iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

15-10-5, the Golden Ratio of the F-16's measurements.

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My Freelancer "Definitive Edition" mod list. I.e. if I was put in charge of doing a Freelancer re-release, this is what I would do.

Early mission in Freelancer with the burning prison liner.

Planet Manhattan with the inventory screen open.

Landing at California Minor in a Startracker

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I guess while I'm talking space sims, I've been dabbling back in No Man's Sky and Elite, though neither have really grabbed me. No Man's Sky is still cool, and the new updates add some neat stuff. Elite is, basically the same game it always was. It's cool, but I never know what to do.

Hovering over a moon with a way too close, like "I'm surprised Elite even generated this" way too close, planet. Looks awesome though.

A very goofy and not at all well built corvette in No Man's Sky, which is a new feature since I last played. Basically they added the ship building from Starfield to No Man's Sky.

Flying away from a planet with a thin atmosphere in Elite.

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Said BIG asterisk: AI slop art. Which is CRAZY because this game obviously has some seriously talented 3D and 2D artists working on it. I don't know if it's "just placeholder" or what the story behind it is, but either way the art needs to be removed ASAP, or the game needs a Steam AI disclaimer.

Slop generated portrait of Neil Armstrong on what would otherwise be a cute little ingame museum kiosk type thing.

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Got to try out Verse Project, which is best described as "I got annoyed at Star Citizen and Elite, so I made my own," and honestly it's really impressive, though obviously still very early because there's not much to do right now. It has walking around, already multiplayer, already has planets.

Two ads for the noob equipment. The ship on the left is the noob ship, the mining drone on the right is given to you to make some money off the bat.

Flying to the moon, of which your space station was in orbit of.

Extracing regolith and ice from the moon.

Why485 @why485.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

I wonder if maybe the surge in desktop toy games and idle games is filling a Runescape shaped hole in a new generation.

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Why485 @why485.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

If you've never heard of AirQuake it really is an insane thing that I couldn't believe was real when I first saw it. It's a free mod and AFAIK you can plug it into any modern Quake 1 source port to mess around with. I've messed around with it and it almost feels like it was made by a time traveler.

youtube.com

AirQuake - All Maps

YouTube video by xStoneCold

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Why485 @why485.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

New dark fantasy: Making some kind of arcade flight sim or maybe something vaguely Halo shaped using one of the Quake engines. Air Quake, but like... bigger I guess.

AirQuake mod for Quake 1 featuring an A-10ish thing and really ahead of its time Halo controls for its vehicles.

The mod also had helicopters and tanks you could drive, along with turrets and what you would today call "creeps" in a MOBA.

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Why485 @why485.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

So lately I've been wanting to play Elite, but every time I think about playing it, it's the same kind of time and effort and thinking investment that like, DCS has. There's just so much baggage with playing Elite. I want the Freelancer of Elite games, though I'm not really sure that's possible.

A station just above a planet's ring system. This is probably very rare! I remember there being some weird graphics glitches because of this.

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Why485 @why485.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

This book was in fact written in 1988.

Why485 @why485.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

I forgot that foo() is kind of undefined behavior in C, and you should instead be doing foo(void). In C++ foo(void) is just for backwards compatibility and synonymous with foo(), so it's not something think about beyond the occasional "wow they probably write a lot of C" when I see it in the wild.

Nenechi from New Game peeking over a C++ textbook.

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Why485 @why485.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

Big things are coming for C23.

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Why485 @why485.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

Reading the C book out of curiosity today, and I'm kinda thinking there should a third edition of this book given how a lot of it feels really C89 level dated. For example, declaring variables at the top of a function, declaring index variables outside of for loops, no single line comments, etc.

$/* print Fahrenheit-Celsius table */ main() { int fahr; for (fahr = 0; fahr <= 300; fahr = fahr + 20) printf("%3d %6.1f\n", fahr, (5.0/9.0)*(fahr-32)); }$

Why485 @why485.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

I hope some day somebody retcons the Y-Wing into being really fast, but not able to turn. Look how big those engines are! That's much more interesting than it just being a big dumb slow target.

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Why485 @why485.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

Andor was for the people whose favorite scene was the one where all the Imperial top brass are bickering with each other.

Tarkin though this bickering was pointless.

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Why485 @why485.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

Coldest take on the planet but the X-Wing is one of the best spaceship designs of all time. Big guns, so simple a 5 year old can draw it, and most importantly, space swing wings. You can't stop me from soyfacing every time I see one.

The famous "all wings report in" X-Wing (and Y-Wing) shot

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Why485 @why485.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

Starting up Rogue Squadron to check how they mix sounds, but completely forgetting to pay attention because the game is fun to play.

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Why485 @why485.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

It never stops amazing me how clear and sharp a low resolution like 1024x768 looks on a CRT monitor.

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Why485 @why485.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

I don't actually need a new keyboard right now. My current Microsoft Ergonomic keyboard works just fine. The problem is I've been using my mini-PC more lately, which has an old Ducky Skyline that I like quite a lot, and it's reminding me how good mechanical keys feel.

Why485 @why485.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

My dream keyboard is the Microsoft Ergonomic Keyboard, but mechanical. I've never been able to find anything like it. Every mechanical ergonomic keyboard has some meme layout that gets so far removed from a normal keyboard that it messes games up. Nobody makes just this, but mechanical.

The Microsoft Ergonomic Keyboard as they called it, from 2019. They only made this for a few years, but I bought it right away. It's split and I like that, it's comfortable. It also keeps a normal keyboard layout other than the split, plus it has nice macro buttons for volume and media and calculator and stuff! What a great keyboard! Too bad the keys themselves feel mush and not great, but it's the price to pay unfortunately.

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Why485 @why485.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

I refactored my guns so they aren't hardcoded in the program's main() to the player ship, so now the ships themselves fire bullets, but the enemies now all blow themselves up when they fire their guns 😭

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Why485 @why485.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

Uploading code to GitHub and open source in general feels so bad now. While I checked the "don't use my repos for training" option, which I have to assume does nothing, public repos are still "fair game" for all AI companies and that's not why I do and love open source.

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Why485 @why485.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

I used to go to arcades just to play this game. The Dreamcast having the best port of Hydro Thunder was also a big factor in why I got it. Fantastic racing game all-around and one of the all time arcade greats for me.

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Why485 @why485.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

Wardogs' massive success (60k reviews and >300k players online right now) gives me hope that maybe there is a place for a Battlefield 2 style game in 202X. I don't think just anybody can do it, it takes a studio and budget of a certain size, of which Wardogs has. I'm happy it's doing well!

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Why485 @why485.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

Got caught holding the bag on a significant and surprise expense hitting me at a bad time. If anybody needs short term (part time, 3 mo. max?) commission work to write or polish the physics/controllers for arcadish jeeps, planes, spaceships, vehicles, etc. send me a message!

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Why485 @why485.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

It's kind of a dumb thing to be impressed by, but I adore how little C programs start up instantly. Like, before you even realize you finished the double click, the console window is already open and has finished its job. I just think it's neat.

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Why485 @why485.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

Having found out that the majority of missions are actually optionally, I'm almost done with GTAIII. The most fun I've had is keeping this map (from GameFAQs of course) open, seeing something kind of unusual or interesting looking, and then wondering what happens if I go there.

GTA 3 map by mechaskrom
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/pc/548931-grand-theft-auto-iii/map/12940-liberty-city-map

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Why485 @why485.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

Tried Wardogs. A Battlefieldish game of this scale, scope, and budget is so rare that even though I had my doubts I still felt I needed to try it. The good: It reminds me a lot of the pacing and gameplay of old Battlefield (i.e. Refractor engine), but on a bigger map. A type of game I sorely miss.

Why485 @why485.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

Oh, tough to pick one, but I think I have to go with Descent. It's a simple game with awesome graphics, in a genre that's pretty rare, that I can (and have) replay countless times.

Screenshot from Descent 1 of a brown hulk on one of the Mars missions.

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Why485 @why485.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

Has the window closed for fake PS1 games or is that still a thing? I feel like that's not talked about much in dev circles anymore.

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Trackmania Nations Electronic Sports World Cup Official Trailer (HD)

Peak Trackmania was definitely when they did Nations and it was like this no kidding global competition that had more people than ever playing the game. Nadeo has been chasing that high ever since, but I don't think it can happen again because of how different things are today.

youtube.com

YouTube video by Trackmania World Records

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When people do those, "This game is 10 years old!" type posts, the one that always comes to mind for me is Trackmania 2, which had an absolutely gorgeous, and very performant, global illumination and lighting system that blew me away even back in 2011, 15(!) years ago.

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Uh oh. I've just figured out an excuse for a simple space sim test. I've never properly done joystick support with the new Input System. I always use Rewired because honestly, it's still the best solution for a production game, but a simple space sim would be a good test environment for learning.

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