circuitfarmer

Maybe too simplistic for what you’re looking for, but Buzz Aldrin’s Space Program Manager allows you to do some of it.

It’s based on an older title IIRC, and it’s a game more tuned towards education with relatively few graphical elements. You won’t be flying missions directly, nor do you have sandbox capabilities, but for mission planning / R and D / mission control, there is some fun to be had.

I go back to it occasionally.

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Microsoft will have plenty more missteps as they continue to fall from relevance.

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Israel First, amirite MAGA?

WWIII will be caused by hoarding of energy. Green solutions are fantastic, but they have been kicked down the road for too long.

What’s your actual fucking goal?

I’d wager that the part they aren’t saying out loud has to do with a few different things:

1. Distraction from Epstein, which seems to be working. Iran operations now dominate the news cycle.

2. War offers some economic gains, at least in the short term for a few big players.

3. War fits into the “law and order” narrative Trump is desperately trying to milk, in a way that the DHS debacles have not done. Unprovoked attack on Iran even just as a show of force has been a conservative wet dream since at least the Bush Jr. days.

On one hand, nukes have been a clear deterrent for most of the time they have existed. Their use in these operations against Iran wouldn’t just be unprecedented, but it would be wasteful too: what targets require such firepower instead of other, more sensible options? It’s ironic, but nukes are arguably worse weapons when deployed versus sitting in their silos while deployment is threatened.

That said, “unprecedented” doesn’t mean much any more, and Trump is totally the kind of person who would drop one just because he can. Instead of “I am become death” we’d get “I am dropping a big, beautiful bomb. Thank you for your attention to this matter.”

But the repercussions would be massive. On a scale not yet seen. I’m not talking about repercussions from Iran: the world would need to stand up against MAGA in a big way. Much bigger than has happened so far. I’m not even sure what it would look like, frankly.

Along with anything else costing less than $500.

Gonna be a rough few years for PC gaming. Or any gaming, for that matter.

But hey, at least we’ll keep killing jobs and the AI cat videos will continue to flow

I leave my Steam update settings to only update on Play. This allows me to pretty easily review what is being patched in to any particular game and choose if/when to apply it (true that choosing not to apply means no longer using the Steam client for that game).

It’s also trivial on Linux to keep the Proton prefixes and game installs backed up automatically. This has the added benefit of making all game installs portable.

Unfortunately GOG still has no official Linux client, though there are workarounds. The “apocalyptic scenario” would ultimately kill either company, so you’re right to think it is moot.

Neither can Steam. Then the difference is down to those games on Steam which are not DRM-free.

Oh, I absolutely would – I’m just making a point based on a previous statement earlier in the thread:

Considering games with no DRM can have it added retroactively, that Steam pushes updates I may not want with no option to decline

If the practice is that you need local backups on purchase anyway, then I fail to see the difference between non-DRM games on Steam and those on GOG. It feels like a different goalpost is being used depending on what service is being discussed.

Does it? What recourse do you have if they change their policy and you don’t have local backups of your games?

Maybe. If you trust them, though now… I don’t.

Depends on the game. As I mentioned in another thread, there are many games on Steam which are DRM-free and do not require the client. GOG’s advertising suggests they are the only method for getting such games, but as always, the devil is in the details.

Mostly it comes down to how much you feel about one issue over the other, but I don’t see how they can be unrelated if there’s a monetary transaction involved.

Because supporting GOG now means supporting unfettered AI usage. If you disagree with such policies, the only way to voice that discontent is with your wallet.

I’m guessing by your wording that you’re aching to bash Steam, so I’ll preface this with: no corporation is ever going to get this 100% right; the world is drawn in greys, and only a Sith deals in absolutes.

“Better” is not very useful without context. In the context of AI usage, Steam is better. In the context of GOG, their main claim about game preservation is “no DRM”, but there is an important point often missed: lots of games on Steam also do not have DRM.

I have no issues “buying” games on Steam which have no DRM. For others, I factor the DRM into the price I’m willing to pay for access. These tend to be larger titles anyway, so I’m not terribly worried about it long term.

Long term game preservation? More about unofficial channels than relying on yet another corporation. GOG wasn’t changing that before, and they definitely aren’t now.