u/RealLars_vS

Just finished my 3rd(?) rewatch. The show had bad episodes (shuttle pod 1), great episodes (cogenitor, among others), but what really disappointed me was the last episode.

ENT was the first ST show I watched, so at the
time I didn’t really understand who Riker and Troi were. I figured during this rewatch I’d understand better. But I feel like the creators missed some great opportunities.

Good things:

1. The episode is supposed to emphasize how important Archer and the NX-01 crew were in the creation of the federation. It does that by the dialog between Riker and Troi.
2. Jeffrey Combs came back :D
3. Trip dying and knowing he did it for the greater good was good, but [read on]

Bad things:

1. This should have been a 2-parter at least. Perhaps it was only 1 episode due to budget cuts.
2. The last episode being about helping Shran instead of one final challenge before the signing of the treaty of the Coalition of Planets is a low-ball. The 2 episodes before would have made for a much better finale.
3. Trip dying for only 2 people sucks. He died for Shran, not for Archer.

Compared to the finales of TNG, DS9 and VOY (oof, especially VOY), this was such a disappointment. Then again, I suppose the sudden ending of funding forced the writers to make difficult choices.

Might be a controversial question to ask here, but I want to quit IF. At least for a while. Reasons: I want to see the difference again with ‘normal’ eating, I want to be free of the limitation for a while, I’m not even that good at it as of late (skipping breakfast is easy but not snacking/enjoying drinks with friends after 8 is getting difficult).

So I’m looking for people who have experienced quitting IF. Ironically, this is both the best and worst sub to ask this question. I’m not looking for people to change my mind, I want to do this and might come back to IF later. But I do want to know your experience if you have quit IF at some point.

Players are about to go on a chase, following a sailing ship across a sea. They don't know where the ship will go, and the ship is only out there to avoid the players and their request to the captain. How can I make that fun and engaging?

Finding and following tracks isn't really a thing with ships...

Question is in the title. This is a bit of a sensitive subject, I'm doing my best to phrase it as politically correct as possible. It being a sensitive subject is precisely why I'm writing this post. If I did it wrong, I'm really sorry and I hope people realise there was absolutely no ill intention.

Context: my party is about to enter a land that has been fighting a war for 150 years. This obviously requires many people at the front lines, which is at the west while the rest of the land is fairly safe from attacks.

The problem: Women are almost infinitely more important in the process of making new people (1 woman takes 9 months, while a man doesn't have that limitation). I reeeeally don't want to 'reduce' women to 'baby machines' in this part of the campaign. However, realistically, the men would be recruited for the war, while the women stay behind to ensure there will be new men to recruit for the war.

The underlying problem here is that logic brings me to what I just described, while this being a fantasy setting pretty much also allows me to do whatever I want. I feel like when I include the negative stuff from real life in there, it's a choice.

I'm looking for inspiration to find a solution. Any input is appreciated.

Markarian's Chain, including what is presumably sensor noise

I just got into post-processing my images, but I see a bunch of lines and big spots, obviously coming from my sensor. I did use darks, flats and biases during the process in SiriL, but it still shows up (see image).

One of the theories I have is that I used the wrong calibration frames: for the wide lens instead of the tele-lens. They're marked with '0' and '1', but how do I know which is which?

I finished the game 3 days ago. The last quest, where you see a bunch of machines completely smashing down a bunch of Specters is just awesome to see, and it got me thinking.

Horizon: Zero Dawn was a great game. It was one of a kind that offered unique gameplay, which isn’t common for AAA-games nowadays.

Horizon: Forbidden West was a great iteration on that already great game. The cauldrons have more depth, the machines added are radically new and interesting, and the story is amazing. Many of the icks and bugs (no more ‘inventory full’, Focus Pulse shows grappling points, falling issues were resolved, etc.) were ironed out. But it was also *just* another installment of what we already had in the first game.

For the third game, I really hope the world we play in changes in such a way that we do more *with* machines, instead of against it. Spoiler for the end of game 2: >! Nemesis is supposed to be a powerful [ally edit: enemy], since the Zeniths chose to flee from it instead of solving the problem. The answer will probably be to fight Nemesis with machines, but I’m praying that we’ll see this in the entire game, not just in a few levels at the end. !<

In any case, such a pivot wouldn’t require much in terms of game development. Overriding machines is already a thing. Hunting them can obviously still happen. But I would love seeing Aloy find a way to control Hephaestus and making the game about fighting the enemy with machines.

Tl;dr: How do I make searching for information in a library fun?

Imagine this.

Your players learned the last name of the BBEG. Their mother was a publicly known criminal who was executed a few centuries ago. Since this is no secret, information can be found about her.

They go to a library to see what information they can find about them. They ask the librarian about information, they give it to them.

There was hardly any interesting roleplay. There were no checks, and if there were: I don't want to hide important information behind a check. There wasn't any time pressing (yet), so they technically could have stayed for weeks to dig through all of the library.

I also didn't want to prepare an entire library of book titles to let them actually 'search' for books that could possibly hold useful information.

How do I make this fun???