u/Belzebutt

Exactly 6 years and 363 days ago I got a gig as a fighter pilot for this CMDR who shall remain nameless, for fear of repercussions. He hired a few of us because he didn't seem sure which one of us was going to work out, so right away it was kind of a toxic and competitive atmosphere. I don't know about you guys, but I always imagined being part of a rag tag crew where we would all become best friends by sharing our adventures, form strong bonds etc. But it wasn't like that. The bounty hunting was honest work and it paid well, but our CMDR was too greedy and wanted to try something else.

He went mining on his own and left us to twiddle our thumbs while promising to pay us a measly retainer. You'd think this sounds like a good deal, right? Wrong. There's such a thing as opportunity cost. While he was out making credits and a name for himself, the rest of us stayed in limbo, not really knowing what to do. My (ex) wife kept telling me to get my own ship, or pursue an education, but I kept thinking we'd be back to bounty hunting and I'd quickly make some credits. What we earned was juuuust enough to keep us from leaving.

At one point he said he was going off exploring to Beagle Point and we were all like "awesome, just need time to pack" but mfr left without us. Studying exobiology was on my to-do list and I thought I was going to get an amazing opportunity but no... we got left behind. He ended up making so many credits that he was able to buy a fleet carrier, while I lost half my credits in the divorce. He kept walking past us on the fleet carrier, not making eye contact, I'm not sure if he ever recognized us.

Now get this, after 7 years of service, our CMDR was buying another ship (Anaconda I think, I don't know why, it's an old POS but whatever) once again outfitted for combat. We were all excited to finally go back to how it was in the early bounty hunting days, start over. We bought him an anniversary cake and were getting ready to have a little celebration, and when he came into the crew lounge yesterday we all thought he also remembered, and that made it so much worse... He actually came to fire us and said something about being freeloaders, started complaining about the retainer cost etc.

I don't know what to do... I guess if we ever get our retainer pay maybe I can buy my own ship, but nothing will make up for those 7 years, the lost relationships, the gray hair... Sorry guys. I'm gonna pour myself another glass of Kongga Ale.

I initially bought a GTLite Pro because I wanted it to be easily stowable and I wanted to try something cheap at first, but now I'm using it quite often and I'd like something permanent. I really like the design of the black Playseat Trophy a lot, how much does the stiffness improve vs the GTLite Pro? I don't find the GTLite bad (I came from a Wheelstand Pro) but I do find myself tightening the knob once a day. Entry is pretty easy and I use the shifter mount as a keyboard tray, which the Trophy doesn't come with. My wheel is RS50.

Currently it's $799 in Canada and according to a price tracker I should expect it to go lower soon, it was actually more expensive recently and the last major sale was fall 2024. Does it make sense to buy at current price?

I initially bought a GTLite Pro because I wanted it to be easily stowable and I wanted to try something cheap at first, but now I'm using it quite often and I'd like something permanent. I really like the design of the black Playseat Trophy a lot, how much does the stiffness improve vs the GTLite Pro? I don't find the GTLite bad (I came from a Wheelstand Pro) but I do find myself tightening the knob once a day. Entry is pretty easy and I use the shifter mount as a keyboard tray, which the Trophy doesn't come with. My wheel is RS50.

Currently it's $799 in Canada and according to a price tracker I should expect it to go lower soon, it was actually more expensive recently and the last major sale was fall 2024. Does it make sense to buy at current price?

I’ve been planning to buy a Dream Air SLAM as my “final” headset, but I’m actually quite happy with my BSB2 since I got Studioform and don’t feel in a rush. I know the Dream Air has noticeably higher resolution and DFR, so my main concerns are:
- Shipping time: how long will it take to arrive if I order today?
- Quality: will I get a used returned unit, will it have a dead pixel? People report getting used units as replacements and this points to a lack of “new” units and QA
- Design: the placement of the splitter at the back of the neck is universally hated, some plastic bits are cheap and fragile, it’s not even clear if the face interface is going to be the new one or old one… am I better off waiting for a revised version? Or will I be waiting a really long time and these things are all fixable? (I know VRflightSimGuy has a fix for the splitter)

As of 0.8 I can't launch the MX-5 anymore by putting it in Neutral, revving high and shifting to 1st. The launches are now super slow and gentle as if you actually own the car. Since Daily Racing doesn't work I tried a single player race and all the AI opponents seem to have the same problem. I don't have an H shifter so I can't try it, I'm using an RS50 with paddles.

Does this require a different technique now or is it just broken?

Are the servers still all running the old version?

Just letting people know before they go in to hand in their data in Open, you're doing so at your own risk. As with any CG or engineer, people in the system are already getting interdicted and blown up.

Just putting this as an FYI to explorers who might think that being far from the bubble mean far from trouble.

https://preview.redd.it/t2x72boabfah1.png?width=1440&format=png&auto=webp&s=548205e691d8f86c8ae3c80247aea5186b4a811e

Is this the most hype for a new ship we've had so far since they started releasing new ships? I remember the Mandalay hype being quite high, the Caspian too, but I feel like this is even more? Or is it just me?

Are people more pumped about Operations or the ship? I suspect they're catering to different players, I wonder which group is bigger. It seems to me like the single largest contingent of players is explorers, and I felt like the hype for the exploration ships was the highest. Tell me if I'm wrong, help me kill time while I hit refresh on the ARX store.

All the PX13 I see for sale in Canada are AMD integrated graphics. But the reviews from a year ago raving about it all spec the RTX 4060 or 4050.

The only comparable thing I see is the Flow ZX13, it has integrated but comparable performance AMD GPU, but then you have to deal with the form factor.

Is the PX13 with Nvidia GPU on its way out or something?

I use a BSB2 in a room setup where I have a racing seat on one side of the room. The two Base Stations 1.0 are about 6.1 m apart and I did get the warning message about this being a potential issue, not much I can do about it because there’s no way to plug them in if they’re closer and it will be messy. When racing, I have one of them in front of me and a bit to the right and near the ceiling, and the other one is on my left at the other side of the room, also near the ceiling. When the headset faces the base station in front of me, it’s all good. It’s also able to pick up the one on the left, so when I turn my head left the positioning is great. When I turn my head right by 90 degrees, I notice there’s a “drift” where my viewpoint/position kind of floats down and away, it’s kind of annoying. This happens when the headset only tracks the one Base station that’s in front of me, at that time it’s seeing the single base station at an angle (because it’s angled towards the other base station, not towards me), and only with the top right sensors. It seems like the tracking with just those top right sensors becomes a bit iffy. If I had a 3rd base station to my right and behind me, it would be perfect, but you can’t add 3 Base stations 1.0.

Could I expect tracking with two Base Stations 2.0 to be better in this situation? I see that the fronts of these stations is curved, does it mean they give better positioning from wider angles? Do they work noticeably better from further away?

We all know there's a ton of AI slop channels posing as real science these days, and I've had a bunch of them suggested to me late at night to sleep to. However, and hear me out here, the one called "The Sleeping Physicist" (NOT "The Sleepy Physicist", that one is definitely slop) has me wondering if it's a real actual legit person who loves physics doing it and mainly just using AI for voice and graphics.

First: yes, I'm subscribed to Anton, PBS Space Time, Cool Worlds and others, but when I watch them I don't want to fall asleep, I actually want to hear it to the end and pay attention. This is for an entirely different purpose. But still, I heard enough of this particular channel before falling asleep that I think it's actually good. It doesn't have the usual tell-tales of AI slop like a lot of repetition, topics that don't tie together etc. The scripts for these actually have a good structure, they're cohesive, do not mispronounce numbers or units etc. I genuinely have a hard time finding any flaws.

The one about the strong force was actually the best explainer I've ever heard on the topic, it painted an intuitive picture of the gluon field etc. like I've never heard before. I went back to the PBS videos on chromodynamics since and they definitely harder to follow for a non-scientist, and they're much more brief due to obvious and necessary time constraints.

I'd like to know where the scripts for these videos come from, if they're actually taken from somewhere else or if they're original work, and if they're made by someone with real credentials. I'd be interested in someone else's critique of them, and if anyone else actually finds them good.