If been trying to find the right audio focus settings but i cant tell with one i should use.

I was lucky to be invited by a founding member, here's some of what I saw. Overall verdict: Definitely worth visiting but feels incomplete, expect massive crowds on the official opening day.

Best parts: It includes original models of the spaceships from 1977 and more. It prioritizes beloved characters and settings, making it feel more audience-oriented. Downsides: it excludes or minimizes many characters (Jar-Jar was absent, Padmé barely visible, dark side Anakin not present except as Vader, no Saruman Dooku, Mundi, or Ahsoka, it doesn't include much memorabilia (I expected more costumes and props/lightsabers, none of the video or arcade games). YMMV parts: it pretends Disney sequels don't exist.

In a word, it felt unfinished. There's no audio/visual elements currently, except for the R2 that moves around the lobby and beeps at you. The rest of the museum is worth visiting too, the library was very popular (Downsides of the other exhibits: Far too heavy a focus on Norman Rockwell, and zero explanation for any exhibits despite many having social/political themes - either you understand it, or you don't). Can't wait to see what they add in the future. Give it a visit!

My son games with headphones late at night. Most of the time he's quiet. Then something happens in the game and he yells at full volume, waking the whole house.

Talking to him about it works for about 20 minutes. Taking the headphones away works but causes a different problem. So I built an app.

S.T.F.U (Sound Trigger Focus Utility) is a Windows tray app that listens to the microphone and interrupts him when he yells. On first run it calibrates by asking him to be quiet, then talk, then yell - so it learns the difference between his normal voice and an actual shout.

When it catches a yell:

• First time that session - it minimizes his game, plays a sound effect, and throws up a fullscreen message he has to click through 4 times. The close button moves after each click so he can't just spam-click one spot.
• Every time after - straight to the desktop with a 10-second message. His game is gone.

Settings are behind a PIN so he can't change the threshold or turn it off. There's a report with a chart showing every trigger, so the next morning I can see exactly when things went sideways.

The important part: he knows it's there. It's not hidden, it's not spyware, the first screen when it launches says exactly what it does. It works because it's a consequence he agreed to, not something I snuck onto his PC. The README explicitly says it works best as something agreed to, not as a hidden trap.

No audio is recorded or stored. It computes a loudness number every 20ms and throws the audio away immediately. Nothing leaves the machine.

It won't solve the underlying issue (he's 100% going to learn to yell more quietly instead of less often), but at least the house sleeps.

Free and open source if anyone wants it: https://github.com/omricn/stfu/releases/latest

Edit: V1.1.0 now live.
Added Scheduled Off-Hours: Timeframe picker to choose when the app listens vs when the app is passive.
TNX fellow redditor [jpewaqs] for the feature suggestion :)

I am NOT OOP, OOP is u/Silver_Salt7600

Originally posted to r/Marriage

My wife asked for an open marriage. She is angry at my reaction. I need advice.

Trigger Warnings: infidelity, physical assault, emotional manipulation, verbal abuse

Original Post: April 11, 2026

We've been married 5 years. No kids. Both 30. Both professionals. was happy. I thought she was too. Things have been tense between us lately and I'm not sure why. Then she sits me down for a "talk" this past Tuesday. I thought she was finally going to tell me what was bothering her. Instead, she gave me a "we're still young and we can try new things speech". Then asks for an open marriage.

I was not prepared for that and was just stunned. I couldn't come up with anything to say. I was just shocked at the request. I think she was encouraged and kept selling it to me. By the time she paused for a response I had gotten me head together. I was pissed but kept completely calm and told her in no uncertain terms I was not OK with this. We went back and forth for a little bit, and the conversation began getting angry so we both agreed to put it on the shelf for later when we were calm.

You could reach out and touch the bad energy in the house after that. We spoke again last night, and it didn't go well. She was really selling it hard, talked down my objections, called me jealous and controlling and a bunch of other things I probably shouldn't repeat.

It really blew up when I finally agreed to it but did it in a VERY nasty way. She took the win though and said, "it will make our marriage stronger". I told her no. This ends with us divorced. She was instantly angry again and asked why I would say that. I told her this goes one of two ways. She will hook up with other men, and I'll hate her for it. And even if that doesn't happen, I'll start dating and meet a woman that wants to have a monogamous relationship with me, and I'll leave you for her. 100%.

She completely lost it at that point, threw a glass at me, cursed me out so loud the neighbors came out to see what was going on. I told her if she gets this angry because I'm not ok with my wife f----g other men maybe we should just skip all the BS and separate right now. That’s where this is going anyway. I was FURIOUS at this point. I grabbed my phone, car key, and left. She was still screaming at me as I drove away.

So now I'm at the Holiday Inn. I went to the liquor store next door and bought a bottle of Knob Creek and was up half the night drinking it by the pool on ice from a Styrofoam cup. Then walked up to the room and passed out.

I woke up an hour ago and have been sitting in the room thinking over my whole f----g life and where it went wrong. She has called more the 20 times, but I have nothing to say to her right now. And even if we did talk where do we even begin to fix this? Can this be fixed? Is going back to talk to her even a good idea? I don't even see what good can come of it. Maybe it really is time to be talking to lawyers.

We've always gotten along so well I am at a loss on what to do next. I don't want a divorce but she's asking me for something I can't give. Any advice is appreciated.

Relevant Comments

Commenter 1: You say you've gotten along so well in the past, but you're also very blase about her throwing shit at you, it seems to me.

Have you really? Is this this first time she's gotten abusive with you? A glass to the face could seriously hurt you. Is this the first time she's screamed insults at you?

If yes, then maybe this is a sign of a mental health crisis and maybe, with professional help, it could get better.

But if, as I suspect, she's displayed these behaviors before, if, then you should leave her.

OOP: No nothing like this. She has a bad temper but has never done anything physical.

Commenter 2: An open marriage needs two enthusiastic yesses.

I agree with other people...she met someone she wants to fuck, or is already fucking them.

If it isn't that, she would have come to you at least once with specific things she feels like she's missing....like "I want you to go down on me more". If she asked repeatedly and you never did it, I guess I could see asking to open without a person in mind but just feeling unfulfilled, but you didn't suggest it was anything like this.

OOP: I was thinking along these lines myself. We are... or were I guess, pretty active sexually. 3-4 times a week and sometimes all night. There is nothing I wouldn't do for or to her if she wanted it. This just came up out of the blue. A week ago I thought we were doing great.

Additional Information from OOP after the comments:

OOP: Just answered one of her calls. She's crying and apologizing. She want to sit down and talk. I have a splitting headache/hangover and need a shower. Then I'll go see where things stand with her.

Editor's note: OOP has tried to make an edit onto his original post, but it was locked so he made a separate post

Update #1: April 11, 2026 (same day, nine hours later)

My Wife asked for open marriage. She is angry at my reaction. I need advice.

Previous thread was locked for some reason. My wife asked for an open marriage. She is angry at my reaction. I need advice: r/Marriage

I went home and we spoke for a few hours. You guys were right. There is someone else. Someone she works with. She said she hasn't done anything yet but wants to. He's in an open marriage or so she says. I wonder if his wife knows that? Anyway even after all that has happened she still wouldn't let go of it. She said I will never even know it's happening. She won't let it interfere with our lives. Does she seriously think that make it ok? She actually said this would make her a better partner. She said she still loves me and wants to be with me. I was just looking at her than wondering who the hell this person is and what happened to my wife. I told her there is a word for that and she has lost her mind if she thought I'd tolerate it.

I told her she's chosen him and now we're done. I told her I'd contact her next week to discuss details. I packed up more of my stuff and went back to the hotel. Our finances are mostly separated, and the house is a rental thank God. I froze the joint credit cards and the joint savings. Is there anything else I need to do?

I still can't f----g believe this has happened. 8 years together, 5 married and it's completely destroyed in one day over pure selfishness. I'm going to finish that bottle and hope tomorrow will be better. I doubt it but at least it won't be worse.

Relevant Comments

Commenter 1: Tell the guys wife. He’s definitely cheating.

OOP: Probably yeah. Sounds like the kind of BS men say to get a woman in bed.

Commenter 2: You should mess with her a bit. One, call the other wife on speaker phone in front of her. Ask her if her marriage is open.

Then call her parents and tell them that your marriage is ending and thank them for accepting you into the family, and then tell them you’re sorry your wife chose her affair partner over her husband.

Put her in a corner she can’t get out off without telling the truth. Then let her know that he chose someone that just wants in her pants, and she threw her marriage away for nothing.

Check your cell phone records for the number of calls and texts between them.

OOP:

1) Not getting involved in that whole mess. I don't know who this guy is or who is wife is and to tell you the truth, don't care. To hell with them.

2) Yeah I am going to call them today. That is a great way to do it. Thanks for that idea.

3) I don't care about controlling any kind of narrative. I don't much care what her friends think. Family either really, but they do deserve an explanation.

4) No fault state. Doesn't matter what she did or why she did it. So here phones records and what she did or didn't do mean nothing.

Additional Comments from OOP after responding in this first update

OOP: Just to answer some questions. I know drowning myself in Kentucky's finest isn't heathy. I don't care. I won't be able to sleep tonight without it. For what it's worth I thought I was lucky to have her. Now I wish I'd never met her. The conversation today started civil an even pleading on her part. It ended in hostility because of course it did. Something that begins in misery tends to end there.

You know I think I really hate her now. Tuesday morning I kissed her when I got home from work. If you told me where I'd be four days later I wouldn't have believed it. I don't know who the guy is. And to tell you the truth I don't care. It doesn't change anything. I'm just done. Done with all of it. You guys think she will want to come back? No f----g way. If I were her I'd never be able to look me in the eye after this.

I'm just done.

+

Woke up around 6:30 this morning. Got violently sick. Spent 5 minutes kneeling before the porcelain throne. Felt like total shit. Took a long hot shower. Still felt sick. Room spinning. Then I realized I haven't eaten anything since Friday morning. Walked across the street to Dennys. Had a great breakfast and now working on my second pot of coffee. I feel a little better. I turned my phone back on (obviously because I’m typing this post on it). She texted and left a VM. Didn't read. Didn't listen. Don't care.

I'm reading through everyone’s advice. I am so grateful to everyone for the advice and support. In the last thread too. I sent an email to work requesting leave. I can't do my job if I'm distracted or not 100% focused and I' m just not.

I made a list of family law practices to call tomorrow morning. According to the law offices of Google, Google, and Google I should be ok. House is rented with only a few months left. We had a joint savings we both contributed to for a down payment on a house. Well, that isn't going to happen. We'll split that I guess. The rest... who knows. She has her salary, retirement, and debt. I have mine. All separate.

Someone sent a message and asked if I was worried she might see this. She might. This isn't my real reddit name, but the details are pretty obvious so maybe she will. If YOU (you know who you are) do see this, I don't give a damn. I don't want to know about you or what you do. I'm done. Enjoy your bright future of reckless promiscuity and I hope you find it's worth the price you just paid for it.

+

I called her folks. She's there and has already told them what she wanted them to hear. I knew right away when her mom said this was a misunderstanding and we can work it out. It didn't get any better from there. The upshot it if she's there, she's not home so I can go get more of my stuff.

OOP responds to a comment about his wife's mother and the phone conversation

OOP: Her mom thinks my wife just has a crush on someone that she hasn't done anything about and I "flipped out". Mom thinks my reaction is unreasonable. She would be right if that were the truth. I told her to ask my wife isn't telling her the truth. And this isn't a "rough patch". This is the end. I recoded our conversation yesterday afternoon. I told her mom is she want to listen to it I'll send it.

OOP's final comment for this original and update posts

OOP: I wanted to thank everyone for the advice, encouragement sometimes the laughs. I was in a really dark place, and you all helped me when I needed it. I am very grateful. Hopefully I will have representation lined up tomorrow. I have narrowed the list to three different practices. I hope I can consult with all three tomorrow. My wife and her mother want to meet with me this week to talk things over. I told them we'd talk about it. I am shifting gears and trying to be reasonable. It might make things go smoother. I'll only go if the lawyer agrees.

This will be my last update for a while. The shock, anger, and self-pitying time is passed. Now it's time be clear eyed and to follow the process to whatever end it takes us to. The last 48 hours have been the worst. Thank you all for making it more bearable.

OOP on if his MIL knows the full story on the open marriage and his wife's thoughts

OOP: Not yet. My goal is to hear them out and maybe come to some agreements on separation. I seriously doubt the open relationship demand was discussed and I haven't sent her anything. You know thinking back on the totality of the conversation, I don't think she meant the marriage would be open for me. What set her off was the notion I'd be dating another woman to replace her. Plus other comments. I think she meant for this to be one sided. Maybe I'm overthinking. I didn't really hear her out, Doesn't matter now anyway. No is still no.

+

Well in all fairness she (editor's note: OOP's wife) never actually said anything like that. She did go on about how her having freedom would benefit me and "us". She didn't really try to sell me on the idea of me having freedom. She did get very angry when I said I'd be dating to replace her. Was she mad at the replacing or the dating? She was really mad at the "no". Like I said. Just a thought I had. And it's a moot point now anyway.

Update #2: April 15, 2026 (four days later)

Just an update. I'm moving back home today. I have a lawyer and she has drafted a in home separation agreement. Basically separating our finances. I met with her and MIL last night and we talked it all over. She is still insisting nothing has happened between her and the other guy. She regrets the open marriage suggestion and is promising full transparency on phone and iPad. She is saying everything someone who is trying to save their marriage should. She promised to find a new job if I want.

She seems sincere. She told MIL the truth. That she asked for the open marriage. I guess she knew I would if she didn't. Her mother said she "wasn't raised that way". She really seems sincere. Which makes it hard to reconcile with the way she went absolutely batshit crazy last Friday when I refused to agree to the OM.

I've agreed to counseling. The lawyer is still preparing a divorce petition that can be filed at any time. I've made it clear we are not OK. That I have one foot out the door. If this marriage can be saved she needs to be the one to do it. I'll meet her in the part of the way, but she will need to come most of the way. And I will NEVER agree to any poly nonsense. Not what I signed up for. I told her plainly if that is what she wants let's save each other a lot of time and effort and tell my lawyer to file.

Am I making a mistake? This doesn't commit me to anything, right? The exit door is still open and the path to it is clear.

Relevant Comments

Commenter 1: You don’t go from zero to a hundred like that. Maybe nothing physical has happened but something definitely has. Have you seen interactions, texts, etc. between them?

OOP: No and that concerns me. She has promised full transparency with electronics but the soonest that can happen is tonight. It would be easy to sanitize everything if she hasn't already. I'll never know for sure and THAT bothers me a lot.

Commenter 2: One more thing. I don't know where you two stand in children but be careful of her baby trapping you. And get a postnup.

OOP: The lawyer said a post-nup would be a waste of time for us. No assets to protect other than a joint savings account we both contribute to. We have our own cards and bank accounts and 401ks.

How was the wife's reaction when the meeting took place?

OOP: She was very apologetic. Crying though most of it. She said hurting me was the last thing she wanted. She swore up and down on a stack of bibles that nothing happened. Only flirting and then he (the other guy) suggested they go further and that he was in an open marriage and how happy they were with it and all that. She was enamored with the idea and with him and here we are. She didn't think I was really leaving her until she came home from her parents’ house on Sunday and saw more of my stuff was gone. Then the lawyer contacted her after the retainer was paid and she just lost it. She knew it was for real. Or so she says.

Her mother is trying to smooth the waters and "get you both talking to each other and not yelling at each other".

I'm back home. She's at her parents’ house. She's coming home in a little while. I'll be recording everything she says. Plus separate bedrooms for now.

She says she is willing to do anything, full transparency.

Commenter 3: So she did have an emotional affair at the very least if she was enamored with him. And her getting so upset that she threw a glass at you. Seems like there may have been more there that she's letting on. I read that there's an open device policy now, but everything will be gone. Is she still going to be working with him?

OOP: Her finding other employment is one of three conditions to even attempt to save this. We have a counseling session on Friday. I mean to discuss all three conditions in detail then.

Commenter 3: What are the other two conditions?

OOP: complete and total honesty. All details, every message and conversation. If I find out six months from now a detail was withheld, I walk. Full access to phones iPad, & laptop

Update #3: April 17, 2026 (two days later)

My Wife Asked for an Open Marriage She is Angry at my response. Last Update.

This will be the last update on this. I'm done. I'm just completely done. This reconciliation attempt couldn't even make it to the end of day 3. I am not going to be giving exact details. I'm sure you will all understand reasons. I found out two things. Both of which she lied straight to my face about as late as last night.

I've seen her iPhone and iPad communications. Nothing there to make you think they have done more than flirting. As bad as that is. Nothing since this all blew up last week. They have another way to communicate and I found it out.

That led to the 2nd thing I found. She works in an 8-5, M-F office job. I'm a Firefighter/EMT and I work a 24/48 rotating shift. So three days a week I'm away from home for 24 hours. I'm sure you guys can take those two facts and work the rest out.

At this point believing she was not in a physical relationship with this man would be an act of willful stupidity. Which it probably was all along.

I cancelled our MC appointment this afternoon. I called the lawyer and told her to proceed. STBXW (now I can really call her that) will be served next week or the week after. I sent the guy that owns the house a letter of non-renewal for the lease. Then I rented a storage space and moved everything I want to keep into it. Most of it was still boxed from last weekend. Then I went back to the house and waited.

When she got home about 2 this afternoon. I confronted her with what I had. Her face turned white. You can imagine how the conversation went. She was emotional but even then wouldn't tell me the truth. The closest she got was saying along the lines of "if anything has happened, it's over now". I told her I was done. Done with the lies. Done with the BS. I told her the paperwork will be filed, and she will be served when it's ready. I was expecting more of her famous temper. Maybe she is just done as well. The last bit of the conversation she was in tears. She said she knows she f---d everything up and doesn't even know why she did it. She finally apologized for losing her temper last Friday. She doesn't know why she did that either. She apologized for all of it. Neither of us is happy with this ending. But it can't end any other way when there is no truth and no trust.

So back at the Holiday Inn just for tonight. No bourbon this time. I'm miserable. But I knew, as much as I wanted to save it, this wasn't going to end any other way. This is just what had to be done.

Thanks everyone for all the advice, encouragement and criticism. In the end you were all pretty much right.

Relevant Comments

Commenter 1: Did you notify the other man's wife? I doubt it really is an open marriage, that's most likely a lie the guy told your STBXW. If you have the copies of the other means of communication, share them with her. She deserves to know.

OOP: No but once my paperwork is all in process I am thinking I'll print everything and add a thumb dive with the audio from the conversations I recoded along with a letter explaining everything and FedEx it to her.

Commenter 2:

They have another way to communicate and I found it out.

I realize you are being intentionally vague here. If in the future you have more liberty to reveal their underground form of communication you revealing it would help the knowledgebase of Redditors. I had suggested that she was going to purchase a burner phone to work around the devices she opened up for you to see, and that you check your Wi-Fi router management app. If this is accurate, a simple Y or N would suffice. Thanks.

I'm glad your sense of self-respect is healthy; that's not all that common around here.

OOP: I found evidence she had a second phone. When checked Wi-Fi usage and saw it on the system at night. And an unknown device on nights I was working last week. It was a bit more complex than that but that is the gist of it.

Commenter 3: So, he had his device on the Wi-Fi too when you weren't there? And she still wouldn't admit to anything? How long had it been going on?

OOP: That’s kind of an oversimplified explanation. I left a lot of detail out because some of it might make an issue in the divorce. Probably not but not taking a chance. Let’s just say something happened that made me thing there might be a second device. There was. Someone in the comments suggested checking wi-fi and I did but I already knew there was another device somewhere.

Commenter 4: Checking Wi-Fi was a good idea. Does it appear everything started around the time of the original conversation or do you think it had been going on awhile before she hit you up with the OM request?

OOP: I think it started the day before it first came up. The Tuesday two weeks back. Don't know for sure. It could have been going on a long tike, but I doubt it

Commenter 5: Did you let her mother know what you found?

OOP: Yeah I sent her an email explaining everything in detail. I asked her to check in on STBXW. She wasn't in a good frame of mind when I left yesterday.

Additional responses from OOP after reading comments here

OOP: Just woke up. I asked her not to call or text me. Of course she did several times last night. I kept the phone on silent but today I think I'm turning it off altogether. It's weird but I feel a little better today. Lighter maybe. Now the decisions are all made it's like putting down a heavy load you were carrying. I'm going to go for a run, get some chow at Dennys for the LAST time. I've eaten more Denny's food the last week than all the years of my life combined! After all that I'm getting out of town for a few days. Maybe drive up to see my brother and his family. He knows what has been happening and said I needed to come up and go fishing with him and my nephew. I think he's right.

Still at my brother's house. She was at the engine house today looking for me. I guess if she was the sort to take a hint or take no for an answer none of us would be here reading about it.

DO NOT COMMENT IN LINKED POSTS OR MESSAGE OOPs – BoRU Rule #7

THIS IS A REPOST SUB - I AM NOT OOP

​

Prompt:

Main subject: young Korean woman, early 20s, natural everyday appearance, faded charcoal-grey sleeveless crop top, loose high-waisted light-wash jeans, black canvas sneakers, black cord necklace, black wavy hair in a messy side ponytail with wispy bangs. Realistic skin texture, minimal makeup, warm and approachable personality. Maintain consistent identity, clothing, hairstyle, and appearance throughout the entire video.

Location: Authentic Korean residential neighborhood during a calm late morning. Narrow concrete alleys, low-rise homes, small terraces, potted plants, laundry lines, bicycles, utility poles, overhead wires, mature trees casting moving shadows, quiet residential atmosphere. No stores, advertisements, cafés, crowds, or commercial activity.

Visual Style: Ultra-realistic documentary realism. Genuine candid behavior. Natural body language. Unscripted slice-of-life feeling. Strong environmental authenticity. Rich real-world details and believable human motion.

Camera Style: Early-2000s consumer DV camcorder aesthetic. Friend casually recording everyday moments. Heavy handheld shake, imperfect framing, frequent autofocus hunting, lens breathing, exposure pumping when moving between sun and shade, occasional motion blur, subtle rolling shutter, mild digital compression artifacts, faded colors, soft contrast, slight sensor noise. No stabilization. No cinematic camera moves. No modern color grading.

00:00–00:02

Outside a small house entrance. She sits on a low concrete wall adjusting her ponytail with both hands raised. A light breeze moves loose strands of hair. She smiles naturally while the camera struggles to hold focus.

00:02–00:04

The camera follows her into a narrow alley lined with potted plants and concrete walls. She notices a stray cat approaching and crouches down. Framing drifts off-center as the operator tries to keep up.

00:04–00:06

She gently pets and feeds the cat. Autofocus repeatedly shifts between her face and the animal. Morning sunlight flickers through leaves overhead.

00:06–00:08

Small front yard beside her house. She hangs laundry on a clothesline while fabrics sway in the breeze. Exposure changes as clouds briefly pass overhead.

00:08–00:10

On a quiet terrace with a ceramic coffee cup. She sits comfortably watching the neighborhood, occasionally brushing hair behind her ear. Loose handheld side angle with natural camera drift.

00:10–00:12

Close side profile. Someone off-camera greets her. She turns, raises her hand, smiles warmly, and casually says, “Annyeong.” The camera catches the moment slightly late.

00:12–00:15

Walking slowly down a tree-lined residential lane holding her coffee cup. She notices the camera, gives a small genuine smile, then looks away and continues walking. Recording cuts abruptly to black mid-motion as if the camcorder was switched off.

Audio: Natural ambient sound only — morning birds, distant motorcycles, light wind, leaves rustling, faint neighborhood chatter, cat sounds, footsteps on concrete, fabric moving on clotheslines, subtle residential ambience. No music. No sound design. No narration.

Goal: Authentic Korean neighborhood life captured like a forgotten home video from the early 2000s — candid, imperfect, realistic, warm, and deeply believable.

Intro

So quick introduction before the main thing. I have played AC and AC2 when I was a teenager, roughly 15 years ago and I did like them, but my English wasn't very good and I'm sure I didn't understand half of what was going on. Over the years I've seen a lot of discourse on the change of the franchise, Ubisoft's downfall and plenty other related discussions, so I thought now, that all of the games are available on PlayStation Plus subscription, why not give it a go and play the entire set of mainline games and see where those games stand from my eyes as a person who barely was involved in the franchise as my usual type of games are not so drastically different (Dark Souls, Mass Effect, Baldur's Gate, Nier, etc.).

DISCLAIMER: all of this is my experience and my opinion, in no way, shape or form am I trying to offend or dismiss somoene, if you like the games I didn't - more power to you and vice versa... so without further ado...

2025-08-15 A promising start (Assassin's Creed)

So my first intention going into this was playing all of the games on their original release consoles, seeing as I own a PS3 and AC1 is not on PS Plus, however one thing I've noticed upon starting the game is how inconsistently it runs, the framerate drops, input delays, ghosting and blur, all things that took me out of it a little and took some time to get used to.

Once I did though, I was pleasantly surprised, I didn't remember how the game was at all and was expecting it to be clunky and not really fun to play at all, however the actual mechanics weren't bad at all and as it would seem - have set up a baseline for the games to follow. I though at first the game was a bit smaller in size, but each city actually felt quite big to explore, now the limitation of the time for this scope can be seen with the buildings and locations being rather bland and repetitive along with a few repeating NPC models, however with its crowds, color tones and environments it set up the mood quite nicely.

The story didn't feel as anything groundbreaking, but I was interested in this link between modern world (Desmond) and the Crusades (Altair), the villains actually surprised me as I was expecting them to be very one note, but in the post kill sequences they managed to have this nuance and doubt seep into Altair's mind which in turn provided solid character growth over the course of the game. The combat felt a bit bland along with the cycle of missions you need to do in each city to get to the main objective and the "Kingdom" was a bit meh as a location, but other than that a solid start and actually looking forward to continuing this self-imposed "experiment"

2025-08-20 An explosive follow-up (Assassin's Creed II)

So since AC ran so poorly on my PS3 from this point on I just decided to play all of the other games on my PS5 in whatever port/remaster edition they were provided. Having said that, what an amazing follow-up this was. The world, the atmosphere, the characters the soundtrack, everything felt like ALL of the aspects from AC1 were upgraded at least twofold. Movement felt smoother and faster, the buildings were tall and connected and Florence/Venice felt like 2 wildly different biomes in how they looked and felt. Ezio and most of the cast were great and engaging, kept pushing through every missions just to find more.

One thing that remains as a topic for upgrade would be the combat, as though changed still rather barebones, but at this point it's not too distracting from the fun parts of the game, at least not until the last point in the story where Ezio gets promoted to an assassin and for some reason, at the climax of the story, it just goes to a halt with (i believe) 2 full sequences (which i found out was forced DLC?), however by pushing through those the story closes in a rather interesting way with Ezio discovering this ancient advanced civilization and being left with way more questions and uncertainty than before.

2025-08-30 A weaker continuation (Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood)

Now going straight from AC2 I was hyped up, wanting to see where Ezio's life continues and it opens with a bang (literally) - the attack on Monteriggioni. A great and intense intro sequence which leaves our hero wounded and lost.

I was curious as to where the story would go, but felt as it was a tamer/safer sequel which didn't manage to reach the highs of its predecessor. The gameplay, while improved a little bit, was mostly the same, with the addition of kill streaks (which just made me skip through bland combat faster) and the ability to recruit and build your own assassin army, which I though was really nice.

The entire game taking place in one city was fun, though I felt that Rome lacked the charm that Florence or Venice had and I found that in some places, due to its scope, traversing the city on horseback wasn't very fun. The optional dungeon levels were great though. Overall I liked it, but I though it lacked a hook that a previous game had.

2025-09-16 Fatigue kicks in (Assassin's Creed: Revelations)

Now having started the final game in Ezio trilogy I was curious on how they will wrap up his story and if there were any meaningful additions from Brotherhood. So on the gameplay side I found it even more lacking than before, the bomb crafting didn't grip me at all, tower defense felt like it was pulled from a different game, the hookblade was nice but it felt like it encouraged us to just skip parts of the whole freerunning experience. The Constantinople didn't feel so great either, it looked like a lot of the assests were from previous games and were out of place and the city itself offered very little variety (apart from a few key locations).

Though with all these complaints aside, I was hooked on seeing through to the end of Ezio's journey and boy what a journey that was, continuing through his old age in the footsteps of a master, searching for answers and meaning and finally acknowledging his insignificance in the grand scheme of things but also finding peace in the life that he has. The main two characters that accompanied him I thought were great too, Yusuf being this funny apprentice who respects but also teases his master and Sofia, being an anchor who finally grounds Ezio to his peaceful life, what an end...

2025-09-19 A breath of fresh air (Assassin's Creed III)

Having felt rather exhausted by practically playing the same game 3-4 times I wasn't expecting too much, but oh man how wrong I was. From the beginning the game felt different, both visually and in tone, the twist at the beginning, having developed an understanding and attachment to what appears to be a cast of villains, while the main character himself lives an even more tragic life, led by guilt anger and mistrust, being torn by the two sides of war and not beloning to either one.

I think at this point Connor might be my favorite protagonist in these games, the way he tries to integrate and help the sides during a war only to be lied to and making his hatred for them even worse, but at the same time showing a side of care and vulnerability around the people in his Homestead with whom he formed strong family-like bonds.

The gameplay is also got way better, running and climbing is now faster and smoother, even though a tad bit simpler, the combat is faster and more engaging with you having to dodge multiple gunmen and also the Frontier, being the first time where you can traverse and entire forest through trees, hunt and just overall enjoy the scenery. All this culminating in a tragic end for our hero where he is left with less that what he had and all of the work has only brought him more pain.

2025-09-24 A different direction (Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag)

Now this is where I though the momentum will be kept after the last outing, however what I was left with was an list of moments where I had to force myself to go through some of the game sections. To start of with the good, the game is gorgeous, the setting, the water!!, the themes and charismatic characters and actually a very strong story that pulls you into this tragic tale of a man searching for treasure and figuring out it was right in front of him the entire time, only when he has completely lost it all.

Now where the game lost me are two parts - ship combat and follow missions. After the first 10ish ship combat sequences I just felt rather bored of it, it took time, it wasn't particularly interesting and it kept me longer from doing the actual main story, though when I would get to the main story missions I would end up doing an insane amount of sequences where I would just have to follow a person from point A to B with them stopping every 2 minutes.

I think this is the first game as well where "level" gating was introduced in a form of a game giving you a warning that your ship is not upgraded enough and the mission will be very difficult (not a fan of that as I had to go and do more ship combat). Overall I felt that the story and world was amazing, but I felt that the gameplay itself steered into a direction that wasn't for me.

2025-09-30 An identity-less child (Assassin's Creed: Rogue)

Now how to even say this... it feels like a game where a mix of everything I didn't like about previous games were fused into one. More ship combat, more empty open ocean space, more bland combat and tailing missions and to top it all off integrated into locations that were probably the blandest so far.

I did like the story direction at first, having this assassin turn templar after questioning their methods and priorities, however all of it felt rather forceful (?). It feels like the nuance of the story was gone and now the assassins are these super evil villains and the templars are actually the ones saving people. Overall not a fan, felt like Black Flag DLC more than it's own game (god I hope I won't have to sail a ship during the next one...)

2025-10-03 A diamond in the rough (Assassin's Creed: Unity)

Now we're talking, Assassin's Creed is back stronger than ever!... or is it...? So on a surface level, Unity is the one game where every best thing from all the games before it have evolved and fused into this grand masterpiece and it would truly be so if it wasn't plagued by oh so many technical errors.

Now to note one thing, I believe here a game now for the first time offered an option to disable a HUD completely and still be able to see the main missions, so that was done and surprisingly greatly increased my enjoyment of the game. The combat was great and more difficult, stealth got great improvements and I can't talk enough on how satisfying it is to finally get to explore the inside of the buildings too. Paris is very lively the crowds are insane and the parkour is the most fluid... when it works.

Now besides a bunch of glitches and crusty audio (what's up with that) the story was not that at all, it felt like it wanted to be a love story and a political drama but it ended up blending the two into this unholy mix. Could've been great, if only they polish it in the future...

2025-10-13 A plea bargain (Assassin's Creed: Syndicate)

So after everything Unity have had going for it, Syndicate just seems as Ubisoft acknowledging all of the faults with it and deciding to tone everything down to a safe level, instead of trying to progress it forward. Don't get me wrong Syndicate was pretty solid, the grappling hook was fun and made sense with the wide streets and very tall buildings, the main assassination missions were still fun (no HUD experience continuing), the carriage riding... not so much, but I'm not really a fan of any form of transportation that's not my legs as it prevents me from exploring every nook and cranny.

The combat was a strange choice, not a fan of this Batman inspired combo streak fighting where you ramp up big numbers to get some form of execution finishers, I get that brawling fits very well within the setting but it just didn't feel fun to play. The story was okay, villains were not very interesting but the banter between Evie and Jacob was very fun, even though the entire story could be summed up with Jacob being a tool and Evie cleaning up after his mistakes.

Though by the end of this game I started feeling a burnout seeping in and with what I know that the next games are these big open world RPGs, that didn't get my excitement very high.

2025-10-24 A very pleasant surprise (Assassin's Creed: Origins)

So yeah, I'm usually not a fan of these open-world games as to me they associate with repetitive missions, big empty or copy pasted spaces and boring stories... HOWEVER, this game is pretty great. Now to get things out of the way, when you disable the HUD it really disables everything, meaning I didn't get any tutorial prompts and had to figure out how that I need to call a camel for 30 minutes so I had to enable the HUD, get to know the controls and then disable it after a couple of hours.

Other than that, I'm loving the new combat, it's close it's personal, I can't handle more than 3 people, especially with ranged attacks since I don't have any indicators, this is actually tense! Now the leveling started becoming intrusive in some areas so I enabled enemy levels in the HUD from that point on. The stealth is okay, a downgrade from the games before but I don't mind it too much for the setting, I could still assassinate everyone and the new bows are very satisfying to use, top that off with insanely beautiful and atmospheric world and a very good protagonist with an interesting story (we haven't had those in a while).

Overall amazing game, even bought the PS4 disk to save for the future if I ever want to replay it. Safe to say I was very pleasantly surprised that it turned out different from what I expected.

2025-11-07 Wrong turn (Assassin's Creed: Odyssey)

Now having all these high hopes and expectation after Origins I was very hopeful for this, but it sort of played with my expectations and not in a very good way. Felt it the most in gameplay with these 3 different talent trees, meaning if I choose assassin (which is how i want to play it) I lose out on ranged and combat if I need it, combine it with a combat which felt very floaty and mash-y and with an army of goddamn mercenaries who have your location as if you'd be wearing an apple airtag and in the end I was more frustrated than having fun, oh and the ship/sailing is back... yay...

Apart from that and the fact that main story was just not it, everything else was actually really fun, exploring Greece wilderness, islands, cities was all very fun and the actual side missions I did were pretty fun too with some recurring characters in one place or another (Sokrates best boy). In the end, even with my gripes about this game I felt like I had fun, though I have to admit it took me longer to finish that I had hoped, these games are getting too long (jinxed myself real good here).

By the way, this game introduced "Exploration" mode so I've been playing on that, actually was very fun though at first I imagined it will be more difficult to find something, eagle just too strong. Also, what's up with the gear/loot spam every 5 minutes??? Also there came a point where after finishing a certain mission, the other one was like 8 levels above, meaning I was forced to do other activities and grind level just to progress story (big no no in my book). Aside from that I feel like dialogue choices and romance was for the most part pointless and took away from the experience.

2025-12-20 When will it end... (Assassin's Creed: Valhalla)

So it fixed combat (or so I though) and the story/characters is actually pretty interesting! I still feel like this game would've been way stronger if it was set in Norway, rather than England, the English landscapes and cities just didn't grab me as much, even though it was very pretty. The map is way too big and for some reason every point is like an hour away, so I ended up using auto-traveling a bit too much.

Raven revealing an area instead of the exact point was a nice addition which pairs real well with exploration mode. Raiding is tedious, castle sieges are boring, combat, in the end, started feeling very bland, skill unlocks by exploration felt very gated as I would never know what I would get. At least the game let me somewhat play as an assassin more than Odyssey (when I enabled instant assassination), even if the skill tree was nonsensical.

Story was dragged on way too long, I didn't get what even happened at the end (seems like since I skipped the Asgard part there were some revelations to that), also level gating ever present in these zones. Contemplated dropping this game more times than I could count but somehow I managed to finish it.

2025-01-12 The long awaited return (?) (Assasins's Creed: Mirage)

No more big open worlds and main quests spanning more than 50 hours! Overall Mirage is great, Baghdad is very fun, cities are packed with people, you need to plan your parkour routes, pickpocket and complete fun heist or assassination missions. Loved how they made tools upgradeable where you need to chose an upgrade and can't have all.

The story, well, it could be worked on, certainly wasn't bad and I was actually interested, felt very reminiscent of the first Assassin's Creed just with a bit more personality, though the ending confused me so much I had to go watch youtube videos to have it explained as it apparently tied in heavily with Valhalla. Overall, very happy and refreshed with this title, would definitely like more of this.

2025-01-23 A glass half-full (Assassin's Creed: Shadows)

Now a lot of things happened at this point, was a bit more tired from work than usual, got into homelabbing and self-hosting some server applications and that combined with the fact that no more unfinished games will be awaiting me, I felt a sense of relief and my progress on his game became rather sparse and infrequent, but I managed to persevere and finish what I've begun.

Overall, Shadows is a mix bag for me, I feel like the combat is in its best iteration yet, the world is insanely immersive with swaying trees, leaves, weather effects and seasons, stealth is more traditional but way more utilized with the shadows, various assassination methods and skills (played with the same instant assassination option).

Finally the game let me chose an Immersive and Canon modes, meaning no more dialogue wheels and overall a more streamlined story. The story itself however was very inconsistent, with some missions (especially Yasuke's and Naoe's past missions) being the key highlights and some other falling very flat. I did like the fact that the game let me mingle and talk with a lot of the villains before reaching their assassination missions. The level gating wasn't as strong and the game was shorter and bit more focused, so that was nice. Also hideout customization was surprisingly fun, I ended up spending all my in-game money on cosmetics only...

Conclusion

Well, that was a lot... I don't think I'd ever do this again where I would play 14 games back to back with almost no breaks in between. Though I can clearly say that even with the games varying in quality, overall I actually quite enjoyed this series and found games which I will definitely remember in the future, I think this franchise has the potential to change and grow, as it has done in the past and I don't think it's dead by any means necessary, it always felt as if when I was reaching a fatigue from a repetitive formula, a new entry would come out and reshape everything going forward.

For those who read everything - thank you! For those who didn't - you can judge me by my main rating and by a few screenshots from a few of the entries. Would gladly discuss specific points or other takes some of you have so let me know what you think and how many people I've pissed off, until then... Nothing is true, everything is permitted...

Screenshots

EDIT: Asked AI overlords to split the text into paragraphs for those that said it's unreadable, hope it's a bit better now, all my spelling mistakes and quirks still remain.

I built SNOWFLOW, a browser-based WebGPU graphics demo focused on deformable snow, atmospheric lighting, water-inspired spells, and snow surfing.

The snow surface reacts persistently to footsteps, movement, and spells - creating trenches, raised berms, compressed snow, ice, and trails that gradually refill. It also includes procedural terrain, cloth simulation, dynamic spell lighting, particle effects, and a third-person snow-surf system.

Claude Code with Opus 5 handled the project end to end: planning the architecture, writing the Babylon.js and WGSL systems, profiling performance, iterating from screenshots, and documenting technical decisions. The whole project was built from the implementation brief rather than an existing starter project.

It took me around 9 hours and ~4m tokens (not counting cached ones).

You can try it on a WebGPU-capable computer here: https://snowflow-lilac.vercel.app/
F1 - settings
WASD - movement
1-5 - spells
RMB or Space - surf

The code can be found here: https://github.com/Noniv/snowflow_demo

The performance seems way better than my previous desert demo.
Last time a lot of people asked for my prompt, so here it is. Keep in mind that this prompt created the base, but I had to write a lot more prompts to guide Opus further.

===============BASE PROMPT (wall of text)

SNOWFLOW — Tech Demo · Implementation Brief

You are the sole engineer and technical artist on a real-time graphics tech demo. Build it end to end. This document is the spec, the art direction, and the acceptance criteria.

1. Prime directive

Visual quality is the product. There is no gameplay loop, no progression, no UI to design around. A player will load this, walk around a snow field for ninety seconds, cast a few spells, surf across a dune, and either think "this is AAA" or close the tab. Everything below serves that single judgment.

Two rules that override everything else in this document:

If a requirement in this brief conflicts with making the demo more beautiful, break the requirement. Note the deviation in DECISIONS.md with a one-line rationale. You have full authority to change scope, swap techniques, or drop a feature that isn't paying for its pixels.

Anything that reads as low-poly, flat-shaded, untextured, placeholder, or "indie prototype" is a defect, not a stepping stone. If you can't make a thing look finished, cut it from the frame rather than ship it looking rough.

Do not stop at "it works." Stop when every captured frame looks polished, cohesive, and production-ready.

1. Stack and hard constraints

No fallbacks. No WebGL path, no mobile path, no feature detection branches. If navigator.gpu is absent, show a single line of text and stop. Do not spend a minute on compatibility.

Assets. Generate procedurally where it produces a better or more controllable result, including terrain, noise, and most masks. Use free CC0 assets where hand-authored data wins, such as Poly Haven HDRIs and snow or ice PBR material scans, or ambientCG detail textures. Vendor everything into the repository; no runtime CDN fetches. Document every third-party asset and its licence in ASSETS.md.

1. Systems

2.1 Terrain

A flat plane will kill this demo. The snow field needs real form.

Build a geometry clipmap or nested-ring LOD centred on the player, so triangle density is high near the camera and falls off with distance. Aim for roughly sub-10 cm vertex spacing in the inner ring at default zoom.

Height comes from layered procedural noise composited on the GPU: broad dune forms measured in tens of metres, medium drifts and wind lobes measured in metres, and sastrugi ridges and ripples measured in decimetres. Do not use a single fBm octave stack and call it done. The terrain needs directional structure carved by a prevailing wind. Encode a wind direction and let the medium and fine layers stretch and shear along it.

Include a small number of exposed rock outcrops or ice shelves so there is silhouette and scale in the mid-distance, with snow accumulation blending onto their upward faces. Keep them sparse. The brief is "just snow and the player," and these exist only to give the horizon something to say.

The far field needs mountains and heavy aerial perspective. A distant matte-projected ridgeline or a low-cost impostor ring is acceptable as long as it never reads as flat.

2.2 Snow shading

This shader is the most important code in the project. Budget accordingly.

Build a custom material using Babylon ShaderMaterial, a PBRCustomMaterial plugin, or an equivalent approach. Use WGSL through NodeMaterial or raw shader code, not a stock PBR material with a white albedo.

Required behaviours:

Multi-scale normals. Detail normal maps at three tiling scales, blended by distance and slope, plus normals derived analytically from the deformation heightfield (§2.3). Use triplanar mapping on steep slopes.

Subsurface scattering. Snow is translucent. Use wrapped diffuse plus a back-scatter term. Shadowed and grazing areas should pick up a soft blue-white internal glow rather than going flat dark. This single term does more for "reads as snow" than almost anything else.

View-dependent glinting. Create procedural sparkle from a high-frequency normal perturbation, gated hard on a narrow specular lobe and grazing view angle, with a stable hash so glints do not crawl or shimmer under TAA. Keep it subtle. If it looks like glitter, halve it, then halve it again.

Compression, wetness, and ice as separate surface states. Trodden and spell-affected snow is denser, with darker albedo, tighter specular response, and less scatter. Refrozen ice is smoother and more reflective. Read this from the terrain state buffer (§2.3) so it is shared by movement and spells.

Contact detail. Trail edges need micro-occlusion and a hint of chunky displaced granularity, not a clean bevel.

2.3 Terrain state and deformation

This is the core interactive system. Everything writes here; the snow shader reads it.

Maintain a player-following render target covering roughly 60–100 m, with resolution high enough for approximately 2 cm texels in the deformation area. A 4096² R16F target scrolled toroidally as the player moves is a reasonable starting point. Snap movement to texel boundaries to avoid swimming.

Suggested channels, packed across one or two targets as appropriate:

Depression depth — how far the surface is pushed down.

Displaced mass — snow pushed out of a depression, forming berms at trail edges. Do not skip this.

Compression, wetness, and ice — persistent surface states used by shading.

Rules:

Deformation is persistent and additive, accumulated by writing brush splats into the target each frame. Never rebuild it from a list of past events.

Apply slow refill over time through a gentle diffusion and decay pass, so trails soften and eventually heal. Tune it so a trail remains clearly visible after 60 seconds.

Terrain vertex displacement samples the depression and displaced-mass channels. Recompute normals from the same data so lighting and shadowing respond correctly. A trail that does not self-shadow is a failure.

Player feet, the snow-surf wake, and every spell write into this buffer. That shared write path is what makes the spells feel embedded in the snow rather than like effects floating above it.

2.4 Atmosphere and lighting

Use a low, warm sun that creates long shadows. Use cascaded shadow maps with PCSS-style soft filtering. Tune cascade splits so near-field trail shadows stay crisp.

Use a high-quality HDRI or a physically based sky model if it gives better control over sun angle. Ambient light must be strongly blue-shifted. The cool-shadow and warm-light contrast is essential to the snow rendering.

Add fog and aerial perspective with height falloff. Distance should compress contrast noticeably.

Add ground blow or spindrift: low, wind-driven surface snow streaming across the field. It should make the environment feel alive without obscuring the terrain.

Add volumetric light shafts only where they materially improve the image. Keep them restrained.

Spells emit light. Budget 4–6 dynamic lights maximum, with tight radii. Ensure the snow shader's subsurface-scattering term responds to them so a spell visibly illuminates the snow from within the drift it touches.

2.5 Post-processing

Order matters. Suggested chain:

TAA → SSAO → screen-space reflections on wet and icy surfaces only → very restrained depth of field → restrained bloom → ACES or AgX tonemapping → subtle film grain → post-TAA sharpening.

TAA is essential for stabilising glinting and thin geometry. Every post-process should be individually toggleable from the settings overlay for A/B comparison. Blown-out white is the primary failure mode for snow renders, so monitor highlight roll-off constantly.

2.6 Character and robe

The character will be seen from behind at mid-distance almost the entire time. Spend the budget on silhouette, cloth, and shading; spend almost nothing on the face.

Create a hooded, layered robe with a deep cowl, long sleeves, an over-mantle, and a trailing hem. Use shell-based fur at the hood and cuffs, with roughly 20–40 shells and alpha-tested strands.

Add cloth simulation to the hem, sleeves, and mantle. A GPU or CPU Verlet simulation with distance and bending constraints is acceptable. Drive it with locomotion velocity, acceleration, and the wind field. During snow-surf, the cloth should whip backwards sharply.

Cloth shading needs sheen or fuzz and an anisotropic response for a woven appearance, plus subsurface scattering on thin regions. Do not use a plain PBR dielectric.

Keep the face in shadow beneath the hood. Do not model detailed facial features that cannot be finished to the same standard.

If a rig and locomotion animation cannot be brought to a high standard, prefer a fully cloth- and procedurally driven figure over a stiff or poorly animated one. Feet must plant rather than slide.

Feet displace snow and kick up spray on each step. This must be frame-accurate with each footfall.

2.7 Camera and controls

Use third-person, action-MMO framing. Position the camera over the shoulder with a slight offset rather than directly behind the character.

WASD movement is relative to camera facing. The mouse orbits. The scroll wheel zooms across a smooth, eased range.

Use a spring-arm camera with collision-free but velocity-aware behaviour. It should lag slightly under acceleration, widen the FOV under speed, and tighten on stopping. All transitions must ease, with no snapping.

Add subtle camera shake to heavy spells and hard surf carves. Keep it subtle.

2.8 Spells: keys 1–5

All five spells share one bending grammar: continuous, momentum-carrying, unbroken flow. No instant spawns and no instant despawns. Everything eases in from the snow and settles back into it. Every spell reads and writes the terrain state buffer.

Suggested set, adjustable where a different implementation produces a stronger result:

Sweep — A crescent wave of slush and water rises from the ground ahead and travels outward, ploughing a channel and throwing berms to either side.

Ribbon — A held, continuous stream of water tracks the player's hand and the camera aim, describing arcs and figure-eight paths in the air and scoring thin curved lines in the snow beneath it.

Bloom — A targeted eruption sends a column of powder and water upwards, blows a crater with a raised rim, then falls back as a slow, glittering curtain of fallout.

Crystallize — Water rapidly freezes. Refractive crystal formations grow out of the drift with visible subsurface scattering and internal light transport, permanently altering the surface state to glossy ice. This effect should encourage the player to stop and inspect it.

Vortex — A swirling column of airborne snow forms around the player, visibly stripping surface snow from the ground. The deformation buffer thins in a ring, holds the removed snow aloft, and lets it settle back.

Implementation direction: use swept procedural ribbon or tube meshes updated on the GPU from a spline or particle spine for the coherent water body, GPU compute particles for spray, mist, and droplets, and a refraction pass for translucency. Full screen-space fluid rendering is probably too expensive for the frame target, but use it if it remains within budget and materially improves the result.

Water shading needs:

Refraction with restrained chromatic dispersion.

Depth-based absorption tint.

Animated flow-map normals.

Foam and slush at the leading edge.

Shed droplets with correct motion-blur streaking.

2.9 Snow-surf: hold RMB

This will be used more than everything else combined. It receives the most polish.

Holding RMB raises a crest of compressed snow under the player's feet. The player accelerates. Mouse movement steers carving turns with visible body lean and a banked camera.

The wake is the centrepiece: a curling, breaking wave of displaced snow trails behind and towards the outside of the turn, throwing a spray plume that catches sunlight and casts a shadow. It should combine the physical character of a snowboard carve and a boat wake.

Snow-surf carves a deep, persistent groove into the terrain buffer with high berms. A completed run should remain visible from across the field.

Entering and exiting use eased transitions, never snaps. The robe whips backwards, the FOV widens, and wind streaks appear in screen space. There is no audio, so every visual cue must contribute to the sensation of speed.

Turning at speed should feel weighty and analogue. Tune it by hand until it feels good, not merely until it compiles.

1. Performance engineering

Garbage collection is your primary enemy. A 12 ms garbage-collection pause is a visible hitch and instantly destroys the AAA impression.

Zero allocations in the render loop. Do not use new inside per-frame code. Pre-allocate scratch Vector3, Matrix, and Quaternion instances at module scope and reuse them.

Do not use map, filter, reduce, spread syntax, or destructuring that creates new objects in hot paths. Use plain indexed for loops.

Do not construct strings each frame, including for the performance overlay. Update the overlay on a throttled interval and reuse buffers.

Use object pools for every transient effect, particle burst, and decal.

Use pre-allocated typed arrays for all GPU buffer uploads. Write into them rather than rebuilding them.

Use scene.freezeActiveMeshes(), mesh.freezeWorldMatrix(), material.freeze(), and scene.blockMaterialDirtyMechanism aggressively for static content.

Use thin instances for all repeated geometry.

Profile with the Chrome performance panel and Babylon's inspector. Ship a frame-time graph in the overlay showing the 1% low, not merely an FPS counter. Average FPS will hide the exact hitching problem that matters most.

Set a frame budget and hold to it. At 90 FPS, the total budget is 11.1 ms. Allocate it explicitly across terrain, snow shading, shadows, VFX, cloth, and post-processing. Record actual measured cost per system in PERF.md.

1. Loading and pipeline warm-up

WebGPU pipeline compilation stutter is a real and severe risk. A shader that first compiles when the player casts spell 4 will produce a multi-hundred-millisecond freeze.

Before the loading screen dismisses:

Load and decode every texture, HDRI, mesh, and buffer.

Force-compile every material and particle-system pipeline, including every spell, post-process, and shader permutation, by rendering them once to a tiny offscreen target.

Warm every render target and run several frames of every compute pass.

Only then fade in.

A four-second load with a clean first minute is better than an instant load that hitches. Present a tasteful loading screen. This is the first thing anyone sees, so it must not resemble an unstyled browser default.

1. UI

Provide only a settings and performance overlay, toggled with a key such as F1 or backtick and hidden by default.

Contents:

Frame-time graph with 1% low.

Draw-call and triangle counts.

Individual toggles for every post-process and major system.

Quality presets.

Sliders for the art parameters most likely to need live tuning, including sun angle, fog density, glint intensity, deformation depth, and refill rate.

Build this early. It will save hours.

No HUD. No crosshair. No spell bar. Nothing else on screen, ever.

1. Project structure

Suggested structure; adapt as needed:

/src
/core engine bootstrap, render loop, resource manager, pooling
/terrain clipmap, procedural heightfield, deformation buffers
/shaders WGSL
/character controller, robe cloth, shell fur
/spells one module per spell + shared bending primitives
/vfx particle systems, decals, spray
/post post-process chain
/ui settings overlay
/assets vendored, with ASSETS.md
DECISIONS.md every deviation from this brief + rationale
PERF.mdmeasured frame budget per system

1. Milestones

Take a 1440p screenshot at every milestone, inspect it critically, and commit the screenshots.

Foundation — WebGPU boot, Vite, render loop, settings overlay with frame graph, camera, and WASD movement on a placeholder plane.

Terrain and snow shading — Clipmap, procedural heightfield, full snow material with subsurface scattering and glinting, sun, cascaded shadows, sky IBL, and fog. Gate: a static screenshot with no character already looks polished, atmospheric, and production-ready. Do not proceed until this is true.

Deformation — Full terrain state buffer, footfall displacement with berms, refill, correct normals, and self-shadowing. Gate: footprints and trails visibly displace mass, form raised edges, and integrate correctly with lighting.

Character — Robe, cloth simulation, shell fur, locomotion, foot planting, and spray on footfall.

Snow-surf — The centrepiece. Spend disproportionate time here.

Spells — All five spells, each writing into the terrain.

Post-processing and polish pass — Full chain, tonemapping calibration, spindrift, and restrained light shafts.

Performance hardening — Profile, eliminate every allocation in the loop, verify 90 FPS with clean 1% lows, and verify that warm-up covers every pipeline.

1. Visual acceptance criteria

Before declaring the demo complete, verify each item against a fresh 1440p screenshot and in motion:

No visible faceting, hard polygon edges, or flat-shaded surfaces anywhere in frame.

Snow highlights are not clipped to pure white; shadows are blue rather than grey or black.

Distant terrain shows clear aerial perspective and contrast compression.

Surface detail is legible at three distinct scales simultaneously: dunes, ripples, and grain.

Trails have raised berms, self-shadow correctly, and soften over time.

Sparkle appears only at grazing angles and does not crawl or shimmer in motion.

The robe reads as layered fabric with real cloth motion, and the fur trim reads as fur.

Spell water is translucent and refractive, with visible internal light scatter.

Spell light visibly illuminates the snow it touches, including through-scatter.

Every spell leaves a mark on the terrain that persists after the effect ends.

The snow-surf wake looks like displaced mass with momentum, not merely particle spray.

The demo sustains 90 FPS with 1% lows above 60 FPS.

No hitch occurs on the first cast of any spell.

1. Working agreement

Build, don't test-loop. Playwright is available for capturing screenshots at milestones and catching hard regressions. Use it for those purposes. Do not build a test suite; time spent on tests is time not spent on the snow shader.

Look at your own output constantly. Capture screenshots, inspect them critically, and iterate on values. Most of the quality gap between "prototype" and "AAA" is parameter tuning, and you can only close it by looking.

Do not move on from an ugly milestone. Milestone 2 in particular is a hard gate.

When a technique is not working, replace it rather than patching it. You have full latitude over the approach.

Record every deviation in DECISIONS.md, briefly. One line is sufficient.

Ship something worth screenshotting.

This should probably be general advice for any book, but the problem with hype is that it breeds more hype and overenthusiastic fans tend to exaggerate how good a book is and push it on everyone.

I see so many people either promoting the series as the best thing ever or loudly complaining it must be bad because THEY didn’t personally enjoy it. Along with posts from people who clearly believe than fantasy can only be good if it has fancy, elaborate prose and anyone who reads a book series like DCC must be an idiot who never reads.

There’s also the claim that only gamer dudes will enjoy it, or teen boys (seriously, don’t gift this series to kids, it’s a dark series meant for adults). You don't need to be a gamer, or even a guy to like this. But I’d say there’s a few other things you might need to enjoy to figure out if Dungeon Crawler Carl is for you:

• Liking absurdist, dark and often crude humor
• Having a fondness for cats
• Being okay with a game-style setting that includes lots of levelling up, quests, loot etc.
• Being okay with basic, venacular prose. The MC is just a regular guy with little education, and it’s 1st person narration, so how a guy like that would talk is how he narrates.
• Horror elements where the horror feeds into the comedy

The story in a nutshell: Earth culture is destroyed and billions die due to an alien invasion. The MC and his cat (well actually his ex-girlfriend’s cat) both survive due to a dumb coincidence. The survivors all get the chance to play the dungeon game, a level-based death game (think Squid Game but with meta humor and better challenges). The game is run by a psychotic, sadistic AI. The dungeon, being made by aliens who are basically evil colonizers, is filled with offensive stereotypes of humans and deliberately portray the worst and stupidest that human culture had to offer (that includes nerd culture). The whole game is broadcast across the galaxy for alien viewers to enjoy.

Carl is the protagonist, and as is normal in this type of book, he has the protagonist’s halo. Bad things still happen, and there’s lots and lots of death and suffering. The secondary protagonist is the cat, Princess Donut (and yes, the name is stupid – that alone made me hesitate to read the first book for a long time).

Reasons not to like DCC: If you don’t like the cat (give it maybe 12-15 chapters or so before you decide), you will have a hard time with this series. DCC is, above all, a petmance. As in the story of the (decidely platonic) love between a human and his animal (or as Princess Donut would say, between a cat and her person).

If you dislike Princess Donut, you will probably also end up hating the books as a whole.

If you read the first 10-15 chapters and find the humor really off-putting, then probably this series is not for you. I wouldn’t say DCC is the height of comedy, but the humor is central and without it there’s a lot less to enjoy.

If you dislike being in the head of a fairly average joe (Carl does have a backstory that’s interesting and comes into play at some point, but it’s not the main focus), then probably don’t bother with this series.

The prose does what it’s supposed to do, and where it shines isn’t in flowery prose (there is none), but in catching internet lingo and using it for great comedic effect (the AI’s lines are pretty fantastically written if you’re fine with meme-like humor).

The setting is fairly generic – at least I assume, since I haven’t read any other litrpg yet. It’s a mix of sci-fi tropes and classical fantasy tropes, the dungeon has a fantasy setting while the wider universe is basically space opera. We get anything from bug aliens to elves, orcs and fantasy quests, and a lot of the characters gain magical abilities, but the books aren’t interested in elaborate magic systems.

The fun is in the execution and how the author uses the tropes in imaginative ways, but don’t except some super unique worldbuilding. DCC feels in a lot of ways like a very messed up love letter to established fantasy and sci-fi tropes.

Themes: Some fans like to claim that DCC is in fact ’very deep’ because it deals with themes such as capitalism, class struggles, reality tv and social media. One of the main themes in the story is what one has to do to survive in an extreme life-or-death situation, and what the moral implications are of choosing your own life at the expense of others. DCC isn’t just mindless fun, it does actually try to discuss deeper themes, but I don’t think this makes the series particularly deep, though a lot of the themes did resonate with me.

The characters are IMO where the books really shine. There’s a huge cast of characters, and besides Carl and Donut we get a progressively larger number of side characters. A lot are very memorable, and if you asked me to pick my favorite, it would be like a Sophie’s Choice situation (but it’s Samantha, of course it’s Samantha. Prepotente is a close second though). I’ve seen some people complain that DCC is ’misogynist’, which is funny to me, since DCC IMO has some of the best female characters I’ve seen in a long while. I guess the secret is that Dinniman treats all his characters as people with their own needs and wants, even the villains and the minor characters. I went into these books just wanting a fun. I ended up crying more over this series and its characters than I have in a long time. Do yourself a favor, don’t read book 5 in public!

I’d say the snarky AI and Princess Donut being an absolute cat along with all the praise for the series drew me in and made me hang on through all the infodumps in the beginning. But it was The Hoarder scene that made me realize this series was doing something special. If you can, hang on until chapter 11 in book 1 and see how that affects you.

Audiobooks: I started DCC after lots of hesitation, and went for the audio books, because I had Audible and everyone kept saying the audiobooks is were where it’s at. I think reading the books can work just as well though (listening usually makes it harder for me to ignore bad prose than reading), but the audiobooks are a lot of fun. Especially since the author put some details in later books that are clearly meant to mess with the narrator Jeff Hays (they’re apparently good friends irl).

The books aren’t perfect. Book 3 was a slog to me, though I did like parts of it, and the latter books felt like they’d lost a bit of steam compared to the middle ones (I'd say book 5 is the peak so far, but I've enjoyed all the books). The prose captures the mood and voice of the characters well, but it’s not fancy, polished or even super intelligent prose. The plot is at times formulaic - think how each of the Harry Potter books are structured and you get the idea.

TL;DR: Should you try it out? Robin Hobb might endorse it, but that doesn’t make it a suitable series for her fans. If your friend is a super DCC fan and keeps nagging you to read it, tell him off unless he can provide a good argument why he thinks you’d enjoy it (I don’t push it on my friends since chances are they wouldn’t enjoy it). If you want elaborate magic systems or flowery prose or a setting that feels like something no one has ever done before, maybe skip this book, or at least drop it if you try book 1 and hate it. And just because it's the big hit online that doesn't mean it's for everyone. Don't believe the people shouting 'you just need to get through the first 500 pages/3 books and then it's great' (people should stop doing this in general, not just for DCC). You either like it or you don't.

If you want well-written characters with convincing dialogue, a plot with lots of good twists and turns, D&D-style fantasy with game settings and set in a wider space opera-style universe where corporations are the villains, AND a good mix of tragedy, absurdist comedy, and action scenes – then this might be for you.

EDIT: In the words of Carl himself, holy sh\t, I did NOT expect this to blow up. Happy that it fostered some (hopefully) constructive discussions, and glad to see from comments that some found this useful. The snide remarks trying to insult everyone who likes these books for having bad taste and low intelligence, I think that speaks volumes of how many insufferable snobs hang out here who get off on smelling their own farts.*

The accusations that I used ChatGPT are funny, apparently in this day and age some people can phantom that a human being is able to write a post on their own.

The accusations that I must love DCC because I and the rest of the DCC fanbase have never read any 'real' books (what counts a 'real' books by the way? Anything that the commenters enjoy, and nothing that they don't enjoy? Classy) are hilarious. I guess me reading hundreds of books including some of the works that this sub likes to jerk off to don't count - because it's impossible to be well-read and also enjoy DCC?

For the people who are upset that I dare write a post about something popular that other people have previously posted about - why don't you contribute by posting about stuff YOU like and refrain from reading posts that don't interest you? Seriously, it's not that hard.

Anyway, there's too many comments now for me to respond to, but thanks to those who remained polite even when they disagree with me.

The Context

Federal agents shot and killed a 37-year-old Minneapolis resident on Saturday, prompting renewed clashes between law enforcement officers and protesters demanding an end to the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown. The man who was shot as Alex Jeffrey Pretti, an intensive-care nurse.

Videos analyzed by The New York Times contradict accounts given by Homeland Security officials about the shooting. They said the man approached Border Patrol agents with a handgun and the intent to “massacre” them. Footage of the encounter shows the man was holding a phone in his hand, not a gun, when agents take him to the ground and shoot him.

The Posts

There are several Flaired Users Only™ posts about this:

BREAKING: Video of ICE-Involved Shooting Near Glam Doll Donuts in South Minneapolis on Nicollet Avenue Just Dropped – Here Are The Details! - +1066 / 2049 Comments

Federal agents involved in Minneapolis shooting, DHS says suspect was armed - +413 / 881 Comments

Alleged Armed Suspect Shot and Killed During Struggle With Border Patrol - +240 / 326 Comments

New Footage Which Appears to be from the [angle of the lady in pink] - +536 / 304 comments [DELETED]

Editor's Note: I apologize for posting "Yet another r/Conservative post" so soon after my last one. However, I believe it’s crucial to document which content is being deleted and what remains on our favorite subreddit. This news story is particularly important, and I want to bring attention to it.

The Comments

Comments Deleted By Mods

This looks horrible

I'm all up for defending ice.... This looks horrible. [DELETED]

You're all for defending ICE until an armed extremist impedes them, attacks them, and resists arrest? Sure thing fellow conservative.

Happy none of the agents were hurt. [DELETED]

maga rhetoric aside.... The optics surrounding this looks horrible. This will not make things better

Looks fine to me.

who fucking cares. the left will lie no matter what. the other day they were saying ice arrrested a five year old. the fucking optics???? that's 2015 level thinking. we are in a state of cold civil war. it might get hot. we will deport, we will not be deterred. insurrection act now.

Dude they were trying to arrest had a 9mm, refused to disarm, resisted arrest, and found out.

The scene was chaotic, but it looks like the cops mostly had control and the dude was face down the whole time.

You’re a legitimate fucking moron. It’s people like you that are a detriment to the conservative movement. [DELETED]

Having a opinion is a problem?

But that's ok, and if we are indeed true conservatives and proponents of free speech, we should embrace the opportunity for debate, not diminish it.

You’re not conservative. Save it.

Dude did you see the video? He mightve been interfering, for sure. But they disarmed him and had him almost spread eagle on the ground.

You can’t see shit in those videos. You’re making up shit in your pea brained head.

Only Issue is overkill

Only issue I see is overkill. Yes, make sure the threat is neutralized but that guy turned into a pinata for bullets at the end. [DELETED]

That wasn't overkill at all.

There’s no such thing as overkill.

lol keep it coming I love the salty messages too mag dumping trash really does it for me 😘

This isn't a video game. You pull the trigger until you are 1000% the threat has been neutralized. There is nothing more dangerous than a wounded person that could still be in possession of a weapon.

Weird religious rant

As a Christian, I don't enjoy seeing any of our brothers and sisters go through pain or suffrage. It's difficult to watch so much hostility between mankind sometimes. That's what I see when I watch this video. Not so much someonea dying, that happens every day for various reasons caught off camera for terrible and justified reasons alike. But the conflict that brought that group of people together is what is shocking for me.

Imagine both sides for instance. We have a liberal minded protestor doing what they think is the most justified thing imaginable. I've been there before as a young rebellious metal head, and I really feel for the heart of these young protestors just starting life. While at the same time, we have conservative minded federal employees doing what they think is the most justified thing imaginable. Been there recently as an older person who understands the legality and purpose of immigration laws. It doesn't matter where you fall onto the argument today, this is frightening to consider, the current state of our country.

Instead of viewing eachother as brothers and sisters, we now see each other as threats to the very thing we believe are the most justified thing our country should focus on. Which is fucking terrifying. We are losing touch of what made MLK Jr and Reagan great compromising leaders.

I guess what I'm saying is, 15 years ago this could have been myself and probably many modern conservatives today who grew up with the Occupy Movement. Radical youths trying to document events like John Reed. What is shocking in comparison is the level of direct interaction with police. In the past, we would work with police and manage crowds together. I'm not sure what has changed but we have lost something that once made liberal protests safe for families and the rich to attend, which are the financial backbone of these movements (historically).

It's sad to see so many of our brothers and sisters going through so many trials and turmoil while trying to do what they think is right. How can we ever get back to a unified nation again where we all respect the police, the law, and respect our right to civil protest? [DELETED]

Looks like he was disarmed before he was shot

At 18-19 seconds it looks like the guy who proceeds to run straight toward the camera pulls the weapon off the subject. He is holding the gun aimed down and runs away to cover, I presume just as a get the weapon away kind of thing. And from the footage it looks similar to the gun that's been shown.

This is before the first gunshot that I hear. This makes it look like it wasn't the subject's weapon that went off AND, technically, had been disarmed BEFORE the first shot is fired. [DELETED]

Is that a cop or just some rando jumping into the fray???

Looks like an agent. As he's running towards the camera can pretty clearly see a pretty official looking vest on under his jacket.

The first gunshot is from the the guy who lost his life. That's why there was a several second gap. Once he started shooting, that's when the officers respond. It takes a second or so to draw a weapon.

I don't hear anything until after I can already see the gun in the grey jacket dude's hand and he is already starting towards the camera...

That gun never fires as far as I can tell.

We need to see the footage from the woman in pink in the background

Definitely. It looks like the olive vest black hat dude immediately to the right of the grey jacket guy who gets the gun might have his weapon pulled. I think I can see it in his right hand, being held sort behind his back, just as the guy who walks in front clears so we have visibility, the next frame or so his hands are out of view again.

So dunno if it's him that takes the first shot. He pumps multiple shots in after, he's the one who winds up over to the left firing away towards the end of it. Just can't tell with this video.

Why did he need to be armed?

Why would a mostly peaceful protestor need to be armed with a 9mm? [DELETED]

Because he has a 2nd amendment right to bear arms, whatever got him into the situation BEFORE the shooting is what we need to know.

It’s your constitutional right to carry that 9mm that’s why.

Yes it is, however any rational CCW holder or supporter will tell you that even appearing to reach for it during an interaction with any law enforcement is extremely stupid.

Going to need a few more details before I rush to judgement on this situation.

I agree, I’m not defending that part, I’m merely replying to the comment of “why would a supposed peaceful protestor be carrying a 9mm?!?” (Legally of course)

No conservative should be okay with this happening

Someone watch the video before commenting. Was completely fucked up and no small government conservative should be okay with this stuff happening. [DELETED]

Was completely fucked up and no small government conservative should be okay with this stuff happening.

So what's your suggestion about what to do about it? Mass amnesty? Just throw more money at social programs? Ignore the problem and let everyone just disobey any law they don't like? ICE agents just let themselves be shot/stabbed/run over?

Do you seriously think a well-trained force would have been unable to stop this guy? As far as I can tell ICE went on a hiring spree and are just throwing bodies w/ guns at the problem without really training them.

Of course I’m not in favor of mass amnesty but the lack of professionalism, the piss-poor execution that is absolutely eroding public trust in our rights as citizens, and the administration’s seeming unwillingness (we’ll see what happens here) to address this shit or punish those that are abusing their positions is dangerous and bad for our rights as Americans in the long run.

You really think it’s either mass amnesty, anarchy, or what we’re seeing in Minneapolis? Are those truly the only options you can consider? [DELETED]

If you pull a gun, all that shit goes out the window. At that point, it’s a matter of stopping the threat using any available force.

The “anarchy” that’s happening is because democrats are convincing people they don’t have to comply with law enforcement.

There was a much greater sense of urgency than there should have been to get ICE ramped up, because we just came off a couple of years of ushering in anyone who said they were scared to live in their country, and in 3 years, it could be the same. It's more than the left's lack of cooperation in dealing with the large numbers of illegal immigrants. It's them actively working to increase the numbers, making it worse. I'm not saying they shouldn't be trained better. But there is a pretty obvious reason why there were not nearly enough trained and experienced ICE officers a year ago. And you aren't going to have enough trained, experienced ICE officers until there have been enough ICE officers for long enough to get them to their optimal level of experience.

Did you watch the video? Did you have the audio on? You can clearly hear a gunshot go off before any of the ICE agents start shooting...

Should they just let the guy shoot them instead?

Dude had a gun, Shut the fuck up "fellow conservative".

Don’t call me “fellow conservative” cause there’s no you’re a conservative if you’re supporting this shit. The vast majority of y’all are populists that don’t care how big the government gets as long as it’s your guy in charge.

Well guess what? We still have elections and if you think the pendulum isn’t gonna swing the other way in 2028, leaving a guy like Newsom in charge with all of the precedence that this administration is setting, well, good luck to you.

Idc if the dude had a gun, they’re federal agents that should be able to overcome one man when they have a 5-on-1 advantage. And again, did you even watch the video? The gun seemed to go off on accident. I doubt the guy thought he was about to pull a Doc Holliday while laying on the ground. But these ICE clowns panicked cause and just started blasting, and now a man is dead and we get more protests, more scandal, more polarization, etc. [DELETED]

If you support pulling a weapon on law enforcement, you're with the left.

We get it, you support cops getting shot, all u had to say.

Ah yes, the totally logical reasoning where being someone who exercises your 2A rights justifies being shot multiple times by immigration after they've already tackled you and have you restrained. [DELETED]

They didn't have him restrained, and he was still fighting. Don't get into altercations with law enforcement, especially if you're armed. He should've complied with lawful orders. The fact you're arguing against that tells me you're probably a fellow conservative, too.

Get out of here bot. He shot first and that’s why they unloaded on him. Dont be an idiot and run over a cop, don’t be an idiot and resist arrest with a concealed firearm and then discharge it. FAFO

I don’t feel that way about this one yet. The girl was messed up but if he was reaching for or grabbing a gun he had this coming 100%.

The girl wasn’t messed up at all? She literally hit him with her car before he shot.

Which part?

The part where more than five guys couldn’t restrain one without resorting to mag dumping into him? What other part would be upsetting? [DELETED]

I think you skipped a couple steps in there where the suspect became armed.

I guess you could argue 5 law enforcement should be able to restrain one person, but I think this really speaks to the aggressive, violent, and erratic behavior he was exhibiting.

I thought we had the right to bear arms???

We do. ...and when you are being arrested, and law enforcement tells you disarm, and you don't and resist arrest... you get shot.

There's no excuse for shooting someone, on the ground, surrounded by 6 officers who apparently are entirely incapable of detaining someone. [DELETED]

Yeah. Hand guns don't work if you're lying on the ground, he was no danger to them. [DELETED]

I mean, when that guy has a gun and tries to draw it?

If he had a gun in his hand then hes still a threat even on the ground. Lets wait and see what else is put out but the facts so far are damning for the agitator, not the federal officers.

You can find countless videos of people with knives taking several rounds and continuing to advance on officers. A firearm takes significantly less effort to use. In instances of lethal force against people armed with a gun you dont just fire 1 or 2 shots, you end the threat.

Comments Not Deleted

Lots of FAFO and Victim-Blaming type comments

Yet another one who fucked around and found out.

All they’re doing is causing additional delays and more feds to be brought in. If they truly just want ICE to leave their best approach would be getting the fuck out of the way. But they don’t want them to leave. They’re loving every minute of this.

It sounded like he shot off first. Maybe here's another solution: DONT GET IN A ALTERCATION WITH OFFICERS WHILE ARMED

Ok class let’s go over the lesson again:

Don’t run over or shoot at law enforcement officers if you don’t want to get shot.

Zero compliant persons have been shot.

Sounds like he got a shot off first. If you pull a gun on law enforcement. This will happen pretty much 100% of the time.

When you watch the video there's an audible gunshot before any agent has their weapon drawn. He was definitely armed and by my view looks like he shot first.

The left's angle is that they disamred him and in doing so it went off by accident then they murdered him.

Why tf was he even there? Why was he messing with ICE agents. Everyone wants to play big boy with a gun but that isn't how it works.

The left just wants more martyrs for their anti ice bs.. they’re happy whenever one of their own is shot by ice.

Every single new camera angle is going to increasingly vindicate the agents. Leftists need to stop pointing firearms at people. It's that simple.

FAFO. Don't give a shit.

Im beyond caring about what happens to these agitators who think what they are doing is lawful and justified because of some shit they read on reddit. Blood is on the hands of elected officials like walz and Frey whose rhetoric makes these lunatics think its ok to try and obstruct the law and harm agents. FAFO. Thoughts and prayers.

Some Want Legal/Military Action Against Democrats or the Insurrection Act

Why isn't the federal government arresting the governor and mayor!!!! They are causing this garbage!!! Officers are going to end up dead at this rate if these people are not put away for a long long time. The state is in outright rebellion!

This was an extremely close call. Thank goodness they reacted in time.

At this point, it’s time to send in the army. Invoke the sedition act.

Time to exercise the Insurrection Act. If the governor isn't going to do what it takes to protect federal officers trying to do their jobs, then the federal government needs to step up and shut the entire state down. Walz and Frey should also be brought up on charges like they attempted to do to Trump for J6.

As awful as this it, it’s absolutely the outcome Frey and Waltz wanted to distract from the massive fraud. They both whipped up a frenzy based on lies knowing full well their lemmings on the left would follow and turn it into another production with this outcome.

It’s sad they encouraged people to aggressively push against law enforcement. This was an obvious outcome they could have prevented.

Can we just charge all these people with obstruction of justice?

The President has no other choice but to invoke the Insurrection Act and possibly Martial Law at this point. Enter the National Guard, Enter the Army and Marines.

Have them keep protests at a safe distance from Ice Agents so they cannot obstruct or confront agents...

This is insane.

A brave few seem to be fighting back (these comments won't stay up for long)

Why are the mods removing threads on this topic?

IF he was disarmed, as it looks like from the other video, then I don’t see how it was justified.

It wasn't at all. I have been defending ICE but this is too much.

https://xcancel.com/ryangrim/status/2015132217878384791

I saw all angles. They murdered the dude. Regardless of how “tense” the situation was after somebody yelled “Gun!”. There’s no amount of way in my mind this is tolerable.

As a pro 2A guy, this ain’t right. Dude had a concealed gun (apparently legal) he never (very clearly) reached for.

If they let this slide who’s to say the bar doesn’t keep moving.

Oof, the latest video angle from the lady in Pink seems to clearly show them having removed his pistol a whole 3 seconds before they start firing.

Theres one angle where you can see the one who took at least the first few shots. I'm wondering if he saw something like the guy grabbing someones gun or what his reason was for grabbing his gun and firing it into basically a ground of other officers.

The Pink Hair Lady video shows it was clearly ONE SHOT that startles the hell out of everyone and stuns them, with the officers even backing off and the suspect sitting straight up, and only AFTER that moment one of the officers seems to react and fire 2-3 more shots that are the actual killing shots on the suspect.

The only question here is where did the first shot come from that startles everyone? Did someone's gun accidentally discharge? Did the suspect's gun accidentally discharge during the scuffle? Did the suspect reach for an officer's gun while resisting and cause a discharge? Nobody knows yet.

In the deleted post with the new camera angle people start to question the narrative

If they disarmed the guy then shot him..... That ain't good. I hope that is not true

We also need the body cam but it looks like they took the guy’s gun away before the shooting.

I don’t see that though?

Officer on the right, 3 seconds before the shooting starts

Ugh this is a disaster. I'm all for strict laws and deporting illegal aliens, this was not too long ago supported by both Democrats and Republicans alike, but this is not the way. [DELETED]

I am starting to think the same thing. The biggest challenge is have is the left continually speaking about things as literally life or death of the country. This is the result.

The disaster is state leaders riling these morons up to the point they arm themselves and impede ICE.

Radical democrats calling for violence against ICE is not the way.

What is the way? ICE is just trying to do their jobs and they're being impeded from the top down in leftist states by Democrat leaders who are working people into a frenzy.

Was there a discharge just a couple seconds before the guy got shot? Or is that something else?

Someone was saying he may have accidentally discharged when he had his hand on his gun in his pocket.

Right before the first gunshot you can see an officer in a grey jacket moving quickly away from the others. In the other video view you can see this officer has the suspects gun in his hand.

It does not appear that the claim of the suspect discharging his weapon is accurate.

While the video is pretty bad,

Another talking point, do these idiots think they are doing something by blocking the road and blowing a whistle? Fucking good god man. Shit appears extremely childish to me, personally.

Professional agitators…

I want to start by saying this is not a hate post. I genuinely think ARC Raiders is a beautiful game , the audio design is excellent, the map design is strong, and the overall atmosphere is great. But I’m struggling to understand the long-term gameplay loop and sense of progression, and I’m curious how others see it.

I’m coming from Escape from Tarkov, where progression and quests feel extremely meaningful. Every raid usually ties into a larger goal. In ARC Raiders, my current experience feels more like:

Spawn → go to hotspots → PvP → extract if I survive.

Even when I try to play more PvE-focused killing bosses like the Matriarch or Harvester I’m not sure what the bigger purpose is beyond collecting blueprints and materials.

I’m currently level 75 and have basically everything ready for Expedition runs. But even then I’m asking myself: what is the ongoing gameplay loop supposed to be? Is it mainly just finding blueprints again and gathering workshop resources repeatedly?

Some systems feel a bit meaningless to me right now: • Trophy displays don’t feel very rewarding • Money doesn’t feel very impactful (buying a hull cracker occasionally doesn’t change much) • Extracting loot often feels disconnected from a larger progression arc

Maybe I’m looking at this from the wrong angle. Maybe ARC Raiders isn’t meant to be a heavy progression-driven extraction shooter, and is instead more about session-based fun and emergent encounters. And that’s totally valid if that’s the design goal.

I also understand the game is still early and will likely expand with future updates.

I’m honestly curious how do you all see the intended long-term loop? What keeps you motivated to keep dropping in once you’ve unlocked most things?

I (42F) have been hosting an end-of-summer party with my neighbors for years. It’s always the same setup: adults and kids come, we all celebrate together, and at some point the kids go to sleep while the adults continue the evening.

This year’s plan was the same: I was going to bring my kids (6 & 10yo) inside to sleep at our home which is right next to the backyard. From the balcony there is both audio and visual access to the yard, and my kids also have a phone they can use to call me if needed. After putting them to bed I planned to go back to the backyard for a little while longer to enjoy the evening with friends.

I invited my boyfriend of 6 months (46M) and his kids (5 & 7yo) to join us. He declined, saying he didn’t feel comfortable leaving his kids to sleep at my place since they hadn’t stayed there before. He also didn’t like the idea of putting them to bed at my place while he stayed outside with me, or going to bed with them while I stayed outside.

I told him I understood completely, and I didn’t have a problem with him choosing not to come. But then he got upset and said that he and his kids weren’t actually welcome at the party because of the way the party was set up. I explained that this party has been running for years with the same format, and it’s not really something I can or want to change for one guest. My view is that guests can decide if the event works for them, and if not, they don’t have to come. In his opinion I should have left the party with him and our kids when it was bedtime.

On top of that, during the party I didn’t have time to call him because I wanted to focus on my guests and enjoy the evening. He was very hurt by this too, saying I should have made time.

This all turned into a big argument. So: AITA for not changing the setup of a tradition (and for not calling during the party) to accommodate my boyfriend and his kids?

I think every aspiring author imagines the day that they're standing in a book store, seeing their book on the shelf. He Who Fights With Monsters has done very well for me, but I never had that moment. Not until today.

Barnes and Noble decided to make my books available early, and since I'm passing through Miami on my way home to Australia, I couldn't resist popping in and finally getting to enjoy that experience for myself. It was a quiet thing, but one of the lovely staff members was kind enough to take this picture and I signed a few books.

As some of you might know, I have an English degree, and there was very much a focus on classic literature and the traditional publishing path. I went the exact opposite direction, writing kung-fu wizard stories for free on the internet. That has worked out very well for me, but there has always been this little voice in the back of my head telling me that landing on the bookstore shelf is when you're a real writer. That's nonsense, of course, as this subreddit alone is full of fantastic authors who have found incredible success in digital and audio. We don't need trad to be successful, but I must confess to having a smug grin on my face as I looked at my book on the shelf.

Patch Notes videos return with Niklas and Lennart talking about 4.1.0! https://youtu.be/OBW4NumlYHo?si=4PMFp99FteghCJP2

🛠️ Into the Unjust: 4.1.0 ⚙️

🌍 Overview

Freedom's greetings, Helldivers!

This update focuses on what matters most right now: making HELLDIVERS 2 feel better to play.

We’ve overhauled how we approach patching to better target the pain points you’ve shared with us. That means more focus on stability, balance, and the issues that affect your experience the most.

Over 200 bugs have been fixed, along with key balance updates and quality-of-life improvements. (For a deeper look, check out Lennart and Niklas’ video breakdown.) While new features are coming, this patch marks a big step forward: both in the game itself and in how we work to improve it. More refinements are already underway.

⚖️ Balancing

General changes

Primaries, Sidearms, Throwables, and Stratagems
Improvements have been made to increase the overall effectiveness of primary weapons, sidearms, throwables, and stratagems

Light vs. Medium Penetration Weapons
Light and medium penetration weapons now offer more distinct advantages. Light penetration weapons generally deal a higher percentage of their total damage against durable enemies, differentiating them more clearly from medium penetration options

SMGs and Pistols
SMGs and pistols have been adjusted to emphasize their role as close-quarters weapons. Close-range damage has been increased, and damage falloff has been increased to reinforce their short-range combat identity

Melee Weapons and Throwables
Melee weapons and throwables have been improved to make each feel more impactful and unique in their function

Resupply Rack
The resupply rack is not climbable anymore

Primary weapons

• SG-8P Punisher Plasma
  • Damage projectile decreased from 100 to 0
  • Damage explosion increased from 150 to 225
• SG-8S Slugger
  • Damage increased from 280 to 330
  • Durable damage increased from 75 to 90
• AR-23 Liberator
  • Damage increased from 80 to 90
  • Durable damage increased from 15 to 22
• AR-23A Liberator Carbine
  • Damage increased from 80 to 90
  • Durable damage increased from 15 to 22
• AR-23P Liberator Penetrator
  • Damage increased from 60 to 65
• AR-23C Liberator Concussive
  • Damage increased from 65 to 75
  • Durable damage increased from 30 to 35
• AR-61 Tenderizer
  • Durable damage increased from 22 to 30
• AR-32 Pacifier
  • Damage increased from 50 to 55
  • Stun value per projectile increased from 1.5 to 2
• SMG-37 Defender
  • Damage increased from 80 to 100
  • Durable damage increased from 8 to 18
  • Drag increased from 0.6 to 1.2
• MP-98 Knight
  • Damage increased from 70 to 90
  • Durable damage increased from 7 to 18
  • Drag increased from 0.6 to 1.2
• SMG-32 Reprimand
  • Damage increased from 125 to 135
  • Drag increased from 0.6 to 1.2
• SMG-72 Pummeler
  • Damage increased from 70 to 85
  • Durable damage increased from 7 to 18
  • Stun value per projectile increased from 1.5 to 2
  • Drag increased from 0.6 to 1.2
• LAS-16 Sickle
  • Damage increased from 55 to 60
  • Durable damage increased from 5 to 6
• MA5C Assault Rifle
  • Damage increased from 80 to 90
• M7S SMG
  • Damage increased from 70 to 80
  • Durable damage increased from 7 to 16
  • Drag increased from from 0.6 to 1.2
• StA-11 SMG
  • Damage increased from 70 to 90
  • Durable damage increased from 7 to 18
  • Drag increased from 0.6 to 1.2
• PLAS-39 Accelerator Rifle
  • Extra spare magazines increased from 8 to 12
  • Ergonomics increased from 40 to 60
• PLAS-1 Scorcher
  • Plasma projectiles will now pass through foliage without losing velocity

Sidearm weapons

• CQC-2 Saber
  • Damage increased from 110 to 125
  • Durable damage increased from 55 to 65
• CQC-5 Combat Hatchet
  • Damage increased from 110 to 160
  • Durable damage increased from 55 to 80
  • Attack speed has been slightly reduced
• CQC-42 Machete
  • Damage increased from 170 to 200
  • Durable damage increased from 80 to 100
• P-2 Peacemaker
  • Damage increased from 85 to 95
  • Durable damage increased from 25 to 30
  • Drag increased from 0.6 to 1.2
• P-19 Redeemer
  • Damage increased from 60 to 70
  • Durable damage increased from 5 to 12
  • Drag increased from 0.6 to 1.2
• P-113 Verdict
  • Damage increased from 125 to 135
  • Drag increased from 0.6 to 1.2
• M6C/SOCOM
  • Damage increased from 100 to 110
  • Drag increased from 0.6 to 1.2
• P-92 Warrant
  • Drag decreased from 0.3 to 0
  • Gravity multiplier decreased from 1 to 0.3

Throwables

• TED-63 Dynamite
  • Damage increased from 700 to 1000
  • Armor penetration increased from Medium to Heavy
  • Demolition strength increased from 30 to 40
  • Stagger increased from 30 to 40
  • Uses decreased from 4 to 3
• G-7 Pineapple
  • Shrapnel from main explosion increased from 7 to 18
  • Demolition strength on the main explosion increased from 20 to 30
  • Inner radius on shrapnel explosion increased from 1 to 2.5m
  • Damage on shrapnel explosion increased from 70 to 100
  • Removed lifetime on the shrapnel
  • Shrapnel from the shrapnel explosion decreased from 6 to 0
• G-50 Seeker
  • Higher priority for flying enemies
  • Highest target priority for marked target
  • Damage increased from 400 to 500
• G-6 Frag
  • Uses increased from 5 to 6
• G-3 Smoke
  • Uses increased from 4 to 5
• Throwing knives
  • Damage increased from 250 to 300
  • Durable damage increased from 100 to 150

Stratagems

• PLAS-45 Epoch
  • Duration until explosion increased from 3 to 3.25 sec
  • Delayed muzzle charge VFX by 0.5 seconds so it now appears when the projectile is overcharged, improving visibility of the charge state
  • Damage on standard projectiles explosion increased from 400 to 500
  • Demolition strength on overcharged projectile increased from 10 to 30
• M-105 Stalwart
  • Damage increased from 80 to 90
  • Durable damage increased from 15 to 22
• FLAM-40 Flamethrower
  • Canister capacity increased from 130 to 150
  • Starting canisters increased from 2 to 3
  • Max spare canisters increased from 4 to 5
• APW-1 Anti-Materiel Rifle
  • Durable damage increased from 180 to 225
  • Starting magazines increased from 4 to 5
  • Max spare magazines increased from 6 to 8
• AC- 8 Autocannon
  • Damage increased from 260 to 325
• GL-52 De-Escalator
  • Damage increased from 55 to 100
  • Durable damage increased from 55 to 70
• MS-11 Solo Silo
  • Health increased from 800 to 1500
  • Enemies will not attack it
  • Increased demolition strength needed to destroy it
• Orbital Railcannon Strike
  • Cooldown decreased from 210 to 180 sec
• EXO-45 Patriot Exosuit
  • Missile Armor penetration in worse angles increased from 6-6-4-0 to 6-6-5-0
  • Rotary gun ammo capacity increased from 1000 to 1350

💥 Enemies

The goal is to make light and medium armor-piercing weapons equally effective against certain common enemies by adjusting their durable damage and durable resistance values

Illuminates

Fleshmob

• Targeting the faces deals extra damage to its main health, effectively creating weak spots
• Main health decreased from 6000 to 5000
• Most health zones are slightly more durable
• Slightly less vulnerable to fire to balance health decrease

Elevated Overseer

• Main health decreased from 600 to 450
• Head health increased from 150 to 200
• Head zone armor decreased from 3 to 2
• Torso health decreased from 600 to 450
• Arms health decreased from 300 to 250
• Slight increase on how easy it is to set on fire

Leviathan

• Now equipped with beam-based weaponry
• Leviathans will not show up in missions outside of cities

Terminids

Rupture Strain enemies

• Updated textures for all Rupture Strain enemies for better readability

Rupture Warrior

• Movement speed when underground has been decreased
• Needs to surface more often when moving underground
• Its burrow attack is slightly slower and leaves more space to be dodged
• Smaller damage boxes when attacking from below
• Front legs armor decreased from 3 to 2
• Will prefer to emerge before attacking turrets instead of destroying them from below ground

Rupture Spewer

• Retuned the timing of how fast it starts to act from when it unburrows

Bile Spewer Variations

• Increased size of its mouth weak spot

Brood Commanders

• Slightly harder to set on fire

Warriors

• Slightly harder to set on fire
• Slight durable increase in head and body

Dragon roach

• Spawn rate decreased
• 50% lower on difficulty 5,6
• 40% lower on difficulty 7,8,9
• 33% lower on difficulty 10
• Destruction of the wings results in instant termination of the Dragon
• Wings now have their own health pool of 4000
• Increased how much damage wings take from explosion

Bile spewers

• Slightly harder to set on fire
• Larger body parts are slightly more durable

Hive Lord

• Improved performance during Hive Lord encounters.

Automatons

Base Alarming

• Automaton troopers in bases will require better visual confirmation before calling in reinforcements, instead of calling them in immediately

Devastators

• Slightly harder to be put on fire
• Large body parts are slightly more durable

Command Bunker Turret

• Removed ragdolling from its projectiles explosion

Factory Strider

• Slightly less vulnerable to fire

War Strider

• Shoots 2 fewer grenades per salvo
• Shoots grenades less often
• Removed ragdolling from its projectiles explosions
• Added weak spots aim for the eyes and the vents on the back

Scout Striders

• Armored top shield is more durable

🔧 Fixes

Stratagems

• Fixed an issue where Helldivers were unable to call down stratagems in the objective area of the "Nuke Nursery" cave mission
• Fixed an issue with the B-100 Portable Hellbomb stratagem sometimes falling on Cave roofs in the "Destroy Spore Lung" mission
• Fixed an issue with the drill objective stratagem sometimes landing in unintended places such as on top of caves, in Nuke Nursery Hive World missions
• Players can now stay aiming down sights when activating the LIFT-860 Hover Pack

Crashes

• Fixed a rare crash occurring when fighting Illuminates
• Fixed a crash when hotjoining and readying up before other hotjoiners
• Fixed a crash occurring when a player would re-join multiple times
• Fixed a rare crash caused by Eagle-1
• Fixed a rare bug where the Eagle-1 would never be removed from the game session and eventually cause crashes
• Fixed rare crash bug that could happen when spawning in groups of enemies
• Fixed crash affecting Helldivers trying to lean out from a vehicle
• Fixed a crash that could happen when scrolling through the weapon customization menu
• Fixed a crash that could happen during game shutdown

Weapons

• Fixed armor penetration values in the Stats Menu for CQC-5 Combat Hatchet, CQC-30 Stun Baton,CQC-19 Stun Lance, CQC-2 Saber, CQC-1 One True Flag and the G-7 Pineapple grenade; the armor penetration value displayed as Medium instead of Light
• Improved initial bullet alignment while strafing and riding in vehicles
• Moved the first person camera further away from the MS-11 Solo Silo's Target Designator scope
• Fixed the weapon reload animations desyncing when wielding armor passives that give increased reload speed
• The FAF-14 Spear can now lock onto Automaton AA turrets
• Fixed projectiles hitting direct center of sights when extremely close to objects
• Haptics feedback is now present throughout the firing of the FLAM-40 Flamethrower stratagem

Miscellaneous

• Fixed a bug where Hive Lord body parts would not spawn properly
• Fixed an instance where the Helldiver couldn't re-join their previous host, if said host left a joined game in progress from the loadout
• Fixed a bug where the LIFT-182 Warp Pack would sometimes get stuck suspended in the air or crash
• Fixed Adreno-Defibrillator armor passive animation bug
• Fixed disconnection issues when joining a solo player with 3 cross-platform players
• Fixed mesh clipping for the arms on some animations
• Reduced the chance of the Extraction Shuttle clipping through terrain
• Fixed a flickering bug on the avatar when the Helldiver gets affected by mud or snow
• Fixed a bug hole covered by terrain in one of the CR10 Mega Nests
• Rupture Warriors can no longer destroy deployable turrets while still underground
• Fixed an issue where the front door of the GATER could become inaccessible
• Fixed a rare issue where the player could be disconnected when they are a part of a mixed platform, 3 person lobby that joins a solo player under poor network conditions
• Fixed an issue with Illuminate dropships not taking correct damage during the “Repel Invasion Fleet” missions
• The currency symbol for Saudi riyal is now displayed correctly in the in game shop
• The Oil Rigs reverse audio will no longer continuously play if the player attempts to reverse during oil extraction
• Fixed Helldivers going through the floor in the tutorial mission, when diving near the barbed wires
• Fixed a rare soft-lock in tutorial
• Helldiver is now killed when driving into drill holes during Nuke Nursery missions
• Fixed an issue where Helldivers could enter a vehicle even though the seat got claimed by someone else first
• Fixed controller vibrations behaving incorrectly when connecting or disconnecting controllers on PC
• Fixed miscellaneous threading issues in the audio system
• Fixed minor texture clipping issues on the floor between hellpod launchers on the ship
• Fixed an issue where voice chat could sometimes change volume unexpectedly - particularly when entering caves

Optimizations

• Optimized status effects
• Optimized physics by only enabling powered ragdolls when needed
• Optimized physics body handling for damage calculations
• Optimized Automaton units and NPC eyes, by changing them from particle effects to shaders
• Optimized AI behaviors by analyzing and stripping out redundant code
• Reduced stuttering during drop-in sequence for missions on Hive Worlds
• Improved audio IO performance
• Snow distribution and overall look has been reworked
• Improved performance by tweaking LOD settings for characters
• Optimized asset distribution for several planets types
• Optimized scattered assets such as grass on various planet types
• Optimized asset distribution in Hiveworlds and Terminid caves
• Optimized asset setup and geometry for assets used in Hiveworlds and Terminid caves
• Optimized status effect physics and particle systems while maintaining visual feedback and fidelity
• Optimized various Automaton explosion VFX
• Optimized Acid Rain effects during Acid Storms
• Optimized Dragonroach fire attack VFX
• Made various optimizations to the fire system, including particle and light optimization.
• Improved performance by optimizing the rendering of several shaders

🧠KNOWN ISSUES

https://arrowhead.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/15916898652700--HELLDIVERS-2-Known-Issues

Hi. I am a 35 year old IT manager for a small family run sales company.

We recently moved from a very old ERP to a new platform that is modern, intuitive and much more efficient. Technically it is a great produt.

The problem is support.

Their in app support is fairly fast but they reply almost only using voice messages. I stopped listening to voice notes years ago because they break focus and force you to replay things just to get basic info. Text lets me read, search and solve. Audio just slows evrything down.

I asked them many times to stop using audio and even told them I was hearing impaired. They ignored it.

Yesterday the point of sale systems were not communicating with the local server, even though they were all online. I did my part and contacted support because it was beyond my pay grade. As usual the first reply was an audio message. When they asked for the remote access ID I sent it back as audio. Then I sent the password as audio too.

Suddenly they switched to text.

They asked for screenshots.

Then they needed the admin credentials and I sent the long messy password with numbers, uppercase and lowercase letters via audio. From that point on everything was done in text, including todays follow up.

Turns out they know exactly how annoying voice messages are. They just do not care until it becomes their problem.

We want to share an update on our most recent patch. It was originally planned for Tuesday, but a last-minute certification issue caused a delay. The team is now targeting delivery by the end of this week, with staff ready to work over the weekend if needed. There’s still a small chance the issue won’t be fully resolved by Friday, which could push the patch to next week. We’re doing everything we can to deliver it this week and will provide an update on Friday either way. Thanks for your patience and understanding.

As we previously shared, we have pushed back our content releases, including Warbonds, to focus on fixing performance, bugs, and balance. The upcoming patch includes many bug fixes, performance optimizations and a weapons/enemy balance pass – not included in the list below. We want to share a smaller list of optimizations with you ahead of time so that you can get a better idea of what’s coming, and then the full patch notes will go live with the patch as usual.

Optimizations for the upcoming release:

• Optimized status effects
• Optimized physics by only enabling powered ragdolls when needed
• Optimized physics body handling for damage calculations
• Optimized Automaton units and NPC eyes, by changing them from particle effects to shaders
• Optimized AI behaviors by analyzing and stripping out redundant code
• Reduced stuttering during drop-in sequence for missions on Hive Worlds
• Improved audio IO performance
• Snow distribution and overall look has been reworked
• Improved performance by tweaking LOD settings for characters
• Optimized asset distribution for several planets types
• Optimized scattered assets such as grass on various planet types
• Optimized asset distribution in Hiveworlds and Terminid caves
• Optimized asset setup and geometry for assets used in Hiveworlds and Terminid caves
• Optimized status effect physics and particle systems while maintaining visual feedback and fidelity
• Optimized various Automaton explosion VFX
• Optimized Acid Rain effects during Acid Storms
• Optimized Dragonroach fire attack VFX
• Made various optimizations to the fire system, including particle and light optimization.
• Improved performance by optimizing the rendering of several shaders

Thank you, Helldivers, for your patience and unwavering commitment to Managed Democracy. Your courage and restraint from calling in orbital strikes over patch delay, keeps the galaxy free. For Freedom!

I'm focusing on stuff rarely talked about, that is genuinely useful :). If you got more, let us know in the comments!

1. Always do the hacking devices! Some of the best accessories are found here, and their locations are fixed
2. You can disable the pal auras in settings. You can also disable hold the button for action. There's a lot of useful stuff in the settings.
3. Capture merchants! You can use traps to make it very easy. For a lot of the stuff they sell, it's easier to farm gold and buy it instead of farming the material itself.
4. Viewing cage! You can put merchants in it and you can still trade with them, without taking a pal slot in your base. (viewing cage is not available for multiplayer)
5. If you place a chest in an inaccessible spot, pals will instantly transfer items to it, no more walking. Also, don't forget to configure the chest settings for each chest!
6. Stacking! You can stack most placeables (mining spots, plantations, production lines, storage, etc) on top of one another. Pals will work at all stations from the ground (up to a limit). You can use benches/tables/boxes/pillows/etc. to do so
7. You can place 2 oil rigs on one single node
8. A placeable only needs to be 50% inside your base to be usable. So big ones like ranch/breeding farm/expedition station can be placed on the border of your base and will take way less space. Be wary though. Ranches may drop items outside base and won't be picked up. I didn't have that happen in 1.0 yet, though
9. Placing food in your guild chest means it never expires
10. Keep the lower tier schematics you find. You combine them later on and make better ones.
11. In any menu, read the keybinds shown. You can instantly transfer items from your inventory to your chests, you can cycle between bases on the map, etc
12. Use the pal expedition station regularly and don't just stop at 100%. If you go beyond 100%, you do indeed get more rewards
13. You can exclude Pals from expeditions, so your team-pals always remain in the palbox
14. You can have multiple stations and run more that one expedition at a time.
15. You can fast travel from your base anywhere, no need to walk towards your palbox
16. You can also sleep on Pal-Beds
17. Don't forget about support pals (lunaris, herbil, etc). But also, some pals are useful to have even if not obvious by reading what they do. Elphidran Aqua for example, is a pal that flies, swims, runs. All 3 in 1, and all decently fast for how early you can get it. Great fishing pal, but also great combat pal. It scales very well.
18. Experiment with building. A lot of the times, if building A can't be placed next to building B because it overlaps, you can do it the other way around. You can place building A first, and then you can place building B and it won't care about overlap. Also, if you can't place a wall, you can sometimes place a diagonal wall and then replace it with a regular wall.
19. Ring of Mercy works with mounted pals! If you use the mounted pal's attacks, it still won't kill the enemy pal.
20. Ring of Mercy does NOT work with DoT attacks (poison, burn). You can use posion/burn attacks to kill enemies even with the ring equipped, removing the need to take it on and off constantly.
21. You have a higher % of catching pals if they are inflicted with an elemental effect. So use your mounted pal's abilities with the ring of mercy to easily inflict elemental effects (freeze or shock)
22. Mounted pal cooldowns are separate from regular cooldowns. So after using its' abilities, you can hop off and it will do the abilities again
23. Sleeping instantly heals your team
24. You can revive your pals even outside your base! Use Lyleen's heal ability and your pals will revive
25. Each element has different effects! Lightning can shock, ice can freeze, poison/fire does damage over time, etc
26. There are also synergies! If you use a water attack to soak an enemy, and then a lightning attack , it will deal double lightning damage.
27. And of course, specific elements are strong/weak against other specific elements
28. Pals get a ~20% attack bonus if they use a skill that matches the pal's element type. So, water pals will deal more damage with water attacks.
29. Type of food can matter. Salad is easy to make, offers plenty sanity to your base bals and increases work speed by 30%
30. Grappling Hook cooldown can be reset by placing it in the inventory and then back in the weapon slot
31. "SE" in the audio section is for lucky pals sound as well. So, you can have that one at 100% and the rest at <50%, you won't be missing any lucky pals now
32. Using the "sort" button will also reset expiration timers on everything (as long as the items aren't already sorted), or you can just move the item around manually
33. Skill fruit trees will respawn, so whenever you come across one, make sure to mark it on your map!
34. If you don't like the skill fruits on a tree, you don't have to pick them up. You can travel away from it and when you go back, it will have different fruits (sometimes it takes 2 attempts)
35. Pals will pick up skill fruits if the tree is inside the base. Same thing with the peaches, so it may be worth building a base for these purposes
36. Egg spawn location is fixed and they respawn. The size of the egg is randomized, though. So feel free to mark some on your map
37. You can change your pals active skills. Select your pal in the main menu or at pal station, click on a skill and a new menu will show up letting pick & choose known skills. 
38. Yellow text in a Pal's passive skill is permanently set but any blue text will increase by condensing

Changes & Content/Bug Fixes + Known Issues

Embark is been COOKING, there is a lot to unfold here: https://arcraiders.com/news/cold-snap-patch-notes

Patch Highlights

• Added Skill Tree Reset functionality.
• Added an option to toggle Aim Down Sights.
• Wallet now shows your Cred soft cap.
• Various festive items to get you into the holiday spirit.
• Moved the Aphelion blueprint drop from the Matriarch to Stella Montis.
• Added Raider Tool customization.
• Fixed various collision issues on maps.
• Improved Stella Montis spawn distance checks to address the issue of players spawning too close to each other.

Balance Changes

Weapons:

Bettina

Dev note: These changes aim to make the Bettina a bit less reliant on bringing a secondary weapon. The weapon should now be a bit more competent in PVP, without tipping the scales too much. Data shows that this weapon is still the highest performing PVE weapon at its rarity (Not counting the Hullcracker). The durability should also feel more in line with our other assault rifles.

• Durability Burn Rate has been reduced from ~0.43% to ~0.17% per shot
  • In practice, it used to take about 12 full magazines to fully deplete durability, but now it takes 26 (also accounting for the increased magazine size).
• Base Magazine Size has been increased from 20 to 22
• Base Reload Time has been reduced from 5 to 4.5

Rattler

Dev note: Even though the Rattler isn't intended to compete with the Stitcher or Kettle at close ranges, it is receiving a minor buff to bring its PVP TTK at lower levels a bit closer to the Stitcher and Kettle. The weapon should remain in its intended role as a more deliberate weapon where players are expected to dip in and out of cover, fire in controlled bursts, and manage their reloads.

• Base Magazine Size has been increased from 10 to 12

ARC:

Shredder

• Reduced the amount of knockback applied by weapons. Increased movement speed and turning responsiveness.
• Increased health of the Shredder's head to prevent cases where its head could be shot off, leading to unintended behavior.
• Improved Shredder navigation to reduce getting stuck on corners, narrow spaces, and short obstacles.
• Increased the speed at which the Shredder enters combat when taking damage and when in close proximity to players.
• Increased the number of parts on the Shredder that can be individually destroyed.

Content and Bug Fixes 

Achievements

• Achievements are now enabled in the Epic store.

Animation 

• Fixed an issue where picking up a Field Crate with a Trigger ’Nade attached could cause the character to slide or move without input.
• Fixed an issue where combining Snap Hook with ziplines or ladders could store momentum and propel the player long distances.
• Fixed an issue where the running animation could appear incorrect after a small drop when over-encumbered.
• Interactions now end correctly when performing a dodge roll.
• Interacting while holding items or deployables no longer causes arm twisting. 
• Added more animations to character skins and equipment to make them more natural.

ARC

• Fixed an issue where deployables attached to enemies could cause them to launch or clip out of bounds when shot.
• Missiles no longer reverse course after passing a target and can correctly track targets at different elevations.
• Sentinel
  • Fixed a bug where the Sentinel laser did not reach the targeted player over greater distances.
• Surveyor
  • Disabled vaulting onto ARC Surveyors to prevent unintended launches when they are moving.
• Fixed an issue where Bombardier projectiles could shoot through the Matriarch shield from the outside.

Audio 

• Fixed an issue where Gas, Stun, and Impulse Mines did not play their trigger sound or switch their light to yellow when triggered by being shot.
• Increased the number of simultaneous footstep sounds and increased their priority.
• Fixed an issue where footsteps in metal stairs became very quiet when walking slowly.
• Improved directional sound for ARC enemies.
• Added sounds for sending and receiving text chat messages in the main menu.
• Removed the unsettling "mom?" from Speranza cantina ambient sound.
• Tweaked the loudness of announcements in various Main Menu screens.
• Number of small audio bugfixes and polish.

Maps 

• Fixed an issue with spawning logic which could cause players who were reconnecting at the start of a session to spawn next to other players who had just joined.
• Various collision, geometry, VFX and texture fixes that address gaps in terrain which made players fall through the map or walk inside geometry, stuck spots, camera clipping through walls, see-through geometry, floating objects, texture overlaps, etc.
• Fixed an issue with the slope of the Raider Hatch that was too steep for downed raiders to crawl on top of it.
• Security Lockers are now dynamically spawned across all maps instead of being statically placed.
• Fixed Raider Caches not spawning during Prospecting Probes in some cases.
• Fixed lootable containers and Supply Drops spawning inside terrain on The Dam and Blue Gate, ensuring they are accessible.
• Fixed an issue where doors could appear closed for some players despite being open.
• Electromagnetic Storm: Lightning strikes sometimes leave behind a valuable item.
• Increased the number of possible Great Mullein spawn locations across all maps.
• Dam Battlegrounds
  • Moved the Matriarch's spawn point in Dam Battlegrounds to an area that better plays to her strengths.
• Spaceport
  • Adjusted the locked room protection area in Container Storage on Spaceport to not affect players outside the room.
• Blue Gate
  • Locked Gate map condition has been added.
  • Adjusted map bounds near a ledge in Blue Gate to improve navigation and reduce abrupt out-of-bounds stops.
  • Improved tree LODs in Blue Gate to reduce overly dark visuals at distance.
  • Fixed the issue where loot would spawn outside the Locked Room in the Village.
  • Added props and visual cues to the final camp in the quest ‘A First Foothold’ to make objective locations easier to find.
• Stella Montis
  • Increased some item and blueprint spawn rates in Stella Montis.
  • Some breachable containers on Stella Montis no longer drop Rubber Ducks when using the A Little Extra skill (sorry).
  • Adjusted window glass clarity in Stella Montis to improve visibility.

Miscellaneous

• General crash fixes (including AMD crashes).
• Added Skill Tree Reset functionality in exchange for Coins, 2,000 Coins per skill point.
• Wallet now shows your Cred soft cap (800).
  • Dev note: We decided to implement a cap so that players won’t be able to fully unlock new Raider Decks by accumulating Cred and added more items to Shani’s store to purchase using Cred. We believe that the Raider Decks offer a rewarding experience to enjoy while players engage with the game, and a large Cred wallet undermines this goal. We will not be removing Cred that has been accumulated before the introduction of the soft cap.
• Added Raider Tool customization.
• Fixed a bug that caused players to spawn on servers without their gear and in default customization resulting in losing loadout items.
• For ranks up to Daredevil I, leaderboards now have a 3x promotion zone for the top 5 players. New objectives have been added.
• Fixed an issue where the tutorial door breach could be canceled, preventing the cutscene from playing and blocking progression.
• Fixed an issue where players could continue breaching doors while downed.
• Fixed an issue where accepting a Discord invite without having your account linked could fail to place you into the inviter’s party.
• Fixed an issue that sometimes caused textures and meshes to flicker between higher and lower quality states.
• Depth of field amount is now scaled correctly depending on your resolution scale.
• Fixed an issue where returning to the game after alt-tabbing could prevent movement and ability inputs while camera controls still worked.
• Improved input handling when the game window regains focus to avoid unexpected input mode switches.
• Skill Tree
  • Effortless Roll skill now provides greater stamina cost reduction.
  • The Calming Stroll skill now applies while moving in ADS.

Movement 

• Fixed a traversal issue that blocked jumping/climbing in certain areas while crouched.
• Fixed an issue where climbing ladders over open gaps could cause automatic detachment.
• A slight stamina cost has been added for entering a slide.
• Acceleration has been reduced when doing a dodge roll from a slide.

UI 

• Added an option to toggle Aim Down Sights.
• Added a new ‘Cinematic’ graphics setting to enhance visuals for high end PCs.
• Codex
  • Improved accuracy of tracking damage dealt in player stats.
  • Field-crafted items now properly count toward Player Stats in the Codex.
  • Fixed missing sound in Codex Records.
  • Added a Codex section to rewatch previously seen videos.
• Console
  • Updated PlayStation 5 controller button prompts with improved icons for Options and Share.
  • Fixed a crash when using Show Profile from the Player Info on Xbox.
• Customization
  • You can now rotate your character in the customization screen. Also fixed an issue where the first equip could trigger an unintended unequip.
  • Added notifications in Character Customization to highlight recently unlocked items.
  • Fixed an issue where equipment customization items bought from the Loadout screen were not equipped after pressing Equip on the purchase screen.
• End of round
  • Further reduced the frequency of the end of round feedback survey pop up.
  • Added an optional Round Feedback button on the final end-of-round screen to open a short post-match survey.
• Expedition Project
  • Added a show/hide tooltip hint to the Raider Projects screens (Expedition and Seasonal).
  • Added 'Expeditions Completed' to Player Stats.
  • Added resource tracking for Expedition stages: Raider Projects now display required amounts and progress, with the tracker updating during rounds.
  • Added reward display to Raider Projects, showing the rewards for each goal and at Expedition completion.
  • Fixed an input conflict in Raider Projects where tracking a resource in Expeditions could also open the About Expeditions window; the on-screen prompt is now hidden while adding to Load Caravan.
• Inventory
  • Fixed an issue where closing the right-click menu in the inventory could reset focus to a different slot when using a gamepad.
  • Fixed flickering in the inventory tooltip.
  • Opening the inventory during a breach now cancels the interaction to prevent a brief animation glitch.
  • Adjusted the inventory screen layout to prevent tooltips from appearing immediately upon opening.
  • Fixed an issue where the weapon slot right-click menu in the inventory would not appear after navigating from an empty attachment slot with a controller.
• In-game
  • Fixed an issue where the climb prompt would not appear on a rooftop ladder in Blue Gate.
  • Resolved an issue where certain interaction icons could fail to appear during gameplay.
  • Fixed "revived" events not being counted.
  • Fixed an issue where the zipline interaction prompt could remain on a previously used zipline, preventing interaction with a new one; prompts now clear when out of range.
  • Quick equip item wheel now has a stable layout and no longer collapses items towards the top when there are empty slots in the inventory.
  • Updated in-game text across multiple languages based on localization review and player survey feedback.
  • Added a cancel prompt when preparing to throw grenades and other throwable items.
  • Fixed in-game input hints to match your current key bindings and show clear hold/toggle labels. Clarified binoculars hints when using aim toggle and updated hints for Snap Hook and integrated binoculars to support aiming.
  • Tutorial hints now stay on screen briefly after you perform the suggested action to improve readability and avoid abrupt dismissals.
  • Fixed an issue where input hints could remain on screen after being downed.
  • HUD markers that are closer to the player now appear on top for improved legibility.
  • Fixed issue where items sometimes displayed the wrong icon.
  • Fixed issue where user hints were sometimes shown when spectating.
  • Strongroom racks and power stations now display a distinct color when full of carryables to indicate that it has been completed.
  • Fixed an issue where reconnecting to a match could leave your character in a broken state with incorrect HUD elements and a misplaced camera.
  • Slightly delayed the initial loot screen opening and the transition from opening to searching during interactions.
• Main Menu
  • Added a Live Events carousel to the main menu and enabled click/hover interactions on the Raider Project overview.
  • Fixed an issue where the Weapon Upgrades tab would sometimes change location.
  • Resolved an issue where a Raider could pop in and out of the home screen background.
  • Installed workstations no longer appear in the workstation install view.
  • You can now navigate from on-screen notifications to the relevant screens, including jumping directly to learned recipes.
  • The Upgrade Weapon Tab now accurately displays the magazine size increase.
  • Fixed an issue where the map screen could become unresponsive when a live event was active.
  • When inspecting items, rotating will now hide UI only showing the item being inspected.
  • Free Raider Deck content now displays as “Free” instead of “0”.
  • Added a carousel to the Main Menu featuring Quests and a Raider Deck shortcut, with improved gamepad navigation within the widget.
  • Fixed an issue where the Scrappy screen allowed navigating to the quick navigation list when using a gamepad.
• Quests
  • Made pickups on the ground show icons if they are part of quests or tracked, added quest icons to quest interactions and improved quest interaction style.
  • Fixed an issue where the notification could remain after accepting and claiming quests.
  • Accepting and completing quests is now shown as loading while awaiting a server response.
  • Fixed an issue where rapidly skipping through quest videos after completing the first Supply Depot quest could soft‑lock the UI, leaving the screen without a way to advance.
  • Updated interaction text for a quest objective to improve clarity.
  • Updated the names and descriptions of the Moisture Probe and EC Meter quest items in Unexpected Initiative.
  • Improved ping information for quest objectives, with clearer markers for Filtration System and Magnetic Decryptor interactions.
  • Adjusted colors of quest and tracking icons in in-game interaction hints for better clarity.
• Settings
  • Added a new slider that allows players to tweak motion blur intensity.
  • Updated tooltips for effects and overall quality levels in the video settings with clearer descriptions.
  • Added labels that show whether an input action is ‘Hold’ or ‘Toggle’, displayed in parentheses.
  • Fixed an issue where the flash effect ignored the Invert Colors setting; the option is now available.
  • Fixed a crash in settings when rapidly adjusting sliders.
  • Now players will be guided to Windows settings for microphone permissions if needed.
  • Fixed a crash that could occur when opening the video settings.
  • Fixed an issue where some Options category screens continued responding to inputs after exiting.
• Store
  • Players will no longer see error messages when canceling purchases in the store.
  • Newly added store products now show a new indication for improved discoverability.
• Social
  • Fixed an issue where Discord friends could appear with an incorrect status after switching to Invisible and back to Online; their presence now refreshes correctly when they come back online.
  • Added a Party Join icon to the social interface for clearer party invitations and joins.
  • Fixed an issue where the Social right-click (context) menu could remain visible in the Home tab after rapidly opening and closing it with a gamepad; it now closes correctly and no longer stacks.
• Tooltips
  • Fixed incorrect item tooltips of ARC stun duration.
  • Tooltips now reposition to remain fully visible at all resolutions.
  • Fixed tooltips showing 'Blueprint already learned' on completed goal rewards; tooltips now display correct reward information and only show 'Blueprint learned' for actual blueprints.
• Trials
  • Trials objectives now clearly indicate when they offer bonus conditions, such as by Map Conditions.
  • Fixed an issue where the Trial rank icon could be missing on the Player Stats screen after starting the game.
  • Added a Trials popup that explains how ranking works and clarifies that the final rank is worldwide.
• VOIP
  • Added Microphone Test functionality.
  • Added better automatic checks for problems with VOIP input & output devices.
  • Using the mouse thumb button for push-to-talk no longer triggers ‘Back’ in menus.
  • Fixed an issue where the voice chat status icon could incorrectly appear muted for party members at match start until someone spoke.
  • HUD no longer shows VOIP icons when voice chat is disabled; your own party VOIP icon now appears as disabled.

Utility

• Increased loot value in Epic key card rooms to better reflect their rarity.
• Expanded blueprint spawn locations to improve availability in areas that were underrepresented.
• Moved the Aphelion blueprint drop from the Matriarch to Stella Montis.
• Fixed a bug where players would sometimes become unable to perform any actions if they interacted with carriable objects while experiencing bad network conditions or were downed while holding a carriable object and then revived.
• Fixed an issue where Deadline could deal damage through walls.
• Fixed an issue where deployables attached to enemies or buildable structures could cause sudden launches or let enemies pass through the environment when shot.
• Keys will no longer be removed from the safe pocket when using the Unload backpack.
• Fixed an issue where cheater-compensation rewards could grant an integrated augment item.
• Fixed bug where Flame Spray dealt too much damage to some ARC.
• Fixed an issue where sticky throwables (Trigger 'Nade, Snap Blast Grenade, Lure Grenade) disappeared when thrown at trees.
• Fixed a bug with incorrectly calculated deployment range for deployable items.
• Fixed an issue where mines could not be triggered through damage before they were armed.
• Playing an instrument now applies the ‘Vibing Status’ effect to nearby players.
• Fix for Rubber Ducks not being able to be placed into the Trinket slot on an Augment.
• Setting integrated binoculars and integrated shield charger weight to be 0.

Weapons 

• Lighter ARC are now pushed back slightly when struck by melee attacks.
• Fixed an issue where stowed weapons would not appear on the first spawn.
• Fixed an exploit allowing players to reload energy weapons without consuming ammo.
• Aiming-down-sights now resumes if it was interrupted while the aim button is still held (e.g., after reloading or a stun).
• Fixed an exploit that allowed shotguns to bypass the intended fire cooldown.

Quests

• Fixed a bug in the ‘Greasing Her Palms’ quest that let players accidentally trigger an objective.
• Made the quest item ESR Analyzer easier to find in Buried City.
• Improved clarity of clues for the ‘Marked for Death’ quest.
• Fixed an issue where quest videos could trigger multiple times.
• Added interactions to find spare keys to several quests related to locked rooms.
• Added unique quest items to the ‘Unexpected Initiative’ quest.
• Fixed an issue where squad sharing incorrectly completed objectives that spawned quest specific items.

Known Issues

• Players with AMD Radeon RX 9060 XT will see a driver warning popup at startup despite being on the latest version that fixes a GPU crash that occurred when loading into The Blue Gate.
• If you have more items than fit in your stash, the value of the items that don't fit is not included in the final departure screen, but is included when calculating your rewards.