[first] [prev] [next]
A Great Herd Main Battle Tank Type XIX. IXTB-38A8r4. One hundred fifty tons of armor, molecular circuitry, guns, and hoverfans. Designed 638 thousand years ago and never having needed a single upgrade. A 180mm main gun that fires an eight pound plasma shell. Two rows of 80mm vertical launch systems capable of delivering a variety of variable fuzed munitions. A driver's, tank commander's, communication's officer's, and an electronic warfare officer's external 18mm quad barreled plasma machinegun that could be controlled inside or manually by partially exiting the appropriate hatch. Capable of reaching a top speed of nearly forty miles an hour. The crew can survive inside the compartment for up to 11 hours without discomfort. Single layer medium grade battlescreens often used on light frigate naval vessels. Waterproof, soundproof, able to be piloted and operated even in vacuum thanks to sixteen antigravity pods, although at a much slower speed and slower response.
The mighty armored fist of the Unified Military Council, in support of the Unified Civilized Council.
According to my trainers, the last time a single tank had been damaged to the point that it could not fight, excluding operator error or sabotage, was nearly 23 thousand years prior to my introduction to my first tank.
I was excited as I inprocessed. I was to be assigned to one of the most modern tank designs around, military war machine made manifest. Perfection achieved and domination assured. I was almost eager the day I was allowed to enter the motorpool and taken to where the tank I would be a crew member of was parked.
It was love at first sight.
My fellow crewbeings thought I was a bit insane, to be honest. I worked on my tank, learning everything about it that I could from the neo-sapient mechanics. The driver was happy I could start it up for maintenance, meaning he could continue on with his long running alcohol related binge.
Within a month I could tear apart my gunner's sight, even the firing mechanism, and rebuild it from spare parts found in the motor pool supply shed. I even knew workarounds and field repairs that existed only in esoteric manuals and passed down in whispers between mechanics.
I earned my "gunner's bite" at my first live-fire range, where I learned that it was best if I let my helmet push back a little instead of pushing it against the padded sight. Pushing my face against the padding, using only my forward eyes, concentrating on putting each shot right where I wanted it.
Everyone took notice when I scored a perfect 1,200 points.
Some were happy for me, considered what I'd done proof of the Great Herd's might.
Others were jealous, starting whisper campaigns that I had somehow rigged my software to give me an illegal edge during live fire gunnery practice.
My fellow gunners led the campaign to have my accomplishment gone over with a fine toothed comb, many of them accusing me, to my face, of cheating.
My gunner's station was pulled apart, each block of circuitry examined, each byte of firmware and software gone over, even the gearing examined closely to see if I had somehow pulled off the shroud at the base of the barrel and adjusted the microgears that did the minute changes to barrel angle and elevation.
In the end, my score would have been stricken from the record, since my gunner's sight had gotten early maintenance, the neo-sapient maintenance crew replacing it twenty years before necessary. I would have been sent to do manual labor as punishment, or perhaps worse.
There was even talk of a court martial to put me in my place.
Mil-Sec officers had arrived in our motor pool to place me under arrest when the sirens began to wail. Everyone looked around confused, even the Mil-Sec officers, at the tone of the siren.
It came over my implant at the same time as everyone's else, my lockout being lifted.
ATTACK IMMINENT -- PRECURSOR VESSELS IN SYSTEM IN FORCE
My platoon Most High began rearing up and down, screaming at all of us to get into ranks for inspection. The platoon Second Most High began galloping in circles, shrieking that we were all going to die.
He was wrong.
Only most of us were going to die.
--Excerpt From: We Were the Lanaktallan of the Atomic Hooves, a Memoir.
"I hate landing into an ongoing fight," General No'Drak said, staring at the various holotanks. He had been in the same place for six hours, watching everything take place. The counter-attack, the first in the five days since Confederate forces had arrived, was moving in fits and jerks.
"It's a mess out there," General Moffeta said, watching a map of the megacontinent where her air support assets were spread around widely.
"Are you concerned, Most High?" Grand Most High Ge'ermo'o asked.
"Always when even a single one of my men are engaged in combat," No'Drak admitted, tapping a cigarette against the railing he was leaning against. "There are a million ways this can all go sideways on us."
"Sir, signal from Space Force!" came the cry from below.
"Throw it up here," General No'Drak snapped, bringing up a secure holo-port.
The twinkling cone resolved into a tired looking Rigellian female with admiral's pips on the brow of her armored vac-suit. She had bags under her eyes from stress and her eyes were bloodshot. Static kept rippling across the hologram and General No'Drak knew it was from phased wave plasma motion guns and C+ cannons firing.
"General No'Drak here, can you hear me, Admiral?" the Treana'ad said, slowly and distinctly.
She spoke for a second, obviously to someone outside of view, then looked forward. "Admiral HawGawk here, General," the rippling went over the hologram and she waited a second. "We've got a status change out here."
"Go for sitrep," No'Drak said.
Ge'ermo'o watched interestedly. He had seen how his fellow Lanaktallan reacted to a changing situation obviously getting worse and was curious as to how the lemurs would react.
"Eighty plus point sources just came in at the Hellspace limit. The stellar stabilizers and the Hellspace interdiction craft from the Crusade of Wrath helped. We have eighty plus Harvester Class, including what look like mostly new classes, out near the far gas giant," the Admiral said.
"I repeat back, Eighty plus Harvesters at the far gas giant, primarily Type-III," No'Drak said.
The Admiral nodded. "At least three hundred are coming straight at you. I've detached two Battlecruiser Groups to defend the planet, but the heavy hitters have to stop those Harvesters from spamming ancillary vehicles and swarming you under," she said. The lights around her flashed and she rocked slightly to the side. "We were right not to break up into hunter killer groups to go after the last of them, looks like the initial wave was simply to pull us out of position."
No'Drak nodded. "So, whatever gets through, we're on our own," he said gravely.
Ge'ermo'o felt a little bit of fear at that.
"Sorry, General. Space Force has its hands full up here," she said. "We've already sent out a distress beacon. The Crusade ships have sent out a call for reinforcements, but with the Case Omaha on TerraSol, options are limited for them."
"Understood. Have you tactical forward what they can. Good luck, Admiral, and Fight the Ship," No'Drak said.
"Pound the Ground, General," the Admiral said, and then she was gone.
No'Drak tapped the cigarette a few times against his bladearms and Ge'ermo'o could smell the scent of freshly cut grain. The Treana'ad stared at the holotanks down below as he slowly put the cigarette into his mouth and brought out the lighter.
Ge'ermo'o was slowly learning Confederate map symbols, he could see how the soldiers of V Corps were spread all over the planet, fighting the landing Precursors and their forces.
General No'Drak unfolded his lighter with a snap of his fingers, spinning the striker in the same motion and bringing up a yellow flame. He slowly lit the cigarette, staring down. He puffed on it for a moment and exhaled the smoke around his footpads as he put the lighter away.
"The Precursors have adjusted their tactics," he said softly. "Never count on the enemy staying stupid."
"How many of the next wave do you think will reach the planet?" Ge'ermo'o asked. In his opinion, the planet was lost and there was nothing anyone could do about it. But if the lemurs were willing to fight, he would stand right here next to them.
He'd come to like them.
"Just a little over a third. Sixty or so units," No'Drak said. He brought up the map. "We got lucky they didn't catch us out of position. We knew there were still Googly-Eyes in the Oort Cloud, which meant either they were going to come back in again or we'd missed something."
"Harvester-Twenty-Nine is breaking up," Someone called out from the floor below. "Harvester Thirty-Eight has dropped out of formation, looks like someone got a piece of his engines."
No'Drak nodded.
The icons for the lighter units, the Dreadnoughts and below, were burning brightly. Space Force was concentrating most of their firepower on the massive Harvester Class units that had been forced to drop out further from the gravity well of the stellar mass burning brightly at the center of the system.
The Treana'ad officer knew that every kill counted with the big Harvesters. They'd sit out there and keep producing lesser units until the sun burned out if given the chance.
He had ordered the BOLO units to switched targets, ordering them to engage the incoming planetary assault units, leaving the already planet-side units to the ground forces.
It was a calculated risk, and General No'Drak was an excellent mathematician.
General Moffeta's units were hitting the Precursors as soon as they made atmosphere, pushing through the leading wave of fire to attack the Precursors during the short time their battlescreens were down. The interference from entering the atmosphere was scrambling the Precursor's sensors, putting their point defense offline. That let General Moffeta's units take long strafing runs at the massive machines.
No'Drak winced when one of the incoming Jotuns broke up at 15,000 meters up, the huge chunks tumbling to the ground.
The planet was taking a pounding.
General No'Drak made a motion, bringing up the communications section. The PFC who answered was a Terran had oversized eyes and whiskers.
"Is the hypercom still functional?" he asked before she could speak.
"Yes, sir," she said.
"Contact the Telkan system. Tell them we're going to need a full elven court here," No'Drak said. He sighed. "Tell them we're going to have massive Precursor wreckage as well as..." he paused, took a deep drag and exhaled it.
Ge'ermo'o noticed that it was pushing back the smell of freshly cut grain.
"We're going atom smasher. We've got over two billion civilians in shelters. Put out a request for evac ships, even on the junker channels," he said.
"Yes, sir," the female Terran said. Ge'ermo'o wondered why her eyes were so big. If they helped with her job, if her parents had possessed big eyes in their DNA, or if she just had liked them.
No'Drak cut the link and looked at the surrounding officers. "I'd give my mandibles to have Tik-Tak here."
That got chuckles.
No'Drak knew that the elven queens could repair the damage he was about to order his troops to commit to.
But if his men couldn't get it under control, couldn't smash the Precursor threat, there wouldn't be a planet to fix. He could see that the Precursors had arrived to strip mine the planet, probably down to gravel.
Part of him wondered why they wanted the planet so bad. The asteroid belts had been mined to nothing over the last twenty thousand years. Most of the easily accessible minerals were gone.
Then he remembered that elements of Third Armor were engaged with mining machines.
He looked at the icons for the Treana'ad Infantry Hordes and Air Mobile Clouds and a small part of him wished he was a Lieutenant again, charging across the ground in armor with his heavy weapons on the top of his abdomen.
After a moment he made a decision.
"Order all personnel on planet into armor and to draw weapons from the armory," he said. He turned to the two Lanaktallan. "Gentlebeings, I'd advise you to prepare yourselves."
"You think we will be attacked here?" Ge'ermo'o asked.
"Can't discount it at this time," No'Drak said. "The reinforcements were a high probability and it looks like our cards weren't as good as we hoped."
"Surely you won't be defeated," Ge'ermo'o said. "You won't withdraw!"
No'Drak shook his head. "No. There's too many people in shelters, too many people in hiding. We'll fight to the last."
"The Confederacy doesn't leave civilians behind to die," General Pulgrak said. He stretched, his shoulders popping. "Glad I qualified on my armor and weapons two months ago."
General Vandu licked her lips, looking around, her eyes moving back and forth. "Are we staying here?"
General No'Drak put away his cigarette. "Yes. We will still coordinate the battle, but we must be ready to join the ever put upon lower enlisted and junior officers should the Precursors assault our command and control area."
General Vandu nodded, her lips twitching in a smile. "Just standard body armor, or can we..." she started to ask.
"Put on power armor?" No'Drak asked. He gave the equivalent of a shrug. "There are several companies of power armor troops here to defend this base, you know that. If you wish to lead them from the front, you have my blessing."
General Vandu hurried off.
"She will see if the taste of combat is as sweet as the fantasy of combat awards," No'Drak said softly. He turned to his aide. "Let's suit up."
The Colonel nodded. "This way to the armory, General."
A Terran captain next to Ge'ermo'o touched his lower right elbow. When Ge'ermo'o looked at him, he noted how grave the Terran looked.
"If you Lanaktallan gentlemen will follow me, we should have time to fab and fit you with armor."
Ge'ermo'o was proud of himself for how calm he knew he looked as he nodded.
----------------
Trucker dropped down into his tank, slamming the hatch shut over him.
He'd waited till almost the last second. The tank shuddered as the lead of the debris wave hit his tank. The wave was thick dust, formerly ferrocrete and asphalt, all ripped up by the massive Precursor combat machine going nose first into the suburbs beyond the city and scraping the bedrock for nearly eight miles before it had lost momentum and slammed down into the channel it had carved.
"Can't see shit, sir," his driver said.
"Tell all units to hold position, give the air a minute to clear," Trucker ordered. He heard his radioman passing the orders and looked at his sensor tech. "How many?"
"I saw four entering atmosphere before that big monster hit," he said. "Maybe more. The sky's on fire."
"331, how's it look in there?" Trucker asked.
--rough shape-- the Mantid Engineer Team Leader admitted. --try not to let them hit you--
"We're a tank. We're a little obvious," Trucker chuckled. He tapped his software and tossed a meme at the Mantid team of his tank, with great big googly eyes, trying to hide behind a tree, with meters of hull and an eye on each side of the tree. The caption "I R HIDYN!" at the bottom.
That got back giggling emojis.
"All Regimental Commanders, check in," Trucker said. He scooped out his dip and slung it into the can. He repacked it while he waited for his commo tech to get in touch with the different regiments.
"Trucker wants a sit-rep," Colonel Dremsal heard faintly over the roar of his quad-barrel.
"TELL HIM I'M BUSY!" Dremsal yelled back. As soon as they'd moved in between the two massive Precursors their air support had come out to play.
The sky above him was a whirling gnashing death snarl, with 19th Air Cavalry Regiment fighting six times their numbers with seemingly infinite reinforcements. So far they'd only lost three strikers, but each casualty counted.
"Told him you were still alive and we've still got tanks even if we're rolling coal," his commo tech said. He put his hand to his ear. "Most High A'armo'o wants to talk to you."
"Put him through," Dremsal said. He let go of the quad-barrel and ducked back into the tank, pulling the hatch shut. The last thing he wanted is some Precursor machine getting past the battlescreens, reaching down into the tank, and snatching his head off.
"Dremsal here, go ahead," he said.
"We're coming up on your rear. We've got 15th Sustainment inside our ranks. We had to drop back from the river, large machines were making landfall," A'armo'o said.
Dremsal closed his eyes, bringing up how his vehicles were arranged. He gave the orders and shot A'armo'o his plan.
"You keep 15th covered, we'll drop back to get refit," Dremsal said.
"What, may I ask, is our target?" A'armo'o asked. He glanced back at the half dozen Telkan Marines on the back deck of his tank. A quick glance showed his second in command had several Terrans on the back and it looked like they were doing something important.
"Juggernaut. It looks like it almost broke up, but if they get the auto-factories running we'll be in a lot of trouble if we let it just sit there without busting up its plans," Dremsal said. "We'll knock out the supply lines, get close, and open fire on it."
"What about the Great Gobbler back there?" A'armo'o asked.
"He can watch from behind us. He won't be able to catch up to us," Dremsal said. "We'll keep ahead of it close enough to keep its attention, keep it from diving, but we won't let it get close."
"I understand. Your warplan is loaded, my men are moving up," A'armo'o said.
The tanks of the Great Herd slowed for a moment as the Terran tanks widened the wedge they were in, giving room for A'armo'o to bring his brigade up tight to the formation and slot into the middle. Once the manuever was finished, the Lanaktallan tanks formed another layer of protection for the lightly armored and lightly shielded (for Terran vehicles) vehicles of 15th Sustainment.
A'armo'o looked through his laser designator ranger at the big vehicle behind him that his men were still 'teasing' with random shots. He frowned and dialed up the magnification.
Was that... people on top of it?
-------------------
Vuxten stared down at the grinders below him, kneeling down on the ten foot thick protective housing right above them. He stared right into a massive glowing eye that looked back.
"Howdy, sailor," he heard a female's voice over the radio. "Buy a girl a drink?"
Vuxten chuckled. "We thought you were dead," he said honestly.
"I'm stuck. I came up from under me, I got caught on the cables and conveyors, then sucked into the grinder," Glory said. She wiggled her fingers. "I'm OK, probably scuffed up real bad, but I'm definitely stuck."
The gears tried to reverse, jammed, then tried to pull the massive skull and shoulder in.
"My feet and shins are outside the grinders, but they're hung up on my hips and shoulder," Glory said.
"Gonna have some greenies check it out, see if we can help you out," Vuxten said.
--hopefully no fall whirr blarg dead-- 471 said.
"Can you move your arms?" Plunex asked.
Glory shifted slightly and the grinders howled, showering sparks everywhere. "Nope. My arms are at bad positions, I've got no leverage."
"Lemme look," Casey said. He grabbed onto the edge of the housing and swung down.
"Wait..." Plunex said.
Casey dropped down, landing agilely on Glory's face.
"Aw man, first date and you try to do me right in the face?" Glory laughed.
"Don't kinkshame me," Casey said, moving slowly and carefully. Vuxten could see his feet had the bluish purple of active graviton generators around them.
"Really? Graviton? Wow," Glory said. "Do you have any idea what it feels like to have you walk on my face with grav-stickied boots?"
"Don't kinkshame me," Casey said again, his voice slightly distant.
"Kinkshaming is my kink," Glory laughed. The grinders whined, clattered, and bucked. "Ow, it's starting to pinch."
"Enough leverage and pressure and they'll bend the warsteel," Casey knelt down, looking at the gears.
"What do you see, Sergeant?" Sergeant Addox asked.
"Drive shaft is exposed on two of them. Look about three to four meters of endosteel," he said.
"What..." Plunex started.
"Shh," Vuxten said, watching the Terran. "Listen and learn."
"Looks like she shattered one of the grinders and when it tried to bring up a new one it hung up on her shoulder armor," Casey said.
To Vuxten it just looked like a whirring nightmare of massive toothed screws. He started tracing the lines, looking at them. A small window in the upper right of his vision showed 471 was zooming in on sections.
--stress points here here here here-- 471 said, tossing the red dots. --bearing housing covers here here here here--
"Casey, my greenie's ID'd a bunch of stress points and stuff," Vuxten said.
"Pass it to me," Casey said.
"What if it sucks you inside?" Vuxten asked Glory.
"My arm's at a bad angle. It might rip it off," she answered. "Beyond that, I'll probably be inside a massive area where ore and rock are pulverized and I'd like to avoid that."
Vuxten remembered the First Telkan War. "How's your coolant?"
"Good. All my lobes are intact," she answered.
"All right. We can get her out," Casey said. He jumped up and grabbed the lip of the top of the housing and pulled himself up with the hiss of loading frame hydraulics. Vuxten noticed his eyes weren't amber any longer. "I'll mark the areas, in order. Those armor defeating missiles you Telkan's use should do the trick."
"Sergeant Canton, I need ten men," Plunex sent out. "All with rocket launchers."
"Roger that, sir," the section sergeant radioed back.
"We're going to free your right arm first. Once we do that, I want you to pull it out, brace yourself, and we're going to blow the driveshaft on the one on your left shoulder, then the one pressing against your chest," Casey said.
"With missiles?" Glory asked.
"Your warsteel hull could take a direct hit from them. They're forged up for Precursor armor," Vuxten said.
"Units on top of Precursor mega-structure mining vessel, fire green star cluster flare if friendly," came a voice across the command channel. It was staticy and full of pops and clicks.
"I read you," Vuxten said. He ordered the round in his grenade launcher to reconfigure to the right munition, aimed it straight up, and chugged out three, slightly spread apart.
"We validate three green star clusters. Mark with single red," the voice said. "No voice commo, IU say again, we are not receiving you."
Vuxten fired a single red flare into the sky. "This is first platoon, HHC, First Telkan Marine Division," he said.
"We read one single red flare. Signal with red white red star cluster flares. I say again, red, white, red star clusters, when in need of assistance," the voice continued. "One green flare if under operation."
Vuxten fired another green.
"We read green. Will designate spotter to overwatch. Pop orange smoke or two green star cluster if in need of assistance at later time," the voice said. "Dremsal out."
"Telkan out," Vuxten said.
Dremsal looked back at the massive vehicle. He could see the Telkan Marines plainly, and they were involved with something on the massive vehicle's port side, but the huge scoop wheels blocked whatever it was they were looking at.
"Can we even hurt that thing?" He asked. "Without killing them?"
His gunner shook his head. "Negative, sir. That thing's shields could match a BOLO."
Dremsal frowned.
Where the hell had it come from?
[first] [prev] [next]

Hello! So, this is mostly just a long, indulgent thought experiment, since I doubt that facepunch has much interest in a hardcore mode. Similarly, while most of my friends like this idea, I have no idea how much of the larger playerbase would have any interest in a hardcore mode; that said, if it were possible, this would be my dream mode in Rust.
I do support the idea of a softcore mode and want as many people to play this awesome game as possible, in the way they want. I would personally prefer a harder game. I am not trying to say the game "should" be harder, just suggesting my dream version, for fun. Also, although this shouldn't matter, I do have 2.3k hours in Rust spread over 6 or so years of play - just for context. I'm sure that will both invalidate and validate many of your views on my perspective, depending on where you stand on that particular issue. The point is, I have quite a lot of experience playing the game as its evolved over the years, but I am also nowhere near the skill-level or experience of a "pro" at the game.
So, why a hardcore mode? I can't speak for other players, but for me, this hypothetical mode would not exist purely for the sake of "being hard". Certainly, difficulty and the emotions associated with it would be a big part of it, but it would also exist to place a natural incentive into the gameplay loop to either progress & raid... or die. I dream of a Rust where I'm fighting other players and the game - or even fighting other players so that I can fight the game - instead of just fighting other players within an otherwise friendly sandbox. I'd want every decision to feel like it mattered, every engagement to feel like it might be at a cost, every loss to feel like it meaningfully stings - particularly the farther into the game you are - and every victory to feel like I gained something of real value. For me, ramping up the survival/PvE mechanics wouldn't negatively impact PvP at all. Instead, it would improve it, by adding a larger variety of factors that could contribute to victory. It would open up more opportunities for someone to claim victory by adapting better to changing pressures. Clearly, this would benefit solos more than groups, as solos have more opportunity to adapt quickly. I admit I am biased towards solos as I play mostly solo, however, I did play with a decently large group (about 8 of us) for a few hundred hours and I can't imagine that any of these suggestions would have made that any less enjoyable.
As far as the types of changes listed here, I'm trying to keep this to things that would be more of a "hard mode" than any changes to fundamental game mechanics. I have things I'd change with that, too, as I'm sure all of us do. For this I'm just thinking about an alternate of / opposite to Softcore, not ways that I'd change Rust in general.
All of that said, here is a list of the changes I'd make for a hard mode, with notes on my reasoning, where it isn't obvious.

• Food would not heal directly, and would be scarcer, at least until you made a farm. Bears would yield 4-6 meat and boars 4. Roadside piles would have food boxes more rarely, and gas stations and spermkets would have 1 or 2 boxes. Food for sale from NPCs would be 4 or 5 times as expensive, and they'd also buy food for more, so it might make sense to deprive yourself of food to get scrap.
  
• Bears would be quite threatening without firearms, and even a bit threatening with them; we are only using 5.56 bullets after all. Obviously AI and pathfinding buffs would make a big difference here but I'd also buff their health from 400 to 1200 and roughly double their damage; numbers that I'd probably change a bit with testing.
  
• Boars would ramp up to about as dangerous as wolves are now; dangerous if naked but no problem once you have a hatchet and some hide gear.
  
• Hazmat suits would freeze your wetness level at whatever level you were at when you put them on. I personally love the idea of the wetness system as a game mechanic but it is extremely easy to bypass because of the hazmat's magical drying mechanic. Hazmats as protection from the elements is a really cool idea, but as a get-out-of-jail-free card they're not terribly fun.
  
• Standing in heavy rain for a long time would cause more wetness. I know this is a server setting and I've actually experimented with it, and it feels just about right when it gets you to around 98% in heavy rain (I don't actually know exactly how the math works, but if you want to try it, setting rain wetness to 1.6 feels like it makes rain matter).
  
• Snowy areas would get dangerously cold sometimes (not always, but often), requiring more than just pants, boots, hoodie and gloves to survive in during the day. As it is, "too cold" is, for all intents and purposes, just a UI popup most of the time, and does nothing meaningful. I'd balance this around requiring a jacket and hat or balaclava in the cold. I'd also probably add an "outer layer" item to the pants slot that improved cold resistance and balance around that, but doing so stretches the rules of this thought experiment a bit. Allowing a player to wear hide pants over normal pants would work too, in a pinch.
  
• The same with desert areas and heat, although less severe. However, I'd make desert nights a bit colder than they are now, so that living in the desert would come with the unique challenge of a big shift in temperatures (more than it does now).
  
• Non-clear weather would occur more often, and fog would cause a bit of wetness to offset the safety gained from reduced player-to-player visibility. The first part of this is set on a few servers, and it does add a layer of dynamism to gameplay, albeit mostly a superficial one since weather doesn't meaningfully effect the decisions one makes for gameplay.
  
• Bandages would not heal, only stop bleeding.
  
• Bleeding stacks would cause faster bleeding (probably with a cap).
  
• Almost nothing could be crafted without a workbench. Specifically, I'd limit non-workbench crafting to the stone hatchet and pickaxe, rock, survival fish trap, spears, bone armor and helmet, bone knife and club, campfire, building plan, hammer, wood storage box, hide and burlap clothing, saddlebag, torch, bandages, small stash, and the Level 1 workbench itself. No fuel, furnaces, bow, eoka, doors or locks, tool cupboard, gunpowder or sleeping bags without a workbench.
  
• Players would spawn and respawn with much less health, food and water. I'd put the numbers at about 10 health, 50 water and 30 food. Death would feel a bit more punishing, and reward preparedness for returning to fights. Suicide would no longer bypass health loss or the consequences running out of supplies, and suicide teleports would come with a bit of a cost.
  
• Bullets would cost roughly 10x (yes) as much per bullet, in both powder and fragments. HV would only cost slightly more than that, incendiary much like HV but with a bit of extra sulfur, and explosive a bit more than that but not nearly 10x their current cost. All other explosives would remain the same cost. The idea here is to punish missed and careless shots more than they're currently punished, but keep raiding costs about the same.
  
• Large medkits would have a cooldown timer before another could be used.
  
• Syringes would cost roughly double.
  
• Learning a blueprint through the blueprint tree would cost more than learning a blueprint with the research table, by some meaningful amount like 50%. This would incentivize players competing over higher-tier areas and holding on to unresearched items, both well in the spirit of a harder gamemode.
  
• Locked boxes would destroy a full half of the loot in them by cutting every stack in half, and flipping a coin on unstackables. That said, this would only happen when no one with building privilege was awake within range within the last few minutes. Incentivizes online raiding (much more hardcore) but the offline advantage could be bypassed by taking tool cupboard.
  
• Heli would have double (or so) rotor health, and much better accuracy. It's already much more fun to fight on servers that turn up the accuracy.
  
• Bradley would use its machine gun from much farther away and have a much tighter aimcone on it. The cannon would have a larger explosion radius. Timer on the loot would be extended several minutes. Bradley is a joke right now if you sprint side-to-side while reloading rockets and just let it shoot at you with the cannon, whereas if you get within machine gun range, it is actually quite dangerous.
  
• Scrap piles would be rarer, but with larger amounts of scrap and materials in them, evening out in total scrap available. Instead of a slow steady grind, finding roadside loot piles would provide fewer, bigger jumps in scrap wealth.
  
• Radiation zones would be larger, and roughly 25% harsher. Harsh radiation zones would require hazmat, anti-rad tea and anti-rad pills. Radiation is a very cool mechanic in theory but, like wetness, trivial to bypass.
  
• Monument scientists would be more accurate and start hitting you sooner, and roadside scientists would have wider aggro range.
  
• Modular vehicles would be rarer, around 1/5th as common as they are now (based on experimenting with server settings). This is actually something I'd change in general, in order to make them more valuable, but that's a different discussion.
  
• Night vision goggles would have fewer starting seconds, so they could only be used tactically at night instead of through the whole night. Alternatively, nights could just last longer (50%? double?). That might be more interesting on the whole, particularly if coupled with the temperature changes suggested above. That said, once people have bases, most people use in-game night to get up and stretch irl, so extending night might just add more unnecessary tedium.
  
• Flashlights and weapon flashlights would have batteries, rechargeable at a workbench like NVG or jackhammer.
  
• Silencers would reduce noise by less; still enough to obscure your exact position at range, but not enough to fully insulate you from being detected. In particular, I envision this making it more dangerous to throw a silencer on to deal with animals, as you'd only have a reduced chance of being heard instead of essentially no chance.
  
• Instead of getting half of your loot back like in softcore, half of a person's loot would be permanently destroyed when they are downed (or, alternatively, when they die, but in that case, you'd be unable to loot downed players, as with softcore).
  
• Finally, the biggest and most "hardcore" difference; Death would cause you to forget one semi-random blueprint, based roughly on the combined value of everything you're carrying and wearing at the moment that you die. This isn't just pointlessly cruel either, although making death sting more is the reason I considered it originally: it actually opens up some very interesting incentives. Combined with the idea above, about loot being destroyed on death, if you want someone's loot, you might be better off holding them up for it instead of just shooting them. Meanwhile, if they don't want to give it up or want to fight to keep it, they're risking knowledge of a blueprint, and the more value they keep on them, the higher the risk. I'm confident that it would lead to at least a few very interesting interactions, while also remaining in the spirit of being "hardcore" and not broadly nerfing hostility in general. Importantly, dying while naked would guarantee that whatever blueprint was lost would be from the cheapest possible tier (20 scrap unless you had no more 20 scrap bps to lose) so suicide teleporting would cost no more than a drone delivery fee, most of the time.
  

Of note, with the final couple of changes, I would really expect player populations on hypothetical hardcore servers to stay stable for longer. The biggest points of stagnation late-wipe, other than the feeling of pointlessness because a new wipe is coming, are huge stockpiles of weapons and gear, and knowing all of the blueprints. If death destroyed resources, and caused what amounted to smaller, granular blueprint wipes, I would expect that it would make a huge difference in how long people stay interested.
Thanks for reading (if you did)! I'm really curious if there's anyone else out there who would like to play a hardcore mode if there was one (whether or not it looked anything like what I described above) or if I'm a lone weirdo who finds vanilla Rust too forgiving.

Source | Previous table
Note: Some of the question-taker's answers were also removed along with corresponding questions, and they have not been recovered below.

Questions	Answers
What is a typical day in your life like?	I get up at 4:30. I watch some YouTube, do some email, work on my writing or similar. I head to the gym at 7, shower and start my day around 8. I work in my home office or shop/lab, code and work on stuff, throughout the day. I could be busy all the way through to 8-9PM if I'm wrapped up in something, but not usually that busy.
the below is a reply to the above
You get up at 4:30 AM? Wow. Have you always been a morning person? Are other people on your team morning people so you decided to start early? I’m asking this because it seems like a lot of successful people wake up very early and work out before starting their workday.	No, I never was until my neck injury. While recovering I couldn't sleep more than about 4-5 hours max and just got into the habit. Since it was so productive for me, I just kept it up!
the below is a reply to the above
Thanks for sharing. I wish you good health.	Thanks!
Did you create Robocopy, or know who did? I use that very regularly and much more efficient than using the GUI.	The secret dirt is that Robocopy was first written by MS colleague Kevin Allen, and he started sharing copies around in 1994ish. From there, and after many iterations and heavy-duty real-world feedback, robocopy ended up in the Windows Resource Kit, and then later merged into the core Windows package. In the beginning, Kevin was a very experienced programmer, but new to the Win32 API; so robocopy was one of his projects to educate himself about Windows programming. Later on, ITG used robocopy to routinely transfer many gigabytes of data around MS global offices, every night; it became very robust and battle-hardened. It is a long time now since Kevin was involved in the robocopy source code at all; it is maintained by the Windows team.
Did you create Microsoft Clippy? Will Clippy ever make a come back?	Noooo... but I was around at the time. We have Clippy now in the form of Siri and Google Assistant and Cortana, but there's no picture. That's all it was though, an early digital assistant.
I read on a Microsoft devblog that when windows got ported to 64bit pinball 3d was not ported because of bugs and the developers not being able to understand the code/not having enough time. It's a shame, because it was such an awesome game and I spent many hours playing it as a kid. Was the code messy due to being ported from Sam and do you think it could have been ported given enough time and expertise?	Basically what I did when I ported it was to maintain the central code "logic" loop of the game unchanged so that it would play just as it did on other platforms, and then "hooked" functionality coming out of it and going into it. So I rewrote the drawing code that did the actual drawing, but not he original code that wanted to do the drawing, if that makes sense. I changed the how, not why.
	That meant, though, that at the very core of the game was a big bunch of code that we didn't touch or monkey with, because it 'just worked'. Apparently sometime after Vista, in 64-bit, there was a collision detection bug in Pinball.
	From what I read, Raymond Chen looked at it and got the general idea of what was wrong but didn't want to touch the fragile old code. Raymond's one of the best debuggers I've met, so it wasn't a question of expertise but of time and resources.
	Anyone on the team could have trivially fixed it I'm sure, but it sounds like no one "owned" the game anymore after I left, and it was more than just a random little bug to fix, it would have required a dev to be assigned to it, and there likely was no one free.
What is your favourite colour please?	Well, I have four cars with blue interiors and I'm wearing a blue shirt and a blue watch and blue jeans. So probably blue.
If my son expresses interest in serious computer programming, where is a good place to start? C for Dummies? (I'm joking and I know terribly little about the topic, only enough to know backend is where it's at)	Python, then Javascript. Build a website!
Hi! Just wanted to say, I still use MS-DOS regularly, on many of my older machines in my collection. Also Win3.x, Win9x etc How do you feel about computers becoming extremely dependent on 'cloud' services? I can still set up an old machine, install an old OS, install old software and have it all up and running within an hour or so, while modern software essentially requires cloud services for literally everything. What happens to that software once some random person out there decides that they don't want to support it anymore? Those cloud services go away? Are you concerned that future generations will not be able to experience anything from this era of computing? Considering computers were designed to be able to continually run the same software over and over as necessary, how can that apply if the bulk of this is lost when the cloud disappears? Or maybe this isn't a concern at all, and I'm just crazy...?	I already have hardware that refused to work because the cloud service that backs it has been abandoned or the company has gone out of business.
	I worry that things become dependent on externals that aren't reliable long term, and I know what you mean... but fortunately Windows, once activated, runs perfectly well offline forever, really.
I'm a fresh graduate with some experience and reading the knowledge you all have in the comments has made me feel very inferior. I only started coding in my university and I don't do it in my past time. Am I doing something wrong? I do enjoy programming but I try to keep a work life balance. Is that a thing in software development? Also did you ever approve a pull request by Bill?	No, as long as you DO enjoy it when you're doing it, you're fine. There's an entire "spectrum" of people in the world and some of us have "special interests" with which we're a little obsessed, and tend to "hyperfocus". I'm one of those people but it's by no means the only way to do it!
	I knew many great programmers who (a) didn't program in their spare time at home and (b) didn't continue to program recreationally after leaving it as a job.
	If you can work regular 40 hours a week as a productive programmer, you'll be set!
the below is a reply to the above
Thank you so much for this! Are there any tips you'd like to give to fresh graduates like me?	If you get a job at a large company like Microsoft, and decide you're not happy, try moving INTERNALLY before looking for another job. You could work for 5 different companies over your career and they could all be Google, for example. Culture goes through and through, but every team has its own.
the following is a later reply	If you can put in a 35-40 hour week of solid work, you'll be fine. There are three buckets: the obsessives, like myself, who work as much as they can. Then the solid pros, who can turn out a ton of quality stuff in 40 hours. And then you have the slackers who surf Facebook at work and read reddit when they should be coding. As long as you're not in that group you're fine, and a balance is important. It is indeed a thing the successful people achieve it. It's not about how much code you write, it's about how much MORE time you spend coding than you want to, and that should be zero!
	Lots of people are in careers they don't practice in their free time, in fact most. So it's a bonus if you're that way, but most people are NOT, so don't despair! You're normal!
If you're still answering, how much of the original Task Manager still lives in the modern Task Manager? Anyway, thanks for the AMA! You're a legend!	I don't know for sure, but from looking at the app, and not the code, I'd expect about 60-70% of it?
Hopefully you’re still taking questions. I get a lot of crap by my peers about command line. Power shell is badass but I’m a cmd guy myself. I know we can do pretty much everything that cmd does in powershell and more, but idk. I like what I like, you know? Where do you stand on this?	Honestly I'd be a CMD guy as well, but I'm really starting to lean towards using bash under WSL.
	Have you ever looked the help for SET and FOR under CMD? It's where we put every piece of extra functionality, since you can't add keywords that might collide with people's script names, etc...
I didn’t use windows after windows 7 for about 5 years. Back in august 2019 I finally rebuilt and upgraded my old PC and installed windows 10. The task manager in windows 10 is so amazing and powerful. I would imagine it’s something you wanted to implement in the 90s but didn’t have the tools or time. Right?	Indeed, I'm a big fan of the current task manager and what they've done with it! I wish there was a Dark mode, I wish it handled file lock tracking, and I've always got wish lists, but they've done a great job with it!
CIA_grade_LSD: Why does the file transfer time remaining progress bar start at like 15 hours and then drop to two minutes and then stick at 99% for five minutes? (An exaggeration I admit. I know you and your colleagues do your best, but I am curious why this hasnt gotten much more accurate over the years.) androidethic: Yes, we need a justification as to why the windows file operation estimations are so random/inaccurate!	They're the worst estimate out there, except for all the others.
	Mac is just as bad. It's a hard problem. I worked on it briefly, and to help solve it I kept track of the average time it had taken for a whole range of operations, like creating, moving, deleting, renaming a file, or moving a block of N bytes, etc. Then multiply by the number of those operations that remain. But even that can be wildly off in degenerate cases.
Do you ever get laid?	Not since your Mom kicked me out.
Why has windows task manager never had a true force quit?	End Process is a true force quit.
What was your team's opinion on linux at the time? And what's yours opinion too?	I like it a lot, I was an early adopter back in 1993-1994 and tried to contribute some code for parsing IIDs, though I don't know if it's still in there. I hope it is, becaue then I'd have code in Windows, Mac Office, and Linux. I'd be everywhere :-)
	Now that we have WSL 2, though, I do most of my Linux work under Windows!
How much of the original DOS code is still in modern OSs?	None whatsoever. In fact, the only commonality at all would likely be the PGM header on disk still traces its original layout to MS-DOS.
	But rest assured there's NO code from MS-DOS inside NT, for example. It was a complete clean-slate design.
Was it you responsible for the atrocious naming conventions in WIN32?	Your username is dhbt12 :-)
What current developments in the world of operating systems are you watching with eager anticipation? File systems and LLVM seem to be the rage right now, at least from where I sit.	Containers are cool to me, like Docker! That's really the biggest development of recent years I think!
the below has been split into two
* What's your compensation?	- Zero, since I'm retired and there's no pension.
* Have you met Bill Gates?	- Yes, a number of times. When I was first hired he had me and a few other recent hires over to his house for burgers and beer and it was quite nice!
What's your opinion of free and open-source software? Broad, I know. I saw your response about WinRAR saying you like to license your software, but do you hold a similar sentiment in tossing a coin to the devs of foss software you might use?	I love it, I just don't have any illusions that making a piece of code open-source somehow leads to higher quality. It makes it more available to me, which is great, but in reality, on a typical project there are going to be 1-5 people who really look at the code and then a dozen the sort of know it to make changes, and then consumers of the code who just call it. I don't see that those 1-5 people are any brighter than the people who'd be responsible for a product in a proprietary environment.
	Now at a certain scale, like the Linux kernel maybe, you've got enough eyeballs looking at it that it makes a difference... that I could see!
What's the idea behind SYSKEY?	As I understand it, its function is to encrypt something called the SAM (Security Account Manager) database. This database stores hashes of user passwords, and is used to authenticate users when they supply their password.
Hey Dave, what do you think the future of the windows OS will be? Is a cloud-based OS possible, potentially limiting computer hardware?	As a total guess, I imagine our experience will eventually be just a UI device locally and everything else happens in the cloud on server hardware. So as you say, at some point your client hardware is "good enough" and then companies compete on the merits of their back-end services.
Do you know Mike Toutonghi? , he used to work at Microsoft, now he started a new blockchain project called The Verus project.	By name and email but not well enough to recognize him at the mall today, I'd say!
If you had to redo windows, what would you most like to change? What do you regret most? What do you like most?	The Format dialog needs to be redone! And Task Manager is likely my favorite...
Android or iPhone? Beer or wine? Ginger or Mary Ann?	iPhone. Beer. Can't it be both? It's an island, after all.
the below is a reply to the above
I figured the iPhone since you have Mac's in the lab. I figured beer also since you can't shift a 4 speed with a glass off wine between your legs. Nice garage BTW. However i wasnt ready for both, it's an island after all. Touche. I tired to compile my first bit of code from GitHub today. I failed miserably. It would install but wouldn't run. I'll keep at it.	Make sure you're in a clean empty folder. Try the code from Episode 11, I just used it so I know that works! Clone it and build it in PlatformIO with no changes, and that'll tell you if your dev environment is set up and working properly.
I cant connect to my cloud, can you download it for me?	I'd love to, but I'm out of paper. Can you fax me some?
What amazes you the most when you compare technology from the 90's to now?	GPUs!
Is it wrong of me to only ever end task manager with itself?	Software Seppuku.
Probably too many comments and very late to the game, but here it goes! I teach Comp Sci at an international school. Would you be willing to give a small webinar talk to my students? They would just be so happy to hear from you as would I! Anyway, regardless, thanks for the many, many hours of enjoyment!	Maybe after Covid, but I'm not a big fan of Zoom lectures! I just did one for the U of R, though, and if you check my channel there are two that I have done for the University of Regina that you might find useful for your students...
	You can email me at [email protected] with info about the school and what topic you would like, etc, and I can see if it's a good fit for schedule and topic!
What computers do you personally at home? Windows? Linux? Mac?	All three!
Why are processes able to hang to the point that task manager is unable to kill them?	At that point there must be kernel corruption or something going on in a driver or well below the surface, I guess. If TM can't kill it, no one can, and it's truly hung.
Did you ever meet the genius who wrote the Space Cadet Pinball theme song?	No, who wrote it? Matt Ridgeway?
Hi Dave, loved the videos on task manager Do you have any thoughts on modern C / C++ replacements like Zig and Rust (respectively)?	I think its cool if memory access is indeed provably safe but you get code nearly as optimal as C, but I've got to learn more about them!
Did you like the windows phone?	Never had one, started after I left, but I heard nice things about the very last one before it went away...
Hi Dave, Why doesn’t File Explorer automatically refresh to show new files in a folder, such as downloads? Seems such an obvious glitch! Also, how do I get the login screen on Windows 10? I push space, esc, mouse clicks, enters... and nothing happens. Then poof, it shows up. Why is this so unresponsive?	It does.
	In fact I know it does, because I have a patent on some of it!
	Not sure why yours wound't be working, your system might have a third party piece of software that has broken File System Change notifications.
Was the time on Microsoft fun?	It really was. I miss the people and the environment, and I especially miss lunch!
i’ve found 15+ 0-days in the shell32 API when doing a vuln analysis of explorer.exe. You can read my work at https://hyp3ri0n-ng.github.io! What’s it like to write really buggy code :P?	I sense that high school was hard for you socially.
I’m sure I remember owning the pinball game as a separate standalone title before it was in windows? Can you explain the deal with that? Or am I misremembering	Plus Pack!
You're a legend, can't believe I missed this. I'll post this here, if you don't answer it I'll have a good copy/paste for later. What are your thoughts on the sethc.exe / accessibility exploit? It's worked as far back as XP, and still works today in Windows 10, last time I checked. Windows Server 2003 and 2008 as well. Is checking the integrity of OS files before they're executed just not a priority?	https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/222193/description-of-the-windows-file-protection-feature
Why ctl+alt+delete?	An IBM engineer (David Bradley, I think) picked that combination to serve as a hardware reset. You can't fake it, you can't get around it. The PC knows it's really C_A_D when you do it.
	Why that particular combination, you'd have to ask him!
What's the furthest you've gotten into a project that ended up not panning out? Was it something you really wanted to get working or were you relieved to move on? I'm a student studying engineering right now and reading these answers is extremely motivational; your passion for computers is awesome! Thanks for doing this.	I spent about a year on an early prototype of Media Center that I was attached to but got killed. They did do a Media Center later, of course, but I had started 2-3 years ahead, but couldn't get funding.
Why has the Windows she'll been so bad for so long?	I don't know, but I'll see you in he'll.
Do you still work at Microsoft? Do you still use only Microsoft stuff?	No retired in 2003. I use a lot of MS stuff, but my main laptop is a MacBook and I use a Mac for video.
Do you own any Apple products or use them for work?	I own all the Apple products except the new headphones, pretty much! I'm retired now though!
Is the workculture of Microsoft at the time very different than now? How much does Bill Gates' leadership impact the company? What changes had his departure bring?	It is indeed very different under Satya than Bill, and the changes are widespread. But I left before Satya started, so I'm not really qualified to speak on them!
What are your thoughts on the age old trick of "Opening Task Manager to stop programs from freezing or being slow", is there some merit to doing that or is it just a simple coincidence?	Total coincidence, honest! Task Manager, at that level, is just a windows app with a message pump. It's existence doesn't do anything that solitaire or paint would not also!
	No, but there's a great meme with the Star Wars general about how apps work better with Task Manager open because "fear will keep them in line".
	It's purely psychological, though. TM doesn't do anything by running the calc or paint wouldn't also provide!
Did you work on Windows ME? If so.. What the hell happened to that OS that made it so terrible? I had kernal errors every week.	Nope! My work on the shell would have been backported to it, but I didn't work directly on 98 or M3, other than they used our NT version of the shell code by then I think.
Did you make any contingency for when Task Manager stops responding?	Yes, lots! Check the video the "Secret Life of Task Manager" for more dirt, but there are MANY things it does to help prevent you ever being stuck with no task manager:
	https://youtu.be/f8VBOiPV-_M
If not asked yet If this is correct, as posted in Regina awhile ago iirc I saw a post saying you’re from Regina, Canada Is that true? If so that’s awesome to hear that someone from my local area made one of my favourite no internet game and the basic fundamentals of the most used OS for computers	Yes indeed, that's me!
Why is the documentation for WPA so bad and scarce? I have to refer to Bruce Dawson's years old blog to decipher some of the columns names. Are there any plans to add a comprehensive manual for it?	Windows Product Activation? Columns? Sorry, are you using WPA for something else?
Can I intern for you?	If you know how to write a Material-themed admin-style Dashboard in React, can consume a REST api in doing so, and have some experience with iPhone apps an Unity, then maybe yes!
	I was actually looking for an intern this past summer to write a phone and web app...
how did you assured code quality and readability? did you use static analyzers/ unit tests or what?	Check out the "Secret History of Task Manager" video for a description of "NTStress" and how we nightly tested, but there were professional testers, every line of code was code-reviewed, and so on.
	My understanding is it's quite different now, though!
When you say you worked on Windows activation, was it for more than a day?	That's an odd question. Can I ask why you think it might have just been for a day? Clue me in to what you're hinting at and I'll fill you in on the rest!
Why do I need to press 3 buttons and 1 click to open task manager?	Because you choose to fail!
	You can do it with two clicks or one simultaneous multikey press!
Do you think WPA was a success?	I think so! It helped stem casual piracy, wasn't "cracked" for at least 18 months after we released it, and didn't unduly inconvenience users too often, I hope.
	We were really aiming for the 95% case. Trying to catch the 95% of piracy that is people sharing keys, reusing their own keys on too many machines, getting keys off the web, that sort of thing. I think it accomplished that.
How did you feel about windows 8?	Same way you do.
Who invented the blue screen of death?	John Vert. He said:
	"Back in 1991 I wrote the original code for Windows NT 3.1 that put the video screen back into text mode and the routines to put text on it (and a truly gnarly bit of code it was!). I used the white on blue colors for two reasons.
	* The MIPS workstations we were using for the MIPS port had firmware that presented a boot option screen in white on blue, so it made sense that the bugcheck screen would match.
	* I (and many others) were using SlickEdit as our text editor and at the time its default color scheme was also white on blue.
	I believe Mark Lucovsky wrote the original code that dumped a bunch of text to the screen. This was a bugcode and a stack dump, resulting in a bunch of useless hex numbers which product support would occasionally dutifully transcribe from the customers and include in the bug report.
	There was no "typesetting" as we used standard VGA text mode on PCs.
	I don't know the history of the Win3.1/Win9x blue screens, I think the fact they were the same color is just coincidence."
But can you make sick stick figure death match animations in QBASIC?	No, but I do a mean Bill the Cat ascii art!
How could you?	Sometimes you just gotta say WTF.
	https://youtu.be/a0p7rJsYisw
What are you working on these days?	Mostly on programming tutorials and nostalgic "Windows War Stories" on my youtube channel:
	http://www.youtube.com/c/davesgarage
[removed]	That's me! Went to Miller high, worked at ISM and SaskTel during college, etc!
Here is my question. Im a cuban teenager (17) and my dream is work is be a developer. What kind of mini works i can do for learn programation before University?	Do as many little program tasks as you can, and make sure you complete them, and SAVE them for the future so you can look back!
	Try writing a little program to convert back and forth between roman numbers and regular numbers. Or fund the next highest multiple of 32, or count the number of it bits set in a byte. Or the real difference in seconds between two dates, that sort of thing. Real problems that you have to solve will help a great deal as they act as sort of a "forcing function" to make you get to the very end.
Do you like macaroni & cheese?	Kraft Dinner all the way. And I eat with little packets of designer ketchup.
Wait...you didn't built paint? I'm out.	Nope, sorry. But I owned calc for a while, back when we were adding infinite precision math to it!
Hi, If Microsoft wanted to, they could make it impossible to activate a pirated copy of windows using 3rd party software. So why aren't they making it impossible?	Not sure what you meant by 3rd party software. Are you saying Windows can actually be activated even if pirated? That'd be news to me, but anything's possible.
What was the criteria for “tilt” on space cadet pinball? I played that game for hours as a kid.	Spacebar would add a little "action" to the table, if I recall, and you could strike a balance of adding so much so often... but too much (ie: smash space too much) and it'll tilt.
Did you ever have to interview anybody at Microsoft? If so, what types of questions would you ask back then? What was your interview like going into Microsoft?	Oh yeah, I've interviewed dozens or hundreds I'd bet. I'd like to ask "calibrating questons" like "Give me a funtion that takes a number and returns the next highest multiple of 32" or "count the number of bits that are set in it" to see how their basic coding skills were.
	Then I usually liked to give a problem I was working on to see what it'd be like to actually work with the person.
	I interviewed three times, once as an intern, once as full time, and then once to move to the Shell group. Each as an all-day affair, and very arduous. You have 2-3 hour long interviews in the AM, then a lunch interview, then 2-3 more hour long interviews in the PM, then a supper thing, etc... it's a long day!
ImRandyRU: What have you done for me lately? Edit: it was a joke... dabigchina: NT is the foundation that all modern windows OS's build on, so a lot. Zeusifer: I guarantee some of OP's code still exists in Windows 10.	Most of it, to be honest. As a guess I'd say 75% still there.
Hey man, I had a wicked dump this morning and now my toilet is blocked. Any idea's?	More roughage in your diet.
It was so satisfying to push the 3x5 disks into the slot and have the button pop out, and make a vroom vroom sound. Ah, the old days. What's your favorite MS-Dos game from the 90s?	I actually came to the PC after MS-DOS, so I wasn't a DOS gamer... I suppose in those days it was primarily C64 and Amiga games. I do remember being fond of Sim City, like everyone, but also of a game called "Seven Cities of Gold"...

Source
Note: other employees' answers were occasionally included, but are by no means complete.

Questions	Answers
PC Part Picker. Where do I start. First of all, thank you so much for all of the help you guys have given me. If not for your team and your website I might not have built the PC I have now. I am very grateful to you guys for making such straightforward software with so many options. You guys are on top of everything, and I’d just like to thank you for all that you’ve done for the PC building community. That being said, onto the questions! 1. What are your favorite PC Parts? What’s your ideal/dream PC part list? 2. I’ve been having this problem recently because things are out of stock. When I make a parts list I often have to go into the page for the part to determine the actual cost for the part when it comes back in stock from the major retailers. When displaying the price, could you also add in parentheses something like: Price: $265 (Lowest: $200)	Thanks for the kind words! I'll defer to Alex/Ryan on their favorite parts. For me I'd just like to get hold of a 3080 one day but I'm not in a rush. I'm still happily running this build: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/c99djX
	On the stock / pricing issue, we might be able to look into something like that, but I can't make any guarantees.
the below is a reply to the above
Downmented: It's a bad time to be GPU shopping when the founde owner of PCPP can't even score a 30 series GPU BDsBiggest: This was my thought, how does he not have one?	I honestly don't really need one and there are people who play way more intensive stuff than I do. I'm ok to wait.
the below is a reply to the above
On that note, what do you play?!!	I still really enjoy Minecraft of all things. My oldest son started playing Skyblock and so that became a bit of a time sink. Used to play a decent bit of Civ and other Sid Meier stuff a long time ago. I'm just not that much of a gamer though. I'm legitimately terrible at FPS games, so I don't really enjoy them all that much. Minecraft lets me just piddle around and experiment with different creations, architectures, etc. And it's something I can play with my kids which is great until they trash my island.
the below is a reply to the above
As a fellow Minecraft buff, what are your thoughts on the best CPU for Minecraft at the moment? I know it depends more on CPU performance than GPU, at least in Java edition.	I'll have to defer to the other guys on staff or the community because I honestly don't know. I'm playing on an i5-6600k/980 ti which has been more than enough.
the below is another reply to the original answer
Thanks for the response! How long have you had that build for?	Roughly four years. I need to upgrade the GPU though because where I work in my house it's getting cold and ThoughtA is outpacing me on Folding at Home.
the below is a reply to the above
Do you have a rebuild planned for when the 3080 is back? Or just upgrading the current rig?	It'll probably be a new build, but I'm not sure what it'll be. If 3080s come back in stock where I can get one, then I may start with that and plan the rest around it. Especially if it's something with a particular aesthetic or color scheme that I want to match.
Thank you for your site and all the countless hassle it saved me from. What do you guys and gals think is a thing our community could help you with ? Is there something like a roadmap for pcpp and what are you personally most excited about ? How should people give feedback to you and the other team members? Which channels are you preferring ? On which channels can I send my monthly thank you very much for your service messages ?	Re: what buildapc can help with - this community has helped us so much over the years that I have no asks whatsoever. Just thanks. Thanks for letting us be a part of the community.
	We don't have an official roadmap - I run the dev timeline like a software engineer who is terrible at time estimates. Things I promised eight years ago are still undone while other stuff jumps ahead. I'm most excited for benchmarking. I love performance analysis, and what we're building should be super cool. Lots, lots, lots of data, all in tightly controlled environments. The hard part is how to present relevant bits without overwhelming people with data.
	For feedback, feel free to ping us on our site forums, our contact page, or on our discord channel. Discord is probably the least formal if it's something small, though I'm not on discord all that often these days (Ryan and Alex are though).
the below is a reply to the above
Ah, "agile" development.	Nope! None of that. No agile practices here thanks. Just software development structured along my capricious demands...
the below is a reply to the above
IMHO, "we don't have a project management philosophy" is the best project management philosophy. As long as progress is being made and people are happy, management theory would just get in the way.	For a while I was working on a codebase of several million lines of C++ in an org with 100+ other really smart engineers. I participated in an effort to modularize part of it, and I failed pretty badly. One of the most important things I learned was from an old Windows NT dev presentation that talked about Conway's Law. That really reshaped how I viewed architecture, teams, responsibilities, and communication patterns.
the below is another reply to the original answer
Did you consider licensing/sharing benchmarks from other hardware review sites, rather than developing a (presumably not-profit-generating) benchmarking competency? Alternatively, if you do want to generate benchmarks, have you considered monetizing them via a blog?	We're planning on benching at a scale that most review sites don't do. Like an order of magnitude more pairings, runs, etc, with a bit more detail on each as well in terms of current consumption, temps, etc. All that all recorded on identical software setups for comparability. No one right now is doing that at the scale we want.
	It's definitely not a profit center, and that's ok for me. I love benchmarking. Before PCPP I was part of a team working on optimizing compiler stuff. I loved writing compiler optimizations and testing the performance changes. So that whole side of things - determinism, accurate measurements, etc, I just really enjoy it. So PCPP in a way helps fund my desire to do that work whether it is profitable or not.
	That being said, I do think it's a complementary feature set to add. While it may not monetize directly, I think the value it adds to the site will (hopefully) result in an incremental change in traffic/revenue.
So how does it feel to have a side project or yours become as popular in the computer world as google? You've become the only place I recommend newbies to go (other than reddit) for pc building help, and your site has become the most useful tool I've ever used outside of my daily IT work. You've created something not only powerfully useful, but well designed, smoothly operated, and pleasing to the eye. I don't really have much of question more just taking the opportunity to say thank you for creating a fantastic tool for the community. If a bigger company offers you millions to sell it I'd understand if you did, but please don't, I can't imagine the site being run any better than by it's original team!	Thanks for the kind words. I gave my mom a shirt. A couple years ago someone recognized the shirt in rural east Texas. Like, she lives 30 minutes from the nearest town of 5,000 people. That was pretty wild. My mom was pretty excited lol.
	I love having something that I helped build be a useful thing for people. That's immensely satisfying. (And it's a team effort, not just me by any stretch at all. The whole team helps every bit of what you see on the site).
	On the other hand, I don't want or like to be out front. I'd rather be behind the scenes working on something and not really be noticed. I think that gets reflected, probably negatively from a business-first standpoint, in how I run things. I don't really push branding hard, don't push social media (Twitter, Instagram, etc), because I personally don't want to be out front there. I can engage here on reddit because I feel like I'm a part of the community here rather than some corporate/redditor relationship. From a business standpoint, I think there's a lot of growth possibility that PCPP hasn't tapped into because I want to avoid various social anxieties and whatnot.
the below is a reply to the above
Just know that if a company offers big bucks (and they probably will eventually) it is because they see an opportunity to leverage the base you built to make money and it most likely will be by selling the customers who trust you. They will probably do something like partner with large manufacturers or sellers and push their own products while if ignoring what is best for the people looking to create their own best build.	Yeah that makes sense. We've made some decisions that probably wouldn't last long - not running ads, not selling user data. So really there seems to be two options: either we run this out until it dies on its own and we get to keep our ideals/positions, or we run out of energy and sell. I don't want to sell. I don't plan to sell. But I'd be lying if I said there weren't days where I feel so tired and just want a break for a bit. It's trying to find the balance of doing a job I love maintaining principles I value and also not destroying myself physically/emotionally/etc in the process.
the below is another reply to the original answer
Oh cool! If you don’t mind me asking, what area of East Texas? Did you grow up out here? I’m from out in Van, approx 30 min from Tyler. My close friends and I love PCPartPicker. I just used it to build my upgraded rig a couple of weeks ago.	Nice! I grew up in Tyler (edit: but my mom currently lives 30 minutes east of Center, TX - basically on Toledo Bend reservoir and the TX/LA border). My electronics teacher in high school (Mr. Ray) was from Van. He was formative for me in pursuing electronics seriously by introducing me to VICA and electronics competitions.
Benchmark integration timeline when 🍿	Probably mid-2021. We're almost done with a building renovation where they bumped our building service from a 400A service to a 1200A service. Added AC capacity. That 800A is going toward bench... it's going to be fun. This is what I'm talking about https://imgur.com/a/rffuVin. Can't wait to get this all up and running.
the below is a reply to the above
I have a massive transformer that’s the size of a fridge I can’t seem to sell if you guys want it. It was meant for a Bitcoin farm but was never used. Cost $5000 I just want it gone it’s so heavy lol	LOL thanks but we're good. They actually delivered the 1200A from pole mounted transformers. MEP guys were surprised, but the power company said they could do it. Sure enough they did. Old vs new pre-hookup: https://imgur.com/a/ODQlACV
the below is a reply to the above
Dude, you do AWS, dev, hiring, project direction, and building management? Your operation must be crazy efficient.	Oh no I offloaded all the building management stuff to Jack. He's handled almost all the renovation work, which has been an absolute life saver for me. I just come in and throw wrenches in things by adding last minute requests for extra conduit runs from here to there, replace those windows, change that paint color, etc. Jack handles all communication and followups with the GC, subs, etc.
	The other stuff I do do though. AWS (our infrastructure isn't that big really, a couple dozen EC2 instances, RDS, Redis, CloudSearch, Cloudfront, etc). Daniel handles the bits of Lambda that we use. I kinda enjoy the deployment / devops side of things, and I think it's important to have my fingers on the pulse of that whenever I'm designing new features. Helps me have a better feel for what kind of query impact different code or modeling decisions will have.
	The hiring isn't much - we've averaged about one person a year and that's usually someone in our existing network of relationships. And project direction is pretty small right now since we shut down our cycling site. Back down to just one website makes it a lot simpler. We talk about what we want to do as a group a lot, so (I think) everyone has a pretty decent picture of where we're headed despite timelines not being nailed down strict.
the below is another reply to the original answer
What kind of benchmarks would you be running? Have you considered pulling data from places like passmark?	Anything we can run deterministically and automated and that has license terms that allow unfettered publication of result data. We won't be pulling data from anywhere, passmark included. All the data will be from runs we do in-house.
the below is a reply to the above
May I ask why the focus on internal metrics vs just pulling them?	Mainly because we can control all the variables and make them consistent across all our result pairs. We have some absolutely phenomenal performance analysis engineering expertise in house.
the below is another reply to the second answer
Unfettered publication of result data. Wow. Nice. As someone who likes playing with freely available datasets, I really appreciate this. Hard to learn data science without freely available data sets that regular people can have some level of subject matter expertise over to start to learn how to put data-driven stories together.	Sorry, what I meant was that the license terms of the benchmark software have to allow us to publish the benchmark results without restriction. There is a popular benchmarks out today that requires the benchmark results be vetted by them first before publication. We'd have to manually send over bench results if we weren't using their bench platform (we're not, we have our own). Then wait for them to approve, and then we could publish. That's not viable when we're testing at the scale we plan to - it'd need to be automated at least but they couldn't offer that. And for benchmarking prerelease hardware under embargo, it'd mean that we would have no ability to publish data right when the embargo lifted. We'd have to wait however long for their manual review.
the below is another reply to the second answer
How will you be able to benchmark hard-to-get hardware? e.g. RTX 3090, Radeon 6800xt, and Ryzen 5000? Will the manufacturers send them to you? Or do you have to buy them?	I think it's a mixture of both. On new release hardware it's helpful to have bench data when embargoes lift. But I also want to have store-purchased hardware as the main part of our hardware pool, however long it takes to acquire that. We can flag the benchmarks that come from manufacturer review samples - that way people know the source and can factor in review sample binning.
the below is another reply to the original answer
So once upon a time, I was gonna write a program that would pull benchmark and pricing data to build a list of best value parts, such that no part in the list had a better performing part at a lower price. A sort of definitive do-buy list to make it easier to pick parts. Once benchmarks are done, pcp would have all the infrastructure in place to make that happen in some form on the site, perhaps as a filter for picking parts or as a warning on the part/build pages?	Yep.
the below is a reply to the above
sorry, I'm not sure what you're saying that to, I should have actually posed a proper question: Will you be implementing that?	That's our intent, yeah. It may take us a bit to get there though.
the below is another reply to the original answer
There is...a lot... of metal shavings in that box. Ah I’m sure it’s fine it’s only 1200A.	Oh at that point it was still all being hooked up. It's cleaner for sure.
	Check this out - relative size difference between old and new...
	https://imgur.com/a/xQD1fEY. (That's one Barry for scale.)
the below is a reply to the above
But how do we know how big Barry is if he's not holding a banana?	Barry is approximately the same height as one marinelli.
A lot of people seem to think that you only host sellers that provide you affiliate kickbacks. Is there any truth to that? Have you ever allowed or disallowed a seller on the basis of affiliate money? How do you decide whether to host a seller or not?	That's not true. We list several retailers without affiliate agreements. Affiliate relationships are often much much easier because they almost always already have price data access. That's the main thing we need.
	Our choice on hosting a retailer largely depends on whether we feel they are good for users or not. If a retailer is being abusive to users or doing highly manipulative stuff, we'll remove them even if they're profitable. We've done that several times in the past. If a retailer also has highly inaccurate pricing, we'll delist for that too.
Yaaatttttt: Not sure if you are allowed to reveal this but what retailers have you delisted in the past? LightningProd12: They delisted MicroCenter in the US because they had too many in-store only deals and no way to tell the difference on PCPP's end. And not everyone can go to one, if you live in the Northwest the closest one can be 800-1000 miles away. Edit: This is mostly false, look at the comments below.	ThoughtA: This isn't true at all. We want to have them on the site. We had some discussions with them, but they stopped responding.
the below is a reply to the above
Oh ok, I remember suggesting it a few years back on the forums and getting told they were delisted. EDIT - Forum post link: https://pcpartpicker.com/forums/topic/309304-request-add-microcenter-to-the-list-of-merchants I falsely remembered there being a reason but was told they were removed from the site.	We did actually list their in-store deals. I put in a decent bit of code for that so that they only showed up if you were within a configurable radius of one of their locations.
	It's a long story, but the gist of it is that we were waiting on some stuff that never came and things went silent. We reach out from periodically but nothing. It stinks - we'd be happy to list them.
	You never know what you reception you'll get from retailers. Some are beating down the door to get on board - that's awesome. Others we have to prove that we're worth their time - that's not unusual. A few will say they want to work together, we get 80% of the way there, and then... silence. Or the key person you were working with takes a job somewhere else. And then some retailers basically say not just no, but h*** no. I'll never forget that one. For some retailers there's a strong aversion to something we do, whether it be price comparison or something else. But just know that if there's a retailer that is reputable and treats customers well, we're more than happy to work with them and get them listed.
the below is a reply to the above
Ohh ok, that sucks. On a side note, is there a story behind the "h*** no" retailer?	They're, eh, no longer in business. Honestly probably dodged a bullet there.
the below is another reply to the original answer
Maybe this was asked already but still: are there any timeline/plan to add more countries to the country list? I am leaving in Austria and I have to use Germany to see the prices and availability of the parts. Moreover, I see German retailers and prices but not Austrian ones.	We're continually adding new countries and retailers. Adding a country is just a few lines of code on our end - we do that when we have a retailer to add in a country we don't currently support. So really it's a matter of finding and adding retailers. If you have any you'd like to see, send us a note on our contact page and we'll take a look at it. Jenny reaches out to the retailers to see if we can get them on board. It usually takes a while to get in contact and get good data access.
the below is a reply to the original question
I already raised this issue to him several years ago - because it was blatantly in the open for users in Germany. You would get amazon affiliate links as "lowest" price, even though there are several other stores that are cheaper... He got angry quickly and gave me the same bs excuse. The top sellers with the top user ratings were never listed as cheapest even though they were.	We list the buy box winner for Amazon. If you're saying we prune results for various marketplace sellers, well, you're wrong.
How's the team handling COVID? Is everyone working from home? What kind of challenges are arising?	I sent everyone home in March. We haven't met as a group since. It's been ok - we just meet on video conferencing when we need to. Jack and Barry are up at the office overseeing the renovation which should be done mid-January. I'll probably be up there from January to April to do the benchmark network cabling and office rewiring (from cat5 to 6a+fiber) because I kinda enjoy cable crimping and punch downs. :)
the below is a reply to the above
The transition from cat5 to cat6 is worth?	Yeah. We're not running 5e, just 5. It's what was in there from when we bought it. So that's not where I'd like it to be for good 1Gb.
Any chance we'll ever see some more filtering options for SSDs? It would be really handy to have the following * Filter by the primary storage type SLC/MLC/TLC/QLC/Optane/etc * Filter by whether the drive has a DRAM cache or supports Host Memory Buffer (HMB)	I'd love to, but I think it'd cause a fissure I'm not sure how to fix. Right now we have SSDs and platter drives in the same category, but the specific filtering for each is different. To apply the really detailed SSD filters, I think they need to be their own category. Same with the HDD types. I don't know if splitting them up is the right path though, so I've been continually punting the issue down the road until we're forced to decide one way or the other.
the below is a reply to the above
Tsk tsk, don’t accumulate technical debt there	Oh, no, it's quite the opposite really. Parametric part additions record the type and filter selections. Those added to a part list stay there forever - we never throw them away. So any filters we add never get removed even if we don't show them. Because of that, I try to be very deliberate in what we add and what we don't. Once I add a new part category or filter type, if I decide later it was a bad idea then it means I get to write lots of migration code. That's no fun.
Super excited for the an app version. Are you guys considering price tracking so that users can set alerts for when hardware drops to a desired price?	Yeah. We have that on the site already with email alerts. But the PWA provides them via browser push notifications (on platforms that support that). I have that all working in a beta test mode (for staff only) right now and it's feeling pretty solid.
the below is a reply to the above
As a front-end engineer, what's your stack look like for the PWA?	Basically built on top of our existing responsive site (Python, Django). I didn't want to spend a lot of time migrating to another framework, so instead spent the time kind of standardizing our own API-ish setup and then handling the caching or offline modes for that as needed. We went responsive with PWA to avoid maintaining three separate codebases (web, iOS, Android), but it's looking like we may go native in the end anyway. This buys us some time at least.
the below is another reply to the original answer
So not iOS?	Right. :(. I understand there are some workarounds to get push notifications through wallets and whatnot, but that feels pretty hackish to me. We might end up going native on iOS at some point to get good notification support there.
How hard is it keeping up with and adding new item releases (not only the new 3000 series graphics cards from nvidia but also possibly unknown stuff like network cards, etc)? Are there any items you decide not to add or do you try to list everything you can?	New GPUs are pretty easy. CPUs are ok, sometimes a pain depending on the chipset/bios situations. Motherboards are terrible, especially the last few years. Cataloging all the M.2 ports, their constraints (PCIe in this slot disables that SATA, etc) is a major pain.
	There's some stuff, particularly on cases, where there are compatibility constraints that are not economically viable to model. We know what the constraints are, but to model them all across 30k+ parts would make data entry so slow that we'd never finish.
	We try to hit the main product categories, but we'd love to expand that. It's really an issue of how time consuming and costly it is to do the data entry for it versus how often it's used.
the below is a reply to the above
So Wikipedia seems to be crowd sourced, and works pretty well. Maybe some of the more laborious data entry parts could have a crowd source entry option, but be flagged as such when people bring up anything containing those results (a disclaimer)..	It's just not reliable enough. It has to be super accurate, and it's not something I'd ever feel comfortable outsourcing.
the below is a reply to the above
Have you tried asking the manufacturers to get involved? You might just be big enough.	When new releases are coming out we sometimes get data ahead of time. Cases are pretty common. Motherboards are a lot harder, because of embargoes and even BIOSes and manuals not finished days before release. Some of the constraints we see are pretty one-off situations that make it hard to provide some sort of standardized input form for though.
the below is another reply to the original answer
what if you let companies input their own data for their products.	I don't trust that to be accurate enough. We routinely find bad spec data even on manufacturer sites.
the below is another reply to the original answer
I imagine that PCPP is large enough now to direct traffic to or away from various retailers in volumes they will care about. Like how Google went from small to large. Given that, probably PCPP should begin leaning on retailers to provide product data in an ingestable format, making data entry moot.	We work with retailers to provide the right data in feeds for sure. But the hard part is that not all retailers have the technical expertise on hand to do it (or for smaller retailers, the margin and profitability to pay for that expertise). The back-and-forth to get updated feed frequency, proper part numbers, stock status, etc - it's non-stop. Brent and Jenny bear the brunt of that.
I know you've been vocal about not opening up a merch store for personal profit, but would you ever consider a merch store where all proceeds go towards your well building charity?	We did this once. My accountant was like, "please don't."
	Basically if we buy a thousand shirts and give them away it's super easy - they just get marked as a marketing expense and we give them out however we see fit. But as soon as any of them are sold, you have to track inventory, cost basis, etc. It's a lot more tedious and last time it was maybe a couple shirts a week - enough to invoke packaging and transport overhead but not enough to be efficient. So we instead just give them away at various bapc milestones and donate from our affiliate income instead.
the below is a reply to the above
Kinda funny reading this while wearing the hoodie! It’s easily the comfiest hoodie in my closet.	Oh, major props to Phil for that. He picked it out. I love mine too. We printed some smaller ones for kid sizes and my oldest son tries to sleep in his.
transam617: Philip, Thank you for 10 years of your indispensable help. Over that time, there were probably millions of visitors to your website who have had their PC building experience improved or made possible through the use of your wonderful tool. But specifically: Since 2014, our little corner of reddit (now 10K subs) cabalofthebuildsmiths, has been more effective, and has helped more people as a direct result of your website tool, than from any other tool we have available. We pride ourselves on giving builds to customers where they can reliably buy every part we pick, and be sure they will work as expected. This process takes research and a lot of effort, but the highly accurate, effective communication of pcpartpicker (for all the countries you cover) is the foundation of our process. Thank you for making the messy world of PC parts a little more bearable, thank you for making it all possible, and a big thanks from us, cabalofthebuildsmiths. transam617 kokolordas15 dmz_dragon danyulz bramblexd	Thanks for your kind words, and thanks for all the work you all do to help builders!
What happened to the youtube channel? Loved the build videos and interviews you had while it was still running.	We moved buildings a couple years ago, and decided to pause on them while we renovated the new space for filming and benchmarking. The renovation is finishing up likely mid-January - it took waaaay longer than we originally thought. If we had known it'd be that long we probably would have figured out some interim plan. So once that reno is done, we'll probably start ramping up content again. I'd guess mid-2021 or so.
[deleted]	My first computer was a an AMD K5-133. That was late 1996 I think and I was in college. My friend and I ordered our mobo+CPU off an ad on a magazine page. I bought his old case and an 80MB HDD off of him. Ran Windows 3.1. We played Warcraft 2 across a null modem cable - that was probably the most fun I've ever had with PC gaming. Floating point on that thing was terrible though. Playing a 64kbps MP3 chewed up like 60% of the CPU.
	My roommate introduced me to Quake 2, specifically Action Quake 2. Loved that game. I started running a website on the dorm network on it that got pretty popular. But queries on the db would tank my Q2 framerate so I put in code to disable queries while I was playing.
the below is a reply to the above
tiger direct?	No, it was some small place out of the northeast. I mean, that was pre-internet-shopping days. Wrote a check, hand wrote what we wanted on the order form, mailed it, and waited weeks. No phone calls, no email confirmations, nothing. My kids have no idea what that was like.
Fun fact, I got banned from PCPartPicker for adding a purple dildo from Amazon to my build.	Yeah that'll do it. User code of conduct / ToS and all.
the below is a reply to the above
Boooo. Thats kinda weird, especially for private/personal builds.	Most of the retailers we partner with have as a part of their terms that our site not contain NSFW material. I get some people think it's funny but it can get us shut down, and I'm really not ok with that.
I've used your site so many times and I even met some of the team in Austin outside Dreamhack. Thanks for all you do! Who has the most powerful computer on the staff and what are they running?	I think most powerful computer probably goes to manirelli right now.
Do you have any career opportunities at the company? I have a couple years of marketing experience, but I can’t find a job in these tough times. At least I’ve been learning python so I can get better at data management.	Unfortunately we're not hiring right now. :(
the below is a reply to the above
Mind if I ask where you typically post jobs when you are hiring? Greenhouse.io, LinkedIn, Indeed, all of the above?	Usually it's someone we have an established relationship with. We haven't ever posted a job listing to date.
Are you going to work on an official PCPartPicker API so people don't have to break ToS by scraping?	No. I'd prefer to offer sufficient service that people don't need to scrape.
	Most scrapers use up a lot of resources or don't even do cursory things like follow robots.txt crawl delay specs. It's really frustrating. I'd like to spend my time focusing on user benefitting features than blocking abusive crawlers.
gordonv: A cached CLI/SDK that draws from a CDN (not your web server) would be cool. You'd provide sufficient service, reduce processing cost, and get usage stats. The best way to defeat crawlers is to defeat their purpose. Make scraping look idiotic. Heck, mock scrapers in your HTML with an URL to your API. Add a little wit to that wisdom. Add AWS Cloudfront and now you have 200+ servers in the USA distributing your CLI with authentication to 3 million calls for $20 a month. Some leet stuff. Just noticed a sprinkle of posts calling for an app. If you spec CLI/SDK along with app development, killing 2 birds with 1 budget stone.	We're rolling out a PWA (hopefully) before the end of the year.
the below is a reply to the original question
invisi1407: Perhaps a better question is, why is there a need for scraping? Could that need be satisfied by new/improving features on PCPP? MLG_G0D: Because integrations with PCPartPicker would greatly benefit the PC building community. Constantly navigating to websites can get tiresome, especially on low spec machines. Automation is great. invisi1407: I understand, but exactly which integrations are people looking for? I get it, but I also understand why PCPP isn't interested in having a public, free API. MLG_G0D: I was thinking about integrating PCPP functions into a reddit/discord bot. invisi1407: Not unresonable, but you do understand how it takes away any earnings from advertisements and what have we on their website, yeah? It seems like they are a small company spending an enormous amount of time on the data they are presenting, so I don't think you'll ever see a free public API anyway. Perhaps a paid one, but I don't suppose many would be interested in that anyway. MLG_G0D: Seems reasonable. I'm just a massive fan of companies being open to their userbase, but I guess PCPartPicker hasnt quite grown to the point where thats economically feasible.	There's more to the picture. On pricing data: We're not the source of pricing data as that comes from the retailers. We have various agreements in place where they give us that data to display on our site or to market their products in ways they allow us to. We don't have permission to then hand that data to a third party to do whatever they want to. If we make it available to someone else via an API, we're breaching terms of our agreement, which in turn makes us lose our affiliate deal and price access. Boom, business is dead. Basically if you need that data, go to the source (the retailers) and negotiate with them.
	For product data: We've invested a lot of man years to build our data set, and some of that data helps us maintain a competitive advantage over copycat sites. Making it easier to retrieve that data isn't something I'm keen on. There are other sources of product data available that are more expansive than what we have anyway. I'd suggest pursuing that if you want to build your own hardware related site stuff.
	On API stuff for partlists and markdown: If you just want a discord bot, I'd be happy to chat through what it is you're looking for to see if that's something we could support officially on our end. We have our own discord server bot that uses an internal API to do partlist embeds.
	Last bit - publishing an API adds an additional thing for us to maintain. It's a maintenance and support burden. Even an unofficial API is. It becomes something that I have to test and not break any time I refactor code around it. We're a small company, and that's not really an area I want to allocate resources around if it's not a revenue generating thing.
Thanks a lot to you guys! With your site, I managed to make 3 separate lists, and now my dream of building a PC is coming true. Maybe you could add recommendations based on what the person has on their list, such as a cheaper but better graphics card, etc	I think recommendations are a possibility once we have our in-house benchmark data in place. But that'd be a ways down the road.
Thanks for your work, and since this is an AMA, simple question: Which is the best flavor of ice cream and why?	Amy's Ice Cream here in Austin. Belgian Chocolate. It's just wonderful but I haven't been there in almost a year now.
	manirelliPCPartPicker: I will second Amy's but I'm partial to the Mexican Vanilla flavor.
Wow. What a cool thing to see on Reddit. This is the first AMA I’ve ever replied in/commented on. I’m brand new to PC (3 year macbook user here, and besides a brief stint with a windows Hp laptop on which I played Rollercoaster tycoon and club penguin with “back in the day” I have never had need for the site. Until last month). I’m grateful the site exists, and it’s quite intriguing to me how you manage to create and maintain (emphasis on maintain) such an EXTENSIVE database of parts. I know it’s part of your life, however it astounds me to see these parts that seem so very minuscule, always appear. Have you considered, or maybe there already is and I simply am blind or don’t know about it. Have you considered adding any sort of personal or user based rating system regarding parts? Or a warning system for parts with known issues out of the box?	Our ratings are from users, but we only allow ratings/reviews from completed builds. That way we know that the review is from someone who actually built with it (versus say a 1 star review from someone mad they couldn't buy it).
	We do offer some warnings on known issues, but it's something we may expand in the future.

To view the full patch notes with images, head to our website.
----
September 2 7PM PDT Hotfix

• Fixed an issue causing a crash connected to the Team Up Systems.

UPDATE September 2

• Updated TBR skins to include WackyJacky101 items

----
UPDATE August 27:

• Added TDM under Custom Matches
• Added Ranked Mode map frequency update

----
We're bringing some new toys to the Battlegrounds in update 8.2, along with some visual improvements to a few weapons, a nostalgia hit in the main menu, and more!
Live Maintenance Schedule:
PDT: August 26 2020 22:00 - August 27 03:00 (5 hours)
CEST: August 27 2020 07:00 - 12:00 (5 hours)
Live maintenance schedule may change. We will update you if there are any changes made.
The full patch notes are below, so let’s get right into it.

New Weapon: MG3

The latest weapon available in Battlegrounds Care Packages is the fast firing MG3 Light Machine Gun. With two different rates of fire, a bipod for stability, tracer rounds to help you keep track of your spray, and increased weapon damage to vehicles, there's a new reason to fight over the big red box.

• Spawns in Care Packages on all maps, in Normal Matches only.
  • Not currently available in Ranked Matches
• The MG3 has two firing modes which change the fire rate between 660 rpm and 990 rpm.
• Chambered for 7.62mm, holds 75 rounds and has a muzzle velocity of 820 m/s.
• Tracer rounds are fired every 5th round, as well as for the final 10 bullets of each magazine, letting you know that ammo is running low.
  • Tracer rounds can only be seen by the shooter.
• Supports optical attachments up to the 6x Scope.
• MG3 does greater damage(x 1.25) when shooting at vehicles.
• The MG3 has a bipod attached, deploying automatically when prone to greatly improve weapon stability.

New Throwable: Decoy Grenade

Disorient your enemies and cover your movements with the new Decoy Grenade. Available as world loot on Sanhok, the Decoy Grenade will make fake firing sounds for about 10 seconds after thrown, giving you a few moments to make your move.
The Decoy Grenade is a new throwable which mimics gunshot sounds. Purposely made to be used as a tactical item to distract and outwit your opponents.

• Available only on Sanhok in Normal Matches, as a rare world spawn item.
  • Not available in Ranked Mode.
• Decoy grenades can be cooked to reduce their detonation time out of the hand and are thrown just like other grenades.
• Upon detonation, Decoy Grenades generate random gunshot sounds for 10 seconds and eject shell casings to add to the guise of real gunfire.
• Beware, they're not waterproof! Dropping one into water will disable its effects.
• Decoy Grenades don't currently spawn in Training Mode.

Gameplay

LMG(Light Machine Guns) weapon balance adjustment

• Camera wobble of LMGs during prone has been reduced
  • There has been no actual changes made to the weapons. However, players will be able to shoot LMGs in prone more stably due to reduced camera shake.
• New damage multiplier to vehicles has been updated to LMGs.
  • MG3: x 1.25
  • DP28 : x 1.15
  • M249: x 1.10

Weapon Remodel and Retexture
M416, SKS and Kar98k has been remodeled from scratch to high level of visual quality. Along with their visual update, weapon sounds of those weapons has been overhauled to match the improved quality.

• To offer some more context on the gun sound changes included in this update, our goal was to increase the realism and quality of the sounds for the M416, SKS and Kar98k.
• The Kar98k and SKS had their local and remote gunfire audio modified, this is both the sound you hear when firing your own weapon and when others fire theirs. For the M416, we were happy with the remote gunshot audio, but it wasn’t very recognizable as an M416 when compared to the local sound you’d hear when firing it yourself. So, we decided to completely update the local sound and leave the remote sound as is.

Care Package Updates

• C4 has been added to Care Packages on all maps, except Karakin.
• MG3 has been added to Care Packages on all maps.
  • The C4 and MG3 are not available in Ranked Mode.

World
Erangel Docks

• Four docks have been added to Erangel.
  • Two docks have been added to existing wharves, one at Novorepnoye and the other at Ferry Pier.
  • The southern beach of the Erangel mainland and Sosnovka Island have also had docks added.

World update

• All destructible wooden shacks have been replaced with concrete, indestructible shacks. This is a temporary change due to a technical issue with destructible shacks.

Quality of Life Improvements

Helmet Hide Function
Sometimes you just want to look good for YOU. For those moments, you can now toggle off your helmet to maintain your default costume pieces, even after you protect your noggin with a fine Level 3 helmet. This functionality is purely cosmetic, and other players will still see you with a helmet on, but you'll at least get the satisfaction of enjoying your chicken dinner in full Alex the Dinosaur costume glory.

• When Helmet Hide is enabled, your hoodie, hat or other head covering will remain visible even when wearing a helmet.
  • To all other players, you'll still be seen wearing, equipping and otherwise interacting with your helmet.
  • This is a local visual change, only showing for players who enable it.
• Helmet Hide is disabled by default. You can enable it in the Settings, or by clicking the option in the Inventory.
• Equipable slots for Head and Helmet are now separated.
  • Equipping a helmet now won't automatically drop your hat, or other cosmetic item in the head slot.

Performance

The Following performance improvements have been made.

• Improved font loading process to reduce game stuttering/hitching.
• Optimized the process for loading character data to reduce instances of stuttering/hitching and ensure a more stable framerate.
• The item table is now preloaded on the client backend which results in items loading quicker.
• Refactored the onscreen Key Guide widget to reduce potential instances of stuttering/hitching.
• Improved the game from hitching when loading a character on the inventory screen.
• Gained usable memory through weapon sound audio related optimization

Esports Tab - PCS 2

The Esports Tab has been updated to include PCS2 information and the next Pick em challenge! When the challenge unlocks, you can head over and make your predictions just like before. Grab as many points as you can and pick up some of the great new PCS2 items! Esports Tab will be available from 8.2 live server update to September 23rd!
Menu Breakdown

• OVERVIEW
  • Overview page will now feature a total of 4 pages.
    • 1st page
    • 2nd page
    • 3rd, 4th page
• TEAMS
  • All participating teams and their players (including team's reserved players!) can be found here.
  • Under the team name, the title of the preliminary where that team went through and their final placement is displayed.
  • Weekly team stats will be updated weekly.
• STANDINGS
  • Up to date standings with a per region breakdown (APAC, Asia, North America, and Europe)
  • Until the start of the event, countdown to the very first match of each region is displayed.
• PICK'EM CHALLENGE
  • Event page for the PCS2 Pick’Em Challenge where you can vote on who you think will take home the event victory.
  • All details can be found here on how to participate for a chance to unlock exclusive rewards. We’ll also be sharing a separate announcement with more details before this goes live

Want more info? Read the PCS 2 event announcement here.
Stay tuned for another announcement on everything you need to know about the Pick’Em Challenge.
For everything PUBG Esports, head over to pubgesports.com, or hit the PCS2 logo in the esports tab for an easy shortcut when you’re in-game.

UI/UX & Menus

Background Music Selection
Players looking for a bit of nostalgia when they log in can now choose their lobby music! We've added a selection of themes dating from all the way back to Early Access for you to choose from. After all, there's no better way to get hyped for the Battlegrounds than by rocking your favorite tunes!
Select your Background Music under Settings.

• Previously used background music is now available for selection.
  • Each Season, BGM is reset to default.
• Ranked Mode and the Esports tab will feature their own exclusive BGM which cannot be changed.

Match History

• New Match History section has been added to the Career tab
• You can view your most recent 20 matches.
  • Review match records from both Normal and Ranked matches.
  • Records over 30 days old cannot be viewed in detail.
• Leaving a match early or disconnecting due to an error will prevent that match from being recorded in your Match History.

New Loading Screen and Guide for Training Mode

• New splash art and text has been added for loading screen.
• Additional informational text has been added on the map screen.

In-game UI Improvements

• Unified the style and location of round buttons to improve the visual experience.Improved irregular title locations on some screens.Design of badges, tags, wide pop-up screens and drop-down menus has been improved/

Emote Settings Improvement

• Now you can double click to equip/unequip an emote from your emote list.Drag & drop emotes in the emote wheel to change slots or unequip emotes.

Improved System messages

• Improved system messages displayed in case of server maintenance, server overload, external provider authentication failure etc to be more clear.

Store UI Update

• When bonus items are included in sets, they are now displayed in the Bonus Gift section of the item preview screen.
• Now all set items are displayed on the character while previewing an emote.
• Hashtag feature
• Items will be filtered by each hashtag then displayed on the items list.
• Item preview
• If an item is on sale, a tag with the discount rate will be displayed on the top left corner of the item.
• An item that has been released within the last seven days will get a "NEW" badge indication on the top left corner.

Added CPP Icons for each Platforms

• Previously, platform icons only showed “My platform” and “Other platform” in the ingame friends list. We have now added platform icons for all three platforms to help distinguish which platform other players are playing on.

Social

Friends List Rework

• The friends list has undergone a visual and functional rework.
  • More detailed status of a friend such as 'On your team' is now displayed
  • Friends tab now displays last online state of offline player on the friends list
  • Player on the recent tab now displays the point of time last played with
• Invite
  • Now player can invite a player already in a team
  • Accepting this invite will make the player move from the existing team to the new team.
• Follow friends renamed to add/remove friends.

Custom Matches

Team Deathmatch now available in Custom Matches

• Now you can enjoy TDM in custom match

New system message for custom match

• New message has been added when players are kicked by match observers.
• This is to clearly distinguish messages in situations where a player has been kicked by the host, versus being kicked for cheating or another Rules of Conduct offence.

"Custom Match Update! Part 2!"

• New modes and presets are added
• Zombie Mode
  • Default Preset
• War Mode: Conquest
  • Default Preset
• We are planning to provide match configuration and observing

Ranked Mode

• We have reduced the frequency of Sanhok and Vikendi being selected for Ranked Mode matches.

Skin & Items

New Items

• Night on the Town
  • Sets
    • NIGHTCLUB DRESS SET (+ Victory Dance 23 emote)
    • BOW TIE AND SUSPENDERS SET (+ Bundle of Hearts emote)
• Individual items
  • Nightclub Dress (White)
  • Nightclub Stockings
  • Bow Tie and Suspenders Suit
  • Shiny Shoes and Socks

PCS 2

• PCS Item sets (8 sets)
  • PCS2 SLR BOX (+ Voting coupon 1 EA)
  • PCS2 BERYL M762 BOX (+ Voting coupon 1 EA)
  • PCS2 S12K BOX (+ Voting coupon 1 EA)
  • PCS2 BUGGY BOX (+ Voting coupon 1 EA)
  • PCS2 MASK BOX (+ Voting coupon 1 EA)
  • PCS2 EMOTE BOX (+ Voting coupon 1 EA)
  • PCS2 ALL-IN-ONE SET (+ Voting coupon 5 EA)
  • PCS2 WEAPON SET (+ Voting coupon 3 EA)

Metal Plated M416 Skins

• Gold and Silver Plate M416 skins are returning to the store!
  • Over the years, we've released dozens of skins on the PUBG store, only to have them never show up again after the initial sale. Some players have been asking for another chance at some of these skins, so after some thought, we've decided to bring a couple items back to the store. We're starting off with the Gold and Silver Plate M416 skins from quite a while back and will consider additional skins in the future if these go over well. We hope this gives our new players, and those of you who missed out the first time, another chance!
• METAL PLATED M416 SET
  • Gold Plate - M416
  • Silver Plate - M416

TBR Items

• Mazarin1k's Hoodie
• Mazarin1k's SLR
• Mazarin1k's Tactical Gloves
• NeoticaCH's M416
• NeoticaCH's Shirt
• WackyJacky101's VSS
• WackyJacky101's Hat
• WackyJacky101's Shirt

DLC
PUBG - PlayStation®Plus Drop Pack (PS Plus Exclusive)
Introduction of the Killer Clown Sets on PS4: PS4 players never had the chance to get the Killer Clown Set as it was introduced before the launch on PS4. It is finally here and it's now yours to get.

• Killer Clown Pants
• Killer Clown Shoes
• Killer Clown Suit
• Killer Clown Wig
• Killer Clown Mask
• [BATTLESTAT] Rip Tide - SLR
• 5 Levels

Note: We have free perks planned for Xbox players in October so please stay tuned!
Sales Schedule

• Night on the Town sets : After the August 27th live server maintenance ~ Until September 24th liver server maintenance
• PCS 2: After the August 27th live server maintenance ~ September 8th 17:00 (KST)
• Metal Plated M416: September 2nd ~ September 30th 11:00 (KST)
• TBR: September 2nd 11:00 KST ~ September 29th 10:59 KST
• DLC: September 1st 10:00 KST ~ October 7th 02:00 KST

Bug Fixes

Gameplay

• Now players are able to attach Charms to Sanhok 4 weapons.
• Fixed the issue where you could turn the character in the lobby by following certain steps.
• Fixed the inventory malfunction happen in certain cases during TDM gameplay.
• Fixed the game lobby generally displayed in yellowish color.
• Fixed the issue where being unable to accomplish ‘Survive 15 minutes without taking any damage from the Blue Zone’ mission in certain cases.
• Fixed the issue where sounds are not played along with the game hitching during TDM gameplay.
• Fixed the issue being unable to turn the character in the customize -> emote section
• Fixed an issue where the direction of arrows stuck in characters was always the same, regardless of the character's orientation.
• Fixed the issue where Bot character spawning with DP-28 in Vikendi.
• Fixed the settings of the optics resetting to default when reconnecting to the game.
• Fixed the bug where players would jump vertically straight down from the plane.
• Fixed the animation for characters who are holding a panzerfaust and on fire.
• Fixed the grenade pin clipping through character finger in FPP.
• Fixed the issue where players were able to see behind the tree leaves in certain camera angle of rotation.
• Fixed an issue where the bullets in a Kar98 could appear outside the chamber while reloading.
• Fixed an issue where specific female hairstyles could appear incorrect while holding a spike trap.
• Fixed an issue where the jerry can would disappear from a character's hands if that character were on fire.
• Fixed an issue where the fall animation could appear incorrect if the character was holding c4.
• Improved the animation for moving from ready to throw a melee weapon to unequipping the melee weapon.
• Fixed the animation for switching to any weapon from the panzerfaust while in the prone position.
• Improved the animation for discarding a panzerfaust after use.
• Fixed an issue where the player character is sometimes not properly synced(e.g. dead body standing upright).
• Fixed an issue of M416 iron sight aimpoint is obscured in ADS.
• Fixed an issue of the trajectory of target moves downward when you are done getting ready to throw C4 in FPP.
• Fixed an issue of the phase image (round) on the timeline and the background (the black area) are not located correctly.
• Fixed an issue of Woodland Ghillie Suit clips through the vehicle roof.
• Fixed an issue where the hit zone-based damage reduction was not applied on the UAZ (closed top).
• Fixed an issue when ADSing Julie's Kar98k equipped with a 4x scope looted by destroying Loot Truck, the reticle looks the same as when adsing a 5.56mm gun equipped with a 4x scope.
• Fixed an issue where the suppressor of Lunchmeat's AKM, one of the unique weapons of Sanhok does not work properly.
• Fixed an issue where the moving bluezone is not in sync with the actual bluezone.
• Fixed an issue where throwables were usable inside the airplane in Warmode.
• Fixed an issue where cancelling the reload of MG3/M249 was possible.
• Fixed an issue where the player character's animation is not properly displayed.
• Fixed an issue where the 'SCAR-L''s skin texture was displayed improperly.
• Fixed an issue of improper display of 'Hairstyle 21'.

World

• Fixed Loot truck roaming around the same location near the bridge south of Camp Alpha
• Fixed the issue where player could clip to an object and die by falling in certain location of Erangel.
• Fixed the character shaking up and down when standing on a certain rock object in Erangel.
• Fixed an oil barrel floating in the air located on a certain bridge of Erangel.
• Fixed the awkward cliff texture at the north of Stabler, Erangel.
• Fixed the issue where a player was not able to cross over a certain railing of a building.
• Fixed the issue where players could vault over a ceiling in certain underground locations of Karakin.
• Fixed an issue where spawned items were not visible to players.
• Fixed an issue where items are spawned under the train in the Port area of Vikendi.
• Fixed an issue where the player can be stuck in the ground near the Ruins area in Sanhok.
• Fixed an issue where the collision is missing on the ground of the bridge near Cave in Sanhok.

UI/UX

• Fixed the issue where the text ‘Motor glider’ was displayed in system string in the Last match screen.
• Fixed the issue where esport vehicles added to the ranked mode being displayed in system string in the Last match screen.
• Fixed the issue where the inventory scroll bar would not return to default location.
• Fixed the issue where some rewards not being displayed in rewards pop-up screen when using receive all button.
• Fixed the issue where exit button input is activated twice when pressed in an item purchase screen.
• Fixed the issue where APAC, ASIA region title still being displayed in English in Traditional Chinese language option.
• Fixed the UI overlaps in PUBG profile screen.
• Fixed the issue of the timeline UI not displayed correctly.
• Fixed the abnormal displays in the PUBG ID screen.
• Fixed the issue of When attempting to switch throwable after removing safety pin, “Inventory system error: 3” message appears.
• Fixed an issue where explosive damage done to wheels would not update the vehicle UI.
• Fixed an issue where menu was displayed in English in the Esports PCS2 tab when switched to Simplified Chinese.
• Fixed an issue where the you could rotate the player character in lobby (Stadia keyboard/mouse only).
• Fixed an issue where you can see ranked mode emblem above the character from public mode and training mode after cancelling ranked mode matchmaking.
• Fixed an issue of extra space visible in PUBG ID Pose area.

Skin & Item

• Fixed the issue where characters body becoming transparent and using certain face skins in zombie mode.
• Fixed the issue where characters legs becoming transparent when equipping Miramar Biker Jacket.
• Fixed the issue where in-game inventory icon not displayed when equipping ‘Rapture Squad Tactical Pants’.
• Fixed the clipping issue when female character equipping TUANTUAN’s tank top item.
• Fixed the Clipping issue when a female character equips Route Warrior Gloves, gets on motorcycle and grabs a weapon.
• The preview doesn't show when selecting the "Redzone" UAZ skin in Customize > Vehicles > UAZ.
• Fixed an issue in Esports store where multiple items cannot be purchased.
• Fixed an issue of the bottom area being clipped when wearing 'Rabbit Season Hoodie' and 'PGC 2019 Combat Pants' at the same time.