Biblically-accurate Ace Combat aircraft.

Yep, that’s exactly what it does, and it’s great. Ours technically supports drain line, a removable water tank, and conventional venting, but the drain line is so convenient I’m going to use it going forward in my next place even if there is a vent. So much less hassle to set up and maintain without lint building up.

I can’t speak to combo washer/dryers, but heat pump dryers have been around for several years. We got an LG one a few years ago because our old one vented into the garage and there was no practical way to extend the vent outside.

We’re very happy with it. It does take slightly longer to dry clothes, and the capacity is slightly smaller than our old electric one, but they’re also gentler on clothes. We haven’t had a single issue with it yet over the years.

A turret toss does seem like it would be effective as reactive armor. Is this how tanks evolve to survive drone predation? Main turret autotomy to give the smaller turret buds a chance to flee?

The microwave thing? I couldn’t even guess, though I personally wouldn’t want to stand next to it even if it works. A big microwave emitter on the battlefield is just asking to catch a HARM.

It really doesn’t seem like anyone knows for sure what to do about drones right now.

Large, non-nuclear EMPs mostly use explosives. Covering a large battlefield means you’re essentially bringing a massive, single-use explosive charge to the battlefield, staying uncomfortably close enough to benefit from it, and trying to set it off at exactly the right time, because they’re not reloadable. And your enemy is probably thrilled you’re doing this, because it saves them from hauling their own explosives there. (On that note, why are you sitting on this thing instead of dropping it on the enemy?)

This is in addition to whatever shielding you brought, which is likely bulky and conspicuous. And you’re probably not doing combined arms, because shielding infantry and light vehicles from massive explosions is, it is fair to say, something of an unsolved problem.

But wait, you might be thinking. I know there are non-explosive ways to generate EMPs. Yes, there are, but you need a power source for those, and if you have a really good, portable one of those and a consistent supply of fuel to run it, you probably have better uses for it, like powering a modest laser. Oh, also, you’re 100% sure your shielding works perfectly, right? You’ll find out quick if you don’t.

Nobody:

Absolutely nobody:

The ghost of Sam Hughes: Okay but have you considered

I’m just going to pretend that’s one of the researchers from Where Oaken Hearts Do Gather.

I felt the exact same way about the conversation you mentioned. I really liked the idea of the quest, but way they handled it just utterly drained all the stakes. And as you noted, it’s weird to see a misstep like this after they nailed it once in Sumeru.

If I was them (and in a way I am) I’d probably kill the witnesses and bail.

So I totally get this conclusion, but I think it’s worth slowing down and considering whether this makes as much sense as it seems at first glance. The fact that magic exists means that simply killing someone simply doesn’t do much to shut them up, if a sufficiently powerful entity is willing to spend the resources. The fact that undeath exists means that killing someone has a very real risk of making them a bigger threat than they were in life–it’s not like you can just stab a ghost. Cultists, being familiar with eldritch powers themselves, know this full well. This means that keeping people merely out of communication might be the simplest way to achieve their actual goal with the minimum of fuss. They don’t need someone quiet forever, they just need enough secrecy to achieve their goals. Murdering every person who takes an interest in them is mission creep.

Also, keep in mind cults generally exist for specific purposes, and people join them for specific purposes. These purposes aren’t necessarily overtly evil at the rank-and-file level, which is integral to their recruitment. The turnip farmer who wants to resurrect a dead harvest god to grow more turnips might be okay with some dodgy rituals the church wouldn’t approve of, but straight up committing multiple murder might take some working up to, if he can be talked into it at all.

So in short, consider what your cult wants, and assume a degree of rationality and thoughtfulness (at least, when they’re not channeling horrors from another plane). What do they want, and how the party could provide what they want?

If they’re really lucky, they’ll end up working for the Laundry only once. Residual Human Resources is a bad way to go out.

Charles Stross’ Laundry series is basically this concept set in the present day: magic is a branch of mathematics, which means it can be computed and programmed.

It is perhaps worth noting at this point the series genre is cosmic horror.

For safety reasons, a magical museum might well want to avoid putting actual items on display, especially since Illusion magic makes it trivial to create simulated substitutes crowds can safely interact with. This also keeps security budgets manageable, since even a magical museum probably doesn’t have the kind of money to protect the arcane equivalent of a small nuclear arsenal.

So the museum researchers might be happy keeping items on indefinite loan, as long as they know the borrower and have guaranteed access when they need it. This way the mage owning the item is responsible for keeping it safe, and arcane historians–who definitely didn’t spend all those years in magic academy just to play guard–don’t have to.

As a bonus, this method gives the party a quirky but knowledgeable NPC contact who can give them clues or set up sidequests whenever you need.

I’ll preface this by noting that the sin of sloth has traditionally been understood to be a sin of omission, not just commission, i.e., you are insufficiently devoted to the things you ought to be.

Which means you could, in theory, have a (reflavored tiefling) devil paladin so devoted to sloth he works against evil causes. He’s not interested in good per se, it’s just that advancing the interests of good and traveling with a good adventuring party has the best ROI for failing to carry out his evil responsibilities.

Naturally, this has caused a fair amount of controversy among sloth devils, and there is a multi-century trial going on in the Hells about whether this ought to be allowed. This is not expected to be resolved in the foreseeable future because the advocates for both parties keep filing their responses well after petition deadlines expire.

Oof, I definitely did that once or twice.

It really does seem like they decided to bring this sequence up to introduce settlement building and power armor early. I get why they did it, but man, I do not think it ultimately has the effect they wanted.

Maybe a controversial suggestion, but my advice is to ignore the Minutemen stuff until late in the game. Just don’t even go to the museum until you’ve followed some leads and want something else to do for a bit.

This is definitely not the intended way to play, but I promise the story flows so much better without it. Setting out to find your kidnapped son just to immediately get sidetracked helping some uncharismatic misfits set up mattresses is just an underwhelming start to an otherwise decent game.

Doing all this stuff later on, when you’ve actually demonstrated you’re a badass survivor and the OP gear you get free from the Minutemen quest actually feels earned, just feels much smoother. It’s a great coda that they unf put two minutes into the game for some reason.

I’m always pumped when an article titled “Beast/Monster of <location>” is an actual cryptid and not just the nickname for a serial killer. This is way more interesting!

While the adulteration surely didn’t help, I don’t think I’d trust pure milk from these cows, either:

Swill milk dairies were noted for their filthy conditions and overpowering stench both caused by the close confinement of hundreds (sometimes thousands) of cows in narrow stalls where, once they were tied, they would stay for the rest of their lives, often standing in their own manure, covered with flies and sores, and suffering from a range of virulent diseases. These cows were fed boiling distillery waste, often leaving the cows with rotting teeth and other maladies.