice crystal clear, despite being on the other side of the tent’s lining; all thanks to the active-audio speakers strategically embedded into both the inside and the outside of the tent itself. “And indeed, if it were perhaps anyone lesser, I could easily see death as an assurance. However-” The princess paused, shifting her chair closer towards the tent. “-the position of a black robe isn’t garnered through political acumen alone. There is a certain prerequisite of magical competence, one which is vetted through the privy council, and at times achieved through a challenge of magical supremacy. Whilst not truly living up to their title of planar mage, given how the bar to entry for such a title has been diluted over the years, the black robe position is still very much one that carries with it a truly staggering prerequisite of both magical potential and magical acumen.”The avinor pressed down a stray feather on her shoulder, breaking the monologue as if to break the tension of the whole situation. “It stands to reason then, Emma, that the ill-fated Lord Lartia is leagues beneath Professor Mal’tory. His death through your device during the warehouse incident was certainly assured. But Professor Mal’tory? It’s certainly possible, especially with the aid of the Academy’s healers, that there could be a chance for recovery. Though, it remains to be seen just what kind of a state he returns in.”
That latter statement was one that caught my attention the most, prompting me to zero in on it. “You mean, like… he could come back as a brain-in-a-jar or something?”
Silence was my only answer for a few seconds, as I could only imagine Thacea’s expressions of shock and perhaps utter confusion on the other side of the tent.
“That… is a modality of living that is abhorrent and borderline taboo, Emma. This is especially true when there are a plethora of other life-extension or soul-preservation options available.” Thacea reasoned, before shifting gears somewhat. “Is… is that a common practice in your realm?”
“No, no. It’s… I mean… I was just spitballing ideas. I guess what I meant to ask was this — exactly what sort of state is he going to return in? Are we talking about Sorecar’s soulbound suit of armor? Or are we talking about a complete magical recovery like with the Apprentice and her crush injuries?” I offered, prompting Thacea to quickly move on after that point.
“I am unsure, Emma.” The princess acknowledged with a heavy breath. “The extent of his injuries remain difficult to ascertain given the lack of manastreams in your manaless records. But regardless of the extent of said injuries, I am certain that his return will not be one of a spell-bound husk. With all due respect to Professor Sorecar and his current disposition, it is unlikely, barring some political maneuver within the privy council, that a spell-bound be allowed to maintain their black-robe position. Thus, considering there has been no news of Professor Mal’tory’s untimely termination, I believe the answer may prove to be closer to a recovery of the body and soul.”
That response prompted me to once again let out a long and drawn out sigh. Exhaustion threatened to consume me, if not for the sharp pang of stress, anxiety, and utter apprehension that prevented me from thinking straight.
“Emma.” Thacea continued, her tone softer, and more personable now; as if switching gears upon realizing just what sort of a state I now found myself in. “Whatever happens tomorrow, I am certain that there is nothing to fear from Professor Mal’tory’s class. I doubt any harm will come to you, or anyone else in the group for that matter, so long as we play our part and carry on our duties.”
Those words… quelled some of my concerns. Though not really.
It wasn’t like I was afraid of the class or what could happen.
If anything, I was confident in the armor’s ability to deal with him if push comes to shove.
Moreover, if anything were to happen, I was quicker on the draw than the man was able to restrain me.
Especially with the two weapons he’s yet to see.
No, the concern wasn’t with any solid overt threats.
It was with the unknown.
Of exactly what would go down tomorrow, given there was a high likelihood he’d be back in the flesh.
I literally flopped to the ground as a result of all of these thoughts assaulting me at once, generating a solid thunk in the process, one that was probably far less dramatic than what it would’ve otherwise sounded like if I were in full armor.
“Emma?” Thacea offered once more, her tone betraying her growing curiosity as to what was going on inside the tent. “Are you… quite alright in there?”
“Yeah, I’m alright.” I offered, simply taking a moment to just lay there, staring blankly at the canvas-like roofing above me with HUD-less eyes, and data-less vision. Offline mode was sometimes as jarring as it was necessary, especially after way too much time in the suit. “I’m just laying down.” I added lazily.
A part of me wanted to grab my tablet, or my glasses, just to see Thacea’s facial features throughout the conversation.
The optical sensors and cameras lining the exterior of the tent gave me and the EVI a complete and unimpeded view of the world outside the tent after all.
But I just couldn’t.
“So… about Thalmin.” I began, shifting away at least slightly from the Mal’tory situation. “I don’t suppose we can report this to some higher authority or a disciplinary board or something? Like, I’m guessing this could be the same issue with Ilunor when he was under Mal’tory’s employment right?”
“Indeed.” Thacea acknowledged. “The disciplinary board is, even in typical circumstances, yet another tool in the grander game. It acts less as a force of punitive justice, and more so as a mechanism to be triggered upon your opponents.”
“But we have the evidence, don’t we?” I offered. “Thalmin’s memories, just have him submit that as evidence. He doesn’t have the same issues Ilunor did with his brain curse thing-“
“I’m afraid the reality of the situation isn’t that simple, Emma.” Thacea interjected. “There is no guarantee that the disciplinary board will be conservative in their approach; thus no guarantee they wouldn’t take cumulative memories outright for their own ends. I believe you understand why this would be an unacceptable risk for our group to take.”
“Yeah… I can see it.” I acknowledged with a heavy sigh. “It’d mean risking revealing our deals and plans with the library, our campaign against Mal’tory, and anything and everything in between.”
“This is without even mentioning the negative repercussions incurred upon Thalmin himself. As his words of active sedition against the Nexus would be recorded and documented for posterity, something which would be an intolerable risk to his own security and standing within the greater game.”
“Right.”
“In any other circumstance, perhaps the risk may in fact outweigh the opportunity cost, but in our case Emma… it most certainly does not.”
“And what if we ask them not to scan his brain? Like, just asking them to perform a good old-fashioned investigation?”
“Then they may very well escalate matters into requiring some form of scrying or divination, Emma.” Thacea responded a-matter-of-factly.
“Right… so using the disciplinary system in any capacity to deal with situations like this is a no-go then.”
“Correct, Emma.” Thacea acknowledged with yet another nod. “In any case.” She continued, as it was clear she was now trying to shift the conversation away from Mal’tory, and towards something else.
That something, turned out to be a series of three distinct beeps, courtesy of the M-REDD on my side of the tent.
“I believe it is time you finally ate something that isn’t-”
“-animal feed?” I interjected snarkily.
“I was not intending to use such a deprecating descriptor Emma-”
“Nono, I was just making one of my jokes, is all..” I responded tactfully, before getting up and off of the cold hard canvas floors, my undersuit sticking to its surface for a bit.
Opening up the M-REDD, I was greeted to a sight that was, perhaps for the first time… at least not a complete disaster.
But then again, the same could be argued for the disaster that was the foot long brioche-turned-crouton.
So looks could be deceiving.
Even when the foodstuffs in question looked eerily similar, if a bit discolored, from how it was outside the tent.
Which meant there was only one way to truly determine its qualities.
Consumption.
But first…
I turned my eyes towards one of the many cameras, the eye tracking more or less figuring out what I meant immediately.
“External audio temporarily disabled, Cadet Booker. Your orders?”
“I’m assuming you’ve done the appropriate food-safety tests as per HARPP protocols?”
“That is correct, Cadet Booker. All parameters are within acceptable limits. The system would have alerted you to potential risk factors if any were detected.”
“I know, I know, I’m just double-checking, EVI.”
“Acknowledged.”
“Alright, external audio on.” I ordered, my gaze finally unlocking from the cameras as I turned my full attention to the contents within the M-REDD’s airlock.
“Is everything to your liking, Emma?” Thacea asked warily, prompting me to reply as I took a closer inspection at everything within the platter of food.
“I haven’t tried it yet, I’m just… observing how much it’s changed first.”
The platter was a simple affair, just a piece of flatbread, the same one Ilunor had used earlier in his… ‘demonstration’, plated alongside a few slices of fresh fruits, vegetables, and a dip that reminded me of a cross between hummus and whipping cream.
I’d been reluctant to put the latter into the M-REDD, given how foods with greater density tended to take more time to desaturate. However, because of its airy, almost whipping-cream-like consistency, I thought it probably wouldn’t hurt to try.
Though, amongst the rest of the food that at least retained their shape, the fluffiness and airiness that had been observed before seemed to have suffered at the hands of the M-REDD, rendering its fluffy peaks into sad little puddles of semi-fluid, semi-cream like consistency.
“Alright so, bread looks the same, fruits look as if they’ve all browned due to oxidation or something… is that normal?”
“If it’s browned in any capacity, then we would consider it completely unfit for consumption. However, I have heard that peasants do consider browned fruits to be safe to eat, Emma.” Thacea answered, before quickly correcting herself. “Not that I am implying that you should be subjecting yourself to fruits of sub-par quality-“
“No, wait.” I interrupted, circumventing and thereby halting the princess’ apologies. “I have a theory. You said before how the food that’s delivered to the dorms are like… magically enchanted to retain their freshness, right?”
“That is correct.”
“The M-REDD just sucked all of the mana out of it. Is it possible that by doing so, the magic that was keeping it fresh has like-“
“-failed?” Thacea completed my sentence for me, her tone indicating that the hypothesis was piquing her interests as it was my own.
“Yeah.” I acknowledged.
“That is more than assured, Emma.” Thacea answered affirmatively.
“Right. And does… four, five hours exposed to the air sound like the typical time at which fruits like these would begin to brown?”
“That… is not something I am familiar with, Emma.” Thacea acknowledged, in perhaps one of the first instances she’d actively demonstrated a hole in her otherwise encyclopedic knowledge.
“I figure that’s the sort of stuff you’re probably not exposed to much within the castle halls right?” I offered inquisitively.
Thacea paused, as if pondering her answer, her features scrunching up in irritation on the monitor. “Indeed. If you so wish, this is a matter that might best be answered by those who you may consider to be more worldly in such affairs.”
It was at that point that I realized I’d slipped up, as sarcasm of any sort from Thacea was definitely not normal.
“That came out wrong, I admit.” I acknowledged with an apologetic nod. “I was just making an observation, Thacea. I wasn’t implying anything by it. I’m sorry if I caused offense.”
The princess paused for a moment, before acknowledging that little backtrack with a nod of her own, following it up with a light chuckle. “The audacity of you, a citizen-commoner, to make a slight of such audaciousness, will be duly noted.”
“Oh, so we’re keeping a list now I see?”
“Perhaps, or perhaps not, but in any case… I assume this conversation hasn’t been an attempt to delay the inevitable?” The princess quickly added that last remark, in a way that felt almost sarcastic, like an attempt at my own snarky sense of humor.
“Of course not.” I replied confidently, before feeling that bout of confidence fade upon setting my sights on the platter of de-mana-ified food. “Well, hey, there’s only one way to see if this works.” I sighed, holding one of the browned slices of apples close to my mouth.
… nomf…
To say that I was mildly surprised, would’ve been half correct.
To say that I was over the moon, and practically jumping for joy, would also be half correct.
In a sense, I wanted to believe the experience of eating what was in effect a half-crispy, half-mushy browned and uncomfortably seasoned apple was a welcome departure from the nutripaste tubes, and would’ve been enough to send me over the edge of culinary bliss.
But it didn’t.
If anything, it was colored by a mild disappointment, only marginally improved by a texture that wasn’t offensive, but tolerable.
“Well?” Thacea urged, prompting me to reply as frankly as I did earlier when it came to our previous conversation topic.
“It’s okay.” I responded half-heartedly. “It tastes… more or less exactly like how it looks. Sweet, tangy, weirdly like a pear with hints of like… guava? Like, the texture definitely has that weird grainy stringy guava thing going on, except with the sliminess of an apple that’s been left out a bit too long. It’s something? But…” I paused, realizing the implications of this… “At least we can confirm that I won’t have to rely solely on the aquaponics algae farm.”
“Anything that can save you from such a fate, even if marginal, is still a cause worthy of celebrating and striving for.”
I began going through the rest of the fruits in rapid succession, each and every one of them more or less matched the old fruit left in the fridge for too long texture and flavor. This left the vegetables, which, while firm, tasted beyond overly seasoned. Dipping them in the hummus-like sauce didn't help matters at all — a fact that I conveyed towards Thacea with vivid detail.
One after another, every item on the dish was absolutely demolished, until I was finally left with the final boss as it were — the flatbread.
My last match with a mana desatured baked good had left a dry and crumbly taste in my mouth.
This flatbread… was bound to do the same.
I took a moment to compose myself, before quickly, and nervously, I took a small bite out of one of its corners.
The flavor hit me first.
A slightly charcoal-y, smoky flavor masked with some salty herbs baked into it.
Next, was the texture, which… wasn’t bad.
It reminded me of a naan bread, that like the rest of the food, tasted like it’d been left too long on the counter. It wasn’t crouton-levels of crispy though, moreso… overly chewy and dry.
It was as if there was something missing from it.
“You know what.” I finally continued. “I think I’m going to pay the kitchen staff a visit some day. Are the kitchens off-limits to students or do we need to schedule something to visit them or anything?”
“I believe we can simply walk in, Emma. Moreover, it’s a distressingly common sight to see students of lower noble heritage marching into such places to make their complaints heard, or their special requests followed-through.”
“Right.” I nodded. “We’ll do that, after this week is done. Or… maybe after this month is done. There’s just too much to deal with right now.”
“Starting first and foremost with sleep, followed by tomorrow’s classes-”
“-and the spy mission to the man’s office, yup. Him being alive might actually be a good thing, since it’ll allow us to send an infil-drone to his office by following him there. And with my new set of drones printing as we speak—” I paused, turning towards one half of the mechanical printer currently operating at max capacity. “—we should be able to resume the library’s mission, see if there’s any evidence of his involvement with the Auris Ping - Thalmin situation, and get other answers in the meantime too.”

The Grand Concourse of Learning. The Hall of Light. Local Time: 08:55 Hours.
Emma
The irony of the lecture hall’s name wasn’t lost on me, or anyone else for that matter. Throughout breakfast, it seemed to be the butt of all jokes amidst the typical senseless topics they otherwise covered. I couldn’t count the number of laughs, cackles, and giggles that all stemmed from the sheer disconnect between the black robe professor teaching exclusively in the hall of light.
However, despite that laughter, and despite the cheery back and forths between the rest of the group, I couldn’t help but to feel nervous at what was to come.
Especially as the man had once again been absent from the morning breakfast.
His seat remained eerily empty, even as the clock marched forwards towards class.
There was no sign of him anywhere, not even as we made our way towards the hall proper, as we were introduced to a room that immediately sent me back to the man’s dark and dreary office.
The Victorian aesthetic was certainly back, as there was nothing worthy of the room’s namesake seen anywhere.
The various desks were made up of that same extra-dark oak that comprised up the man’s desk back in his office. The chairs behind them were the only things that truly broke up the monotony of black, dark brown, and even darker brown, as their plush leather upholstery was colored in a series of forest greens, striking oranges, and bright reds.
Indeed, the longer I stayed here, the more claustrophobic I got, as I felt last night’s nightmare creeping up on me again, and the unmistakable feeling of being pinned down in the earth with my arms stuck to my sides surging to the forefront of my memory.
That was the one move that actually worked to counter me and my armor.
And it stuck with me.
I didn’t say anything else as Qiv began shepherding any stragglers towards their seats.
I could only watch as the clock began slowly, but surely, ticking up towards the start of class proper.
As five minutes soon became, four, three, two, and finally… one.
Nine o’-clock was announced with a series of melodic dings, akin to a grandfather clock counting each and every hour up with its deep and resonant chimes.
I counted each one, my breath hitching up with every passing ding.Ding…ding…ding…ding.
Until finally, at the ninth ding, the door closest to the front of the room’s lectern swung open, revealing a dark and impenetrable chasm beyond it.
I held my breath, and in that moment, the whole room was suddenly bathed in a glowing pearlescent white.
ALERT: LOCALIZED SURGE OF MANA-RADIATION DETECTED, 775% ABOVE BACKGROUND RADIATION LEVELS
This was quickly followed up by a series of harsh metallic footsteps, and a pair of softer footfalls, as well as a voice that resonated throughout the room.
“Good morning, first years!”
First Previous Next
​
(Author’s Note: Ilunor displays a surprising burst of empathy as he tries to connect with Thalmin, but finds that his prior interactions with the lupinor has soured things somewhat. Things may take time on that front. Meanwhile, Emma tries to relax in her tent outside of her armor, while struggling with the anxiety of the great unknown that is tomorrow's classes. Thacea's conversations, and reassurances do alleviate these anxieties somewhat. And the results from the MREDD experiments likewise provide some hope on the gastronomic future of Emma's existence here in the Nexus. To round it all off, we finally enter classes, and are met face to face with the return of a familiar face! I hope you guys enjoy! :D The next Two Chapters are already up on Patreon if you guys are interested in getting early access to future chapters!)
[If you guys want to help support me and these stories, here's my ko-fi ! And my Patreon for early chapter releases (Chapter 79 and Chapter 80 of this story is already out on there!)]

TLDR: Using a mix of Kegs and Garden Pots allows for more Kegs and Pots per Shed than if you were to dedicate 1 Shed for each
Using the wiki as a reference as for the optimal amount of Kegs/Pots per Shed in the 1.6 update, I felt that there was a way to better utilize the space provided since I couldn't find it in the wiki nor reddit. These design tries to minimize the amount of tiles wasted by needing walkable tiles. Balanced Variants are done to minimize surplus of planted crops

	Garden Pots	Kegs	Walkable Tiles
Pot Shed (x1) + Keg Shed (x1)	167	137	107
I Hybrid (x2)	180	154	74
Spiral Hybrid (x2)	174	154	80
Balanced I Hybrid (x2)	164	164	80
Balanced Spiral Hybrid (x2)	162	162	84

I Hybrid
Spiral Hybrid
Balanced I Hybrid
Balanced Spiral Hybrid
Pros: More space for Kegs and crops as compared to dedicated sheds (This also assumes that you do not wish to put Kegs in the Town as Kegs on the farm would be considered inefficient)
Cons: Requires more switching between Iridium Scythe and Fruit
Preserve Jars were considered but they ran into the same problem as Kegs needing a lot of walkable tiles, so that idea was abandoned as it would be more efficient to do dedicated Sheds.

May the Fourth be with you! It’s Star Wars Day!
Star Wars Day is an informal commemorative day observed annually on May 4 to celebrate the Star Wars media franchise created by filmmaker George Lucas.
Celebrate Star Wars Day with these fine subreddits:

• StarWars - Unofficial community for Star Wars centred around a film series that began with the eponymous 1977 movie. Don’t miss their extensive Wiki which features far far more subs than I show below!
• StarWarsLeaks - Production Leaks, Spoilers, Rumours & News from future Star Wars media.
• starwarsspeculation - Star Wars Speculation is a community dedicated to speculative discussion of the Star Wars franchise.
• StarWarsCantina - A place to discuss Star Wars with a huge emphasis on positivity. Criticism of any content is allowed, but do so respectfully, please.
• StarWarsLore - A sub for overanalysing and gushing like a Jedi about every little piece of knowledge in Star Wars!
• mawinstallation - A subreddit for for in-depth Star Wars discussion.

The “Unexpected” family of subreddits also offer:

• unexpectedstarwars - Post all kinds of unexpected star wars stuff here.
• UnexpectedMando - Sadly, this sub never even got off the ground.

Gamers and hobbyists might like:

• starwarscollecting - Home to Star Wars collecting news, toys, merchandise, discussion, pics, etc.
• lightsabers - A sub for hobbyists who like adding fine additions to their collections and sometimes duelling.
• kotor - A subreddit for fans of the Knights of the Old Republic games, an RPG series by BioWare and Obsidian Entertainment.
• FallenOrder - Reddit's home for all things related to the games Star Wars Jedi, and its sequels by Respawn Entertainment.
• FallenOrderFashion - A place to post your custom lightsaber and/or skin combo!
• swrpg - A community for friendly discussion about Fantasy Flight Games' (now Edge's) Star Wars RPG.

For memes and circlejerks, we have:

• starwarsmemes - The home for ALL Star Wars memes from the Prequels, Original Trilogy, Sequels, Legends, Clone Wars, or anything else Star Wars related.
• PrequelMemes - Memes of the Star Wars Prequels and home to a Reddit post that went down in history with around 5,500 awards. That post looks empty without them :/
• SequelMemes - Memes of the Star Wars Sequels.
• OTMemes: Your best memes from the Original Trilogy of Star Wars.
• starwarsrebelsmemes - A subreddit devoted to Star Wars Rebels memes.
• LegendsMemes - Where non-canon Star Wars stuff gets meme'd.
• SWCircleJerk - The only place to discuss the "Rouge Squadron" movie. It's also where Jar Jar went into hiding after the prequels.
• StarWarsCirclejerk - A sequel trilogy circlejerk subreddit.
• TrueSGL - True Scholars of George Lucas; the Star Wars equivalent to the Elder Scrolls subreddit TrueSTL
• KOTORmemes - All the dankest memes from the Star Wars: Knights Of The Old Republic era (like the BioWare games!)

And because Reddit will Reddit:

• saltierthankrait - Subreddit for criticising toxic Disney Star Wars Fans…
• saltierthancrait - A place for Star Wars fans to engage in conversations about the current state of the franchise… Because Reddit needs two subreddits for this.

If you use Reddit Search and filter by Communities, you’ll see there are many other subreddits out there to celebrate this auspicious day.
May the Fourth be with you!
And don’t forget: This is the way.
Finally, let me add the greatest short fan film ever made to this list. It might be old (in internet terms) but it still holds up!