I interpreted that initial comment as saying 100% of games would work with Proton, and I was definitely skeptical of Valve pulling that off before December, unless they're sitting on a ton of improvements they haven't released yet. This interpretation makes a lot more sense. Thankfully it doesn't make a difference to me, but I can see this being a turn-off for Windows gamers. Hopefully Valves pulls off enough Proton improvements by December to get enough of the popular games working that Windows gamers are willing to wait for further improvements.

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Yeah, I'm looking forward to this—curious to see how these different "layers" interact with the main planet layer (and Green Planet).

Quoting: UnixOutlawLoved this game - except for the "let's get some humans here..." bit... I could colony build forever...

That bit bores me, and I don't care what happens to the humans, I don't care if they're bored - I wish the game had "evil genius" mode where I get to gas or space them all for being disobedient :D ... don't preach at me, they're not people... it's a game...

I might have to check out some of the DLC...

Just disable oxygen generation. :whistle:

Or if you're interested in mods, there's a cool one that adds a starting profile that lets you build bio-robots from the beginning of the game without needing humans. I played a game where every colonist was an immortal bio-robot and the only humans on Mars were tourists coming to the tourism resort I set up. :smile:

Quoting: NezchanPity getting the vegetation in place is such a grind though. Hopefully they'll overhaul that at some point.

Yeah, the other three parameters work out pretty well, but despite being the first thing I start vegetation is always the last I finish, by, like, at least twice as long as any of the others. It's just bizarre how badly balanced it is. I use a few mods to speed it up, because the default is just ridiculous.

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This is one of those games I helped Kickstart, then discovered I'd lost interest in by the time it arrived*. I think I've loaded it up once and being confused how it worked (though I vaguely remember that being quite soon after getting the key, so it might've not had full tutorials implemented yet). :unsure: Maybe I should give it another go.

*Which has happened enough times now that I've noticed a pattern. Not sure if it's just my tastes changing in the interval between backing and release, or the inevitable slight letdown from my imagined perceptions to the real product, but it's kinda put me off backing games (when they even come out, video game are generally one of the riskier things to back).

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Quoting: EikeThanks for sharing! Did you ever write up what made you change your mind this much? :)

Not sure I ever have, really (might make a good post topic!). :smile: It was more of a gradual change than any particular bolt-from-the-blue moment. Funnily enough I've come completely around on using the command line, vastly preferring to enter a few commands (now that I have the context to recognize them generally, if not the specifics) to having to solve something via GUI. The native package manager is another huge one, I love being able to check for, download, and install available updates for my entire system with a single command instead of tediously checking websites for all the programs I want to update and manually downloading and installing them. (I think my initial thoughts were along the lines of "It's like Steam* auto-updates, but for the entire computer!" :shock:) Installing things with a single command is also awesome. Also, it's a little thing, but I hate being without that middle-click second copy buffer. I don't know why, it's not like I even use it all that often, but I find myself incredibly annoyed when I don't have it (macOS is almost worse than Windows in this regard because it does have it, but ONLY in the terminal, nowhere else.)

Quoting: scaineWell, that first blog post didn't age well! But back in 2010, Linux was a very different beast.

Ha, agreed. I'd forgotten about that post until I went looking yesterday; just a few short years later and I'd be a complete convert. (To be somewhat charitable to my past self, I was a complete newbie to the command line and I was trying to install a specialized astronomical software package that I'm certain was a lot more complicated than "apt-get install iraf"†, so it was the kind of situation pretty much guaranteed to cause frustration.)

* Which I'd just discovered earlier that year (2010), due to not having internet faster than dial-up till mid-2009.

† I don't remember the specifics now, but I wouldn't be surprised if it involved compiling stuff, which I'd also never done and even now would prefer to avoid.

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After growing up exclusively with Windows (never even used a Mac), I discovered when I started my astronomy degree that no one in astronomy uses Windows (it's all Linux or macOS). I remember being a bit weirded out and repulsed when I first installed Ubuntu and tried to use it back in 2010 (I've just discovered I even wrote a very angry blog post [External Link] about it :whistle:). However, through exposure to it at work and the help of a very knowledgeable good friend, by 2014 when I built my first gaming desktop I put Linux Mint Debian Edition on it and haven't looked back since. Other than a switch to Debian and a graphics card upgrade from my brother I'm still typing on that very desktop (ok, I also had to replace a RAM module that failed), though I'm hoping to finally do some major upgrades next year. I also just discovered that I wrote a blog post [External Link] five years ago for Linux's 25th birthday complaining about using Windows 8 at work (which I genuinely do not remember using at this point), so how the tables have turned!

(Look forward to my upcoming blog post, "MacOS, how do I loathe thee? Let me count the ways…" :grin:)

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I'll have moved before the next survey and my computer will probably be stuck on a boat for at least 2–3 months (:sad:), but I'm looking forward to having to update my monitor details when I get it back. :smile: (Taking the opportunity to make a long-awaited upgrade! :grin:)

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Oo, may be time to upgrade this weekend… :happy:
I saw a suggestion recently about using Debian stable and using Flatpacks for programs that you want to keep up to date (for me mostly creative programs like KDEnlive, Inkscape, Blender, etc.), so I might try that after upgrading.

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If this works, it'll be amazing—haven't been able to play this with a friend for a while now because I can't port-forward on the router in the place I'm renting. It's not quite "invite Steam friend" easy, but it sounds promising. :woot:

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I was really glad to see this when it was announced a while back. New content is always nice, of course, but it's great to see old content getting a polish as well; I'm especially excited about the "new content for previously released DLC" bit. New mechanics for the Plantoids and Humanoids species packs was really obviously missing when Lithoids and Necroids released with them.

Selectable tradition trees will also be huge, that's more like how it works in Europa Universalis IV with its selectable ideas and it'll help make runs with different empires feel more different and specialized that just "What order do you want to take all the traditions in?" (Why are my Fanatic Pacifist Xenophiles forced to take the Domination and Subjugation trees, etc.)

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Quoting: 1xokInstalling Windows on it will hardly make it better. With a bit of luck, AMD and Valve will have the drivers for Windows 11 ready by December. But I wouldn't expect a leap in performance from this alternative. W11 doesn't even officially support devices with screens smaller than 9 inches. To make a long story short: The Steam Deck supports Windows so that Valve can tick the "It's a PC" checkbox.

That gave me a funny thought, how long until someone installs macOS on a Deck for the sheer novelty? :grin:

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