Sibbo

I recently got interested in the physics behind power plants, and the electrical network as well as heat networks.

There are games about parts of these, like for example nuclear power plants. They simulate them reasonably accurately, and build a game around them.

In Nucleares (on steam) for example, the player has to learn how to balance the various components, to produce as much power as possible without blowing up the reactor. Then they have to replace parts before they accumulate too much wear and break. And finally, the player has to react to various events, such as regulatory restrictions.

I feel like there is a lot of potential in this. Nucleares is a lot of fun, even though its simulation is not super detailed yet, and it is a bit hard to access for a beginner.

Would you be interested in a game that lets you design, build and run your own power plants and power distribution networks? The game would be a bit educational, because it uses and explains real-world concepts. However, ideally it would be accessible for anyone who did some physics classes in high school.

Would you play this kind of a game?

Haben die jetzt gemerkt, dass ihnen die Mitglieder weglaufen, und sie in ein paar Jahrzehnten zumachen können, wenn sie so weitermachen wie bisher? Oder haben die tatsächlich moralisch einen Fortschritt erreicht?

Naja, für die Menschen die in dem sozialen Umfeld gefangen sind, ist das ja eine sehr positive Nachricht. Also kann man ihnen schon mal gratulieren. Gut gemacht, Vatikan.

Are there any good server-based podcast managers out there?

I am particularly interested in these features:

• Follow podcast feeds
• Stream podcasts in the browser
• Remember where I paused across devices
• Also works on mobile via web or app

I was happily using this for a year or so now. Feels fairer than using an ad blocker. But now they apparently want more money out of people. Feels like some sort of internet video apocalypse is happening, where the services become extremely fragmented and expensive, like YouTube, netflix, hbo, Hulu, Disney+ and whatnot. Each wants some 10-20€ out of your pocket.

I guess that means back to ad blockers and piracy...

I must say it is not the best RPG out there, but I feel like it would have earned more. I personally have a lot of fun playing.

While it was not a Cyberpunk-grade overhype, I think it must still have been overhyped. Because if you see it as Skyrim with better graphics, it is pretty much what you'd expect.

Some of the common criticism seems to be intrinsic to the sci-fi genre. In Skyrim, you walk 100 meters and then you find some cave or camp or something that a game designer has placed there manually with some story or meaning behind it. And as a player, you notice that, because most locations in Skyrim feel somehow unique. Even though for example the dungeons have rooms that repeat a lot. Having a designer place them manually with some thought gives them something unique.

In interstellar sci-fi, a dense world like this is simply impossible. Planets are extremely large so filling them manually with content is simply not possible. And using procedural generation makes things feel meaningless. Players notice that fast. So instead, Starfield opted for having a few manually constructed locations that are placed randomly on planets, unfortunately with a lot of repetition. But that is a sound compromise, given the constraints of today's game development technology. The dense worlds that we are used to from other genres simply don't scale up to planetary scale, and as players, we have to get used to that.