Hey,
Don't know if this is really the best place to post this, but just thought I'd give it a shot.
This September my watch collection was stolen from my house in London, UK. The police did a ridiculous job of "investigating", if you can even call it that. My insurance company totally screwed me over and essentially played the "you were underinsured, consider your home and content insurance policy retroactively void. Oh and your car insurance too, for good measure. Good luck finding future policies" card.
So the watches have been reported stolen to the police and insurance company. But since no-one seems to be doing anything about it, I thought it might be good for people to know if their new purchase was in fact stolen. Anyway, below are the watch details:

1. Rolex Explorer 1 - ref 214270/serial 65D74787
2. Rolex Submariner Steel - ref 114060/serial 0498X768
3. Tudor Black Bay GMT - ref m79830RB/serial I767489
4. Cartier Santos automatic medium Steel - ref WSSA0010/serial 4075819616YX
5. Hamilton Intra-matic Auto Chrono - ref H38416711/serial 9K3552KM8
6. Hamilton Intra-matic Auto 38 - ref H38455151/I don't have the serial
7. Longines La Grande Classique automatic 36 Steel - ref L49084712/serial 46380832
8. Seiko Spirit SARB033 - ref SARB033/I don't have the serial
9. Nomos Club Campus 38 - ref 735 /serial 2547
10. Tudor Black Bay 36 blue - ref 79500/serial I868262
11. Seiko Spirit SARB035 - ref SARB035/I don't have the serial
12. Junghans Max Bill automatic Gold PVD - ref 027/7805.00 /serial 00578

Needless to say, I'm absolutely gutted, not only because of the value of the collection but also because part of this was also a Small Gold quartz Cartier Tank and an antique gold minute repeater pocket watch which were inherited from my father and grandfather and are essentially irreplaceable. Some other of these watches held tremendous sentimental value.
Anyway, I do kind of hope these watches ended up in the hands of people who will appreciate them, but I know that I'd want to know if a used watch I bought was stolen.
Edit: list formatting

My name is Jared A. Brock. Having just turned 35, I sat down to reflect on everything I’ve learned so far and made a list of the things I wish I learned far sooner. None of these are rules or commands for you to follow, just personal reflections from a decade of journaling. I hope they save you a lot of time, energy, and struggle:

1. “Save the best for last” is terrible advice.

A French monk taught me this one. Every morning, I put on the newest pair of socks in my drawer. Why wear the rattiest pair? When I sit down to eat, I eat the tastiest bits first. Why let them get cold? After every shower, I put on my favorite clean t-shirt. I have a great bottle of 10-year-old Laphroaig scotch in my cupboard, but I probably won’t drink it for months because I received two bottles of reactor-aged Lost Spirits single malt for Christmas.
Why? Because life is hard enough and we aren’t promised tomorrow. This doesn’t mean we should throw caution to the wind and “live in the moment” at all times, but it does mean we should try to find the golden middle and glean a little bit of pleasure from every day we’re blessed to live. “Save the best for last” is poverty-mentality thinking. It expects worse in the future. Enjoy the best right now — in your marriage, parenting, work, travel, faith, friendship, contribution. Keep all the chips on the table. Be ready at all times to leave without regret.

2. Tools use us.

A hammer literally cannot hit a nail without using a human. A saw cannot cut through a board without using a human. A phone cannot deliver ads without using a human.

3. Avoid false dichotomies.

When given two great options, choose both. When given two horrible options, choose neither.

4. Failure is overcome by one word.

“Next.”

5. Ambition is ruinous for your happiness.

Most goal-setters (myself included) live much of life in anticipation of tomorrow, and when that day arrives, they’re either disappointed by their failures or underwhelmed by their successes.
Instead: trust the process. Whiskey, pasta, bread, beer, and cereal all require just two ingredients — wheat and water — but the outcome is completely different based on the process. Identity precedes action. Determine what you want to be, then find the process that will get you there every single time.

6. Forget what the market wants.

Listen to your gut. Your body knows the difference between good and great. Someone said you should never record a song or code an app or write an article unless it makes you laugh, cry, or orgasm. If an idea doesn’t move you, it won’t move an audience, no matter how “commercial” you think it is.

7. Give yourself a shove.

The best way to eat more candy, drink more vodka, and smoke more cigarettes is to leave them in the middle of the kitchen counter.
You get it. Willpower is useless. Instead, line up a series of little nudges to automatically get you through your day. If you want to work out, leave your shorts by the door or your cleats in your fridge. My blue diode glasses rest on top of my laptop so I have to protect my eyes before logging online. I can’t not see my vitamins when I brush my teeth, or chia seeds when I reach for the Brita. There’s a book beside my bed, toilet, desk, and car’s gear shifter.
Line up enough nudges and you can shove yourself in the right direction.

8. Grandma didn’t use toilet paper.

She used pages from the Sears catalog. Splinter-free wasn’t available until 1935. The Romans used sponges. The Greeks used clay. Francois Rabelais recommended using “the neck of a goose.” Arabians used their left hand.
Never assume our extremely unique cultural moment is “normal.”

9. Ninety-nine isn’t enough.

Water boils at 100 degrees Celcius. The difference between 99 and 100 is the difference between zero and one. Not-boiling, boiling.
Corollary: 101 doesn’t make it any more boiling.

10. Old people know better.

Honoring our elders is one of the most underrated practices in our newness-obsessed society. Sure, there are a ton of old crazy far-right conspiracy theorists, but there are also good people who have survived four wars, six recessions, and twelve presidents and are somehow still smiling. Get to know them.
Also: meet your old-person self. I try to invent a new word every week — one of them is preflection. To ponder the present through the eyes of your future self. Take an hour in silence to listen to your eighty-year-old self. They might know something you don’t.

11. Fire all your employees.

The employer-employee relationship creates an unhealthy power dynamic between humans that simply didn’t exist when we worked cooperatively to feed our clan or village. I love my work life so much more now that I only work with independent entrepreneurs who are my equals. For me, it’s either a one-man show (my writing business), an equal partnership (my film company), or a co-operative endeavor. Life’s too short to be a boss or be bossed around.

12. Accept that you are a voracious locust of doom.

Nail a roll of paper to the wall and write down everything you consume for a year — food, toilet paper, electricity, car fuel, movies, music, social media content, other people’s time, everything. See what I mean?
Saint Augustine said that the human heart can only fully be satisfied by one thing aside from God himself: everything. All the sex, all the money, all the power, all the possessions, all the glory. All of it. Nothing short of everything could ever fully satiate the human heart. We are wired for more.
Understanding this truth is the first step toward real contentment.

13. Awkward is awesome.

My best friend says that The Office gave society a beautiful gift: the ability to embrace cringe. When you meet someone new and it’s slightly weird, pretend you’re Michael Scott. Just glory and bask in the discomfort.
You can awkward-proof your life by being bold: Ask for discounts. Ask for refunds. Ask for phone numbers. Ask for pay raises. Ask inappropriate questions at inappropriate times. Lather yourself in awkward and pretty soon nothing sticks.

14. Happiness isn’t the purpose of life.

Hitler really was following his bliss by offing millions of Jews. I’m sure Jeffrey Dahmer genuinely enjoyed the taste of human flesh. Bernie Madoff seemed content to bilk charities for decades.
Happiness isn’t the purpose of life. It’s not even in the top ten. Happiness is a seasonal fruit, not a foundational root. Find firm and fertile ground.

15. There is no ugly.

My grandpa re-proposed to my grandma on their fiftieth wedding anniversary and called her the most beautiful woman he’s ever known. Old wrinkly grandma? Yes. Because we choose our definition of beauty through our thoughts, disciplines, habits, and patterns, be they conscious or otherwise.

16. We are what we consume.

The statistical average American is a walking bodybag of sugar, alcohol, caffeine, porn, pills, and digital stimulus. Imagine how different life would be if our only inputs were nature, sleep, sunlight, organic food, and embodied human interaction?
Guard your inputs carefully.

17. We’re going to die quite soon.

Make sure you live first. Practicing memento mori will help.

18. Fame is poison.

One in four Gen Zers thinks they’ll be famous by age 25. One in 3.9999999 Gen Zers are going to have a miserably disappointing life.
Why do people desire the attention of strangers? Because we all need to love and be loved, to know and be known, but are too afraid to risk personal heartbreak to seek it out. Attention is not affection. Influence is not intimacy.

19. Boomers are to blame for half our troubles.

The Me Generation took a free ride at the planet’s expense and are hellbent on taking the rest of it with them. They’re statistically low on empathy — blame the lead, asbestos, and hairspray if you must — but at least acknowledge the reality that life is hard for everyone, and no one has it easier.

20. Children are dope.

Kids are the blood transfusion in our sick system. We need to stop manipulating, brainwashing, colonizing, and propagandizing them, and learn from them instead.

21. It doesn’t have to hurt.

Joy is a choice.

22. Watch comedy before calls and meetings.

Five minutes of gut-busting laughter will prime you for even the most tedious conference call. Your co-workers and customers all have tough lives like everybody else, so brighten their day by pre-brightening your own.

23. No ragrets.

Tattoo it on your neck. Most people play it far too safe. Instead: optimize your life for the least number of regrets and the most amount of selfless contribution.

24. There are better ways to vote.

I’ve manned several local voting stations, and I’ve also hob-nobbed with politicians in Canada, America, and the UK. The reality is that they don’t work for us. They work for their corporate sponsors and private interests.
Democracy isn’t dead. It just hasn’t happened yet, with all attempts to date being stillborn or aborted. Democracy = one voice one vote. Athens wasn’t a democracy — women, slaves, and tenants had zero say. America isn’t a democracy either — no representative system is, because it’s far too easy for private interests to buy politicians. The charade of voting is illusory. All elections are sham elections.
So what to do? Vote with your money and time and attention. One sham vote every four years versus tens of thousands of dollar-votes each year? It’s a no-brainer. My wife and I haven’t stepped foot in a Walmart in more than a decade because thousands of its suppliers are based in China, the billionaire heirs are anti-democratic tax-avoiders, and they treat their employees like indentured servants. Vote for pro-democracy third-party candidates if you must — just understand the game, and vote in the ways that actually matter.

25. Everything easy has already been done.

So run a little further.
And if it hasn’t been done, it won’t be as easy as it appears. The question to ask is: what’s been standing in the way this whole time? Achievement is all about knocking down obstacles. Just make sure what’s on the other side is rightly worth the effort.

26. Broccoli still tastes terrible.

But you’re not a child anymore. Adults do hard things.

27. Fixed-order scheduling > fixed-hour scheduling.

Discipline is great, but it’s also subject to the law of diminishing returns. Life is just too dynamic to schedule with military precision. Free yourself from the tyranny of “only people who wake up at 5 AM are successful.”
All hours are not created equal. It depends on your sleep drive and chronotype. Know yourself. Unapologetically get more sleep, then do your best work at your best time in your best state.

28. “Freedom” isn’t freedom.

America wasn’t founded on freedom. America was founded on violent autonomy.
The ancient Greeks had an entirely different definition of freedom: it was the ability to choose the right regardless of circumstance.

“We talk about freedom all the time, but we’ve stopped talking about freedom a long time ago. Now we’re talking about autonomy. Freedom is different than autonomy. Freedom has boundaries. Truth is one of those boundaries. And morality is one of those boundaries. Autonomy is the ability to do whatever you want whenever you want in whatever way you want. The problem is this: If I’m autonomous and another person is autonomous, and I have preferences and those matter more than the truth, and that person has preferences and their preferences matter more than the truth, when two autonomous preference-seeking beings come together and their preferences don’t match, who is going to win? If truth is on the bottom shelf, truth won’t decide. What will decide will be power. And isn’t it ironic that in our quest for “freedom”, someone gets enslaved?” — Abdu Murray

29. The Marines were right: slow is smooth, smooth is fast.

As teenagers, my friend Tyler and I were in a hurry to get somewhere quickly so we drove 120+ miles per hour for forty-five straight minutes before nearly crashing when the speed burned a footlong gash through the tire. By the time we replaced it with a spare, we were late to our destination by more than an hour.
But nevermind driving. Pump the life-brakes sometimes, or at least, let off the gas. You might get there faster, with less wear-and-tear on the engine.

30. The quest for wealth is destroying life.

We’ve commodified land, water, shelter, clothing, art, time, and nearly everything else. Very little remains, and it’s amassing into fewer hands.
We need a shared global vision. My invented word for it is benevitae: the sustainable flourishing of all creation. Our collective goal should be socioenviroeconomic sustainability. Where to start? We’d do well to let biology determine ecological sustainability and real democracy to determine economic fairness. Our current trajectory is worse than the Space Shuttle Challenger.

31. Most “leaders” aren’t leaders.

Celebrities, politicians, and book-hocking business gurus all call themselves leaders. They’re not.
Real leadership is influence that serves. True leaders are selfless and servant-hearted. They put the best interests of others ahead of their own. Politics and media, by comparison, attracts sociopaths like flies to firelight. Never give power to those who seek it. Nearly everyone worth following is dead.

32. Divide-and-conquer is a business model.

Near the end of high school, dozen friends and I binge-watched multiple seasons of LOST in our friend Mike’s basement. It was one of the most hilarious, riotous, enjoyable experiences we had as a group.
And it was the last show we ever watched together.
People used to go to restaurants in large numbers, to the movies by the dozen, climbing over each other for one of the limited video game controllers, packing out our churches, cheering on our sports teams by the busload. We were almost never alone, and we were far happier. Now we order in, watch Netflix, stream Minecraft, catch the highlights, watch porn, and go to bed. It’s killing us.
Resist the urge to be alone. It’s too easy, and it’s the exact opposite of what we really need. The #1 thing that’s correlated to human happiness is human togetherness.

33. Self-improvement won’t save us.

The great lie of individualist-consumerist culture is that we can improve our way to personal perfection and communal utopia. But it’s incrementalism at best.
It’s just chasing infinity.

34. We know nothing +/-.

On the scale of all that is known, and all that is knowable, our individual understanding is essentially mathematically zero. The entirety of human knowledge is a rounding error.
This is the beginning of humility.

35. The sun is not on fire

I was at an observatory in the Davis Mountains in Texas, and it was the first time I’d paid attention to astronomy since grade school. For three decades, I’d wrongly assumed the sun was a giant ball of flames.
But there’s no fire in space because there’s no oxygen in space. (It just looks like fire because of how our eyes perceive light through the atmosphere and prism.) As I stared at the real-time image of the sun on the observatory wall, I nearly wept. The sun actually looks like a giant, boiling, grey brain.
And then it hit me: I have so many assumptions to set aside and so much left to learn. So pay attention. Don’t worship the “question everything” mantra, but instead spend your life seeking truth, and wisdom, and understanding.
You know what you need to do to get where you want to be.

I'm looking to get my first entry level watch but I'm kinda clueless, which would be the better out of the two, which would hold there value the best and be worth passing to my son when I pass.
https://www.jurawatches.co.uk/collections/hamilton-watches/products/hamilton-watch-jazzmaster-auto-h42535730
Or
https://www.watch.co.uk/seiko-presage-open-heart-automatic-watch-ssa407j1.htm

Welcome to the /Bitcoin Sticky FAQ

You've probably been hearing a lot about Bitcoin recently and are wondering what's the big deal? Most of your questions should be answered by the resources below but if you have additional questions feel free to ask them in the comments.
It all started with the release of Satoshi Nakamoto's whitepaper however that will probably go over the head of most readers so we recommend the following articles/books/videos as a good starting point for understanding how bitcoin works and a little about its long term potential:

• Article: The Bullish Case for Bitcoin
• Book: The Bitcoin Standard
• Video 1: The Stories We Tell About Money - Andreas Antonopoulos
• Video 2: The Bitcoin Standard - Saifdean Ammous
• Video 3: Bitcoin 101 - Balaji Srinivasan
• Video 4: Bitcoin Macro Strategy - Michael Saylor & Ross Stevens
• Video 5: The Saylor Series - Michael Saylor & Robert Breedlove
• Video 6: Bitcoin S2FX, S2F and Evolution From Collectible to Financial Asset - Stephan Livera, PlanB & Saifdean Ammous

Some other great resources include Michael Saylor's "Bitcoin for Everybody"' course, Jameson Lopp's resource page, Gigi's resource page, and James D'Angelo's Bitcoin 101 Blackboard series. Some excellent writing on Bitcoin's value proposition and future can be found at the Satoshi Nakamoto Institute.
If you are technically or academically inclined check out developer resources and peer-reviewed research papers, course lectures from both MIT and Princeton as well as future protocol improvements and scaling resources. Some Bitcoin statistics can be found here, here and here. MicroStrategy's Bitcoin for Corporations is an excellent open source series on corporate legal and financial bitcoin integration.
You can also see the number of times Bitcoin was declared dead by the media (LOL) and what you could have earned if you didn't listen to them! XD

Key properties of Bitcoin

• Limited Supply - There will only ever be 21,000,000 bitcoin created and they are issued in a predictable fashion per the inflation schedule. Once they are all issued Bitcoin will be truly deflationary. The halving countdown tells you how much time until the next drop in block rewards.
• Open source - Bitcoin code is fully auditable. You can read and contribute to the source code yourself.
• Accountable - The public ledger is transparent, all transactions are seen by everyone.
• Decentralized - Bitcoin is globally distributed across thousands of nodes with no single point of failure and as such can't be shut down similar to how Bittorrent works. You can even run a node on a Raspberry Pi.
• Censorship resistant - No one can prevent you from interacting with the bitcoin network and no one can censor, alter or block transactions that they disagree with, see Operation Chokepoint.
• Push system - There are no chargebacks in bitcoin because only the person who owns the address where the bitcoin resides has the authority to move them.
• Low fee scaling - Most wallets calculate on chain fees automatically but you can view fee estimates and mempool activity if you want to set your fee manually. On chain fees may rise occasionally due to network demand, however instant micropayments that do not require confirmations are happening via the Lightning Network, a second layer scaling solution currently rolling out on the Bitcoin mainnet.
• Borderless - No country can stop it from going in/out, even in areas currently unserved by traditional banking as the ledger is globally distributed.
• Trustless - Bitcoin solved the Byzantine's Generals Problem which means nobody needs to trust anybody for it to work.
• Pseudonymous - No need to expose personal information when purchasing with cash or transacting.
• Secure - Blocks and transactions are cryptographically secured (using hashes and signatures) and can’t be brute forced or confiscated with proper key management such as hardware wallets.
• Programmable - Individual units of bitcoin can be programmed to transfer based on certain criteria being met
• Nearly instant - From a few seconds on the lightning network to a few minutes on-chain depending on need for confirmations. Transactions are irreversible by normal users after one confirmation and irreversible by anyone (including miners) after 6 confirmations.
• Peer-to-peer - No intermediaries taking a cut, no need for trusted third parties.
• Portable - Bitcoin are digital so they are easier to move than cash or gold. They can be transported by simply carrying a seed (a string of 12 to 24 words) on a device or by memorizing it for wallet recovery (while cool, memorizing is generally not recommended due to potential for forgetting the seed and the potential for insecure key generation by inexperienced users. Hardware wallets are the preferred method for most users for their ease of use and additional security).
• Scalable - While the protocol is still being optimized for increased transaction capacity, blockchains do not scale very well, so most transaction volume is expected to occur on Layer 2 networks built on top of Bitcoin.
• Divisible - Each bitcoin can be divided down to 8 decimals, which means you don't have to worry about buying an entire bitcoin.
• Designed Money - Bitcoin was created to fit all the fundamental properties of money better than gold or fiat

Where can I buy bitcoin?

Bitcoin.org and BuyBitcoinWorldwide.com are helpful sites for beginners. You can buy or sell any amount of bitcoin (even just a few dollars worth) and there are several easy methods to purchase bitcoin with cash, credit card or bank transfer. Some of the more popular resources are below, also check out the bitcoinity exchange resources for a larger list of options for purchases.

• Cash app
• Gemini
• Swan
• River Financial
• Bitstamp
• BitFinex
• Xapo
• Kraken
• Cex
• LocalBitcoins
• LibertyX
• P2P exchange list (decentralized)

You can also purchase in cash with local ATMs. If you would like your paycheck automatically converted to bitcoin use Bitwage.
Note: Bitcoin are valued at whatever market price people are willing to pay for them in balancing act of supply vs demand. Unlike traditional markets, bitcoin markets operate 24 hours per day, 365 days per year.

Securing your bitcoin

With bitcoin you can "Be your own bank" and personally secure your bitcoin OR you can use third party companies aka "Bitcoin banks" which will hold the bitcoin for you.

• If you prefer to "Be your own bank" and have direct control over your coins without having to use a trusted third party, then you will need to create your own wallet and keep it secure. If you want easy and secure storage without having to learn computer security best practices, then a hardware wallet such as the Trezor, Ledger or ColdCard is recommended.
  
• If you cannot afford a hardware wallet there are many software wallet options to choose from depending on your use case. Mobile wallets like BlueWallet are generally more secure than desktop wallets. Beware of fake mobile wallets and check reviews from reputable Bitcoin websites. Avoid paper wallets or brain wallets.
  
• If you prefer to let third party "Bitcoin banks" manage your coins, try Gemini or Unchained Capital but be aware you may not be in control of your private keys in which case you would have to ask permission to access your funds and be exposed to third party risk. There is a saying in the community, "Not your keys, not your coins" meaning if you don't store your coins in a wallet that you control the keys to then you do not really own your bitcoin as you have to ask permission from the third party in order to move them.
  

Note: For increased security, use Two Factor Authentication (2FA) everywhere it is offered, including email!
2FA requires a second confirmation code or a physical security key to access your account making it much harder for thieves to gain access. Google Authenticator and Authy are the two most popular 2FA services, download links are below. Make sure you create backups of your 2FA codes.
Avoid using your cell number for 2FA. Hackers have been using a technique called "SIM swapping" to impersonate users and steal bitcoin off exchanges.

Google Auth	Authy	OTP Auth	andOTP
Android	Android	N/A	Android
iOS	iOS	iOS	N/A

Physical security keys (FIDO U2F) offer stronger security than Google Auth / Authy and other TOTP-based apps, because the secret code never leaves the device and it uses bi-directional authentication so it prevents phishing. If you lose the device though, you could lose access to your account, so always use 2 or more security keys with a given account so you have backups. See Yubikey or Titan to purchase security keys.
Both Coinbase and Gemini support physical security keys.

Watch out for scams

As mentioned above, Bitcoin is decentralized, which by definition means there is no official website or Twitter handle or spokesperson or CEO. However, all money attracts thieves. This combination unfortunately results in scammers running official sounding names or pretending to be an authority on YouTube or social media. Many scammers throughout the years have claimed to be the inventor of Bitcoin. Websites like bitcoin(dot)com and the r / btc subreddit are active scams. Almost all altcoins (shitcoins) are marketed heavily with big promises but are really just designed to separate you from your bitcoin. So be careful: any resource, including all linked in this document, may in the future turn evil. As they say in our community, "Don't trust, verify".

• Avoid using ad-based search engines like Google or Yahoo: ads are shown based on how much the advertiser bids, and scammers can easily outbid legitimate providers for ad space, since immoral ways of earning money are far more lucrative than moral ways. Use DuckDuckGo instead, which has no ads, and never tracks you as well.
• Ignore private messages offering services.
• Never enter your seed words in a website of any kind. Hardware wallets will recover by displaying possible seed words on their own interface, never on a website.
• Always check addresses on your hardware wallet before sending or receiving. Some malware has been known to replace addresses in your web browser or that you copy-and-paste.
• Avoid clicking on links like that look like links, such as https://www.google.com/, without first hovering over it and actually checking where they go to. Just because a link is labelled with an HTTPS address does not mean it actually sends you to that address. It is trivial for someone to comment a link on Reddit that looks like it will send you to one website when it actually sends you to another, and you might not notice the difference until a scammer has gotten all your money, or you have downloaded and installed software that steals your money.

Common Bitcoin Myths

Often the same concerns arise about Bitcoin from newcomers. Questions such as:

• Is Bitcoin a Ponzi scheme?
• Will governments ban Bitcoin?
• Will quantum computers break Bitcoin?

All of these questions have been answered many times by a variety of people. Here are some resources where you can see if your concern has been answered:

• Common Bitcoin Myths
• Gradually, Then Suddenly
• Every Reason Bitcoin Will Not Fail

Where can I spend bitcoin?

Check out spendabit or bitcoin directory for millions of merchant options. Also you can spend bitcoin anywhere visa is accepted with bitcoin debit cards such as the CashApp card or Fold card. Some other useful site are listed below.

Store	Product
Bitrefill, Gyft	Gift cards for thousands of retailers worldwide including Amazon, Target, Walmart, Starbucks, Whole Foods, CVS, Lowes, Home Depot, iTunes, Best Buy, Sears, Kohls, eBay, GameStop, etc.
Spendabit, Overstock and The Bitcoin Directory	Retail shopping with millions of results
NewEgg and Dell	For all your electronics needs
Piixpay, Bitbill.eu, Bylls, Coins.ph, LivingRoomofSatoshi, Coinsfer, and more	Bill payment
Menufy and Takeaway	Takeout delivered to your door
Expedia, Cheapair, Destinia, Abitsky, SkyTours, the Travel category on Gyft and 9flats	For when you need to get away
Cryptostorm, Mullvad, and PIA	VPN services
Namecheap, Porkbun	Domain name registration
Stampnik	Discounted USPS Priority, Express, First-Class mail postage

Coinmap and AirBitz are helpful to find local businesses accepting bitcoin. A good resource for UK residents is at wheretospendbitcoins.co.uk.
There are also lots of charities which accept bitcoin donations.

Merchant Resources

There are several benefits to accepting bitcoin as a payment option if you are a merchant;

• 1-3% savings over credit cards or PayPal.
• No chargebacks (final settlement in 10 minutes as opposed to 3+ months).
• Accept business from a global customer base.
• Increased privacy.
• Convert 100% of the sale to the currency of your choice for deposit to your account, or choose to keep a percentage of the sale in bitcoin if you wish to begin accumulating it.

If you are interested in accepting bitcoin as a payment method, there are several options available;

• BTCPay
• Square cash
• Stripe
• Wyre
• Blockonomics (direct to your wallet)

Can I mine bitcoin?

Mining bitcoin can be a fun learning experience, but be aware that you will most likely operate at a loss. Newcomers are often advised to stay away from mining unless they are only interested in it as a hobby similar to folding at home. If you want to learn more about mining you can read the mining FAQ. Still have mining questions? The crew at /BitcoinMining would be happy to help you out.
If you want to contribute to the bitcoin network by hosting the blockchain and propagating transactions you can run a full node. You can view the global node distribution for a visual representation of the node network.

Earning bitcoin

Just like any other form of money, you can also earn bitcoin by being paid to do a job.

Site	Description
WorkingForBitcoins, Bitwage, Cryptogrind, Coinality, Bitgigs, /Jobs4Bitcoins, BitforTip, Rein Project	Freelancing
Lolli	Earn bitcoin when you shop online!
OpenBazaar, Purse.io, Bitify, /Bitmarket	Marketplaces
/GirlsGoneBitcoin NSFW	Adult services
A-ads, Coinzilla.io	Advertising

You can also earn bitcoin by participating as a market maker on JoinMarket by allowing users to perform CoinJoin transactions with your bitcoin for a small fee (requires you to already have some bitcoin).

Bitcoin-Related Projects

The following is a short list of ongoing projects that might be worth taking a look at if you are interested in current development in the bitcoin space.

Project	Description
Lightning Network	Second layer scaling
Liquid, Rootstock and Drivechain	Sidechains
Hivemind	Prediction markets
Tierion and Factom	Records & Titles on the blockchain
BitMarkets, DropZone, Beaver and Open Bazaar	Decentralized markets
JoinMarket and Wasabi Wallet	CoinJoin implementation
Decentralized exhanges	Decentralized bitcoin exchanges
Keybase	Identity & Reputation management
Abra	Global P2P money transmitter network
Bitcore	Open source Bitcoin javascript library

Bitcoin Units

One Bitcoin is quite large (hundreds of £/$/€) so people often deal in smaller units. The most common subunits are listed below:

Unit	Symbol	Value	Info
bitcoin	BTC	1 bitcoin	one bitcoin is equal to 100 million satoshis
millibitcoin	mBTC	1,000 per bitcoin	used as default unit in recent Electrum wallet releases
bit	bit	1,000,000 per bitcoin	colloquial "slang" term for microbitcoin (μBTC)
satoshi	sat	100,000,000 per bitcoin	smallest unit in bitcoin, named after the inventor

For example, assuming an arbitrary exchange rate of $10000 for one Bitcoin, a $10 meal would equal:

• 0.001 BTC
• 1 mBTC
• 1,000 bits
• 100k sats

For more information check out the Bitcoin units wiki.
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As part of a series of posts from people working in F1, I've been asked by the mods to write something about my time as a strategist in F1. Hope you enjoy, and I'll do my best to answer any questions :)
At the age of 14, I decided I wanted to work in F1. I spent the next 7 years working towards that with a lot of focus. This is the story of how I got there, what I found when I did, and why two years later, I left.

What I did

I was part of the Race Strategy team at Mercedes F1 between 2014-2016. The strategy team was (is, I guess) responsible for:

1. “Running” the race. When to make pit stops, what tyres to fit, what lap times to target, how to approach qualifying, and the plan for unexpected circumstances (safety car, VSC, red flag, puncture, etc)
2. Doing the preparation work before each race to select the amount of tyres of each compound the team brings to a given race, and to understand what the likely race strategies are going to be, what the remaining question marks are and hence what needs testing on Friday to get answers.
3. Orienting the rest of the race team and the drivers on a given race based on the results of the simulations and historical races at that track.What is likely to happen? What are the key characteristics of this race going to be? Are safety cars going to be key? Is the undercut something we have to worry about? Is there a warm up curve on the tires that means in fact we have to worry about overcut? What will be the competing strategies?
4. Doing the post-race analysis of all strategy decisions taken by the team and by all other teams and understanding which decisions were correct and which weren’t.
5. Competitor analysis. The strategy team is the only “outward looking” department of a Formula One team. Everyone else is trying to make the car quicker. While I’m sure the aerodynamics department spend a lot of time looking at the competition visually, the strategy team were the ones mapping relative performance, setting the team development targets based on this and advising when to switch resources to developing the following year’s car, for example. One of my initial projects was trying to understand the amount of electrical energy various teams were able to recover by studying their GPS traces.
6. Developing tools to make the job easier. Almost all the work above was much more manual than you’d imagine. When we weren’t preparing for a race or wrapping up from one, we would be writing bits of code to make those biweekly tasks easier. There was very little time for this.
7. Rule changes. When anything changed (VSCs were introduced during my time for example, or the knock-out quali format at the start of 2016), the strategy team had to figure out the impact and how we should deal with it. We would also be the ones to liaise with the creators of the strategy software to adjust the tools so they could do the job.
8. Random stuff. From creating a system that allowed us to automatically take pictures of the competition, to writing tools to analyse and compare GPS traces, to counting pixels on pictures to understand competitor ride heights, there was a lot of random stuff that was thrown to us. I even got pulled into a project to assess the effect of different types of success ballast for the Mercedes DTM team.

At the time, the strategy team was based in the UK, with only the chief strategist travelling to all races. The rest of us would rotate around on travelling. In the end I travelled to 2 races (Austria 2015 and China 2016) and quite a few tests (few in Barcelona, one in Austria I think). All of the other event support was done from the “Race Support Room” in Brackley. While you of course have live pictures and intercom to everyone at the track, it obviously isn’t the same being back in the UK. Especially during the races that aren’t on European time, you’d spend a week living on completely the wrong time zone, waking up at midnight and going to bed at 2pm for each race. Race weekend activities took up Wednesday - Monday of the race weekend, and that is excluding all the pre-event and post-event stuff discussed earlier. We would get one extra day off on the non-race weekend following a race weekend to compensate for the previous race weekend. With a race every other weekend at best, you can see how there is very little time for anything other than just keeping up. We’ll get to that later.

How I got the job

I studied Aerospace Engineering at one of the top UK universities, thinking that would be the obvious way into F1. During my final year I worked on a project with Mercedes, which I got because of Professor’s connections. While I was good at it and enjoyed aerodynamics, during my degree I realised that I didn’t want to be somewhere tucked away thinking about a front wing element and still having to go home and watch the race on TV. I wanted to be in the action, as close as I could get to driving the car. So when I was about to graduate, I was on the lookout for something a bit bigger picture than aerodynamics. I applied to Red Bull for a vehicle dynamics position and then saw a position come up at Mercedes in the strategy team. I got offered both, but strategy sounded like exactly what I was looking for, so I went for Mercedes. Halfway through my interview (which was in one of those glass meeting rooms), they started doing a photoshoot with Lewis in the adjacent room. I still wonder whether they scheduled the interview in that particular room knowing that was going to happen as some sort of power move. Of course I acted as if it didn’t faze me at all.
I’m sure I’ll get many questions on advice on getting into F1, etc. Generally I would say the UK probably does help a lot. But a lot of people seem to talk about the “motorsports engineering” degrees you can get in places like Oxford Brookes. I would be very careful with things like that. I would try and get into the absolute best university you can and do as well as you can. Then try to get a year out/summer internship with a racing team or performance car company of some sort. To give you an idea, when I was there Mercedes were only hiring graduates out of Imperial, Southampton, Oxford, Cambridge and Bath/Bristol if I remember correctly. At F1 levels, especially for the top teams, they want to know you are smart, and that you have a dedication to racing. You can catch up on the knowledge on the job. So go to the best university you can, do it in the UK if you can, and do something else that demonstrates your passion. I did an internship at an endurance racing team in GT3 and then a summer internship at McLaren Automotive. That said, I know teams like Racing Point have dedicated places for people that come out of Motorsport Engineering programs so it is a legitimate route in. But as a general piece of career advice, keep your options open. I was obsessed with F1, probably more than any of you on here (quite a statement I know). When I joined Mercedes, I knew more specifics about races in the last 10 years than anyone I ran into. I still decided to quit after 2 years. Had I done a Motorsports Engineering degree from a very average university (good universities don’t do them), I would probably still have gotten into F1 but my career afterwards would have been seriously compromised.

Some memories

I’m guessing a lot of you will want to know about interactions with the drivers specifically. They came into the factory every couple of weeks and being part of the race team meant that they would hang out around our area as those are the people they know best. The rest of the team really has very little interaction with the drivers other than team-wide speeches after race wins. I was very lucky to be right in the action. As many of you will remember, the 2014-2016 years were quite spicy between Nico and Lewis. While they were quite careful to keep the serious politics and drama behind closed doors with the inner circle of Paddy/Toto/Niki, if you were part of the race team you definitely felt it in an indirect way. Even after some of the most controversial incidents, driver debriefs were always very civil and were more of a checklist of things to go through rather than addressing any elephants in the room.
They (and probably most F1 drivers) are a very special, curious breed of people. They’ve grown up with teams of people around them doing everything to help them win and get to the top. If that starts from the age of 8 you’re going to turn into a pretty strange person, and you definitely sense that around them. They are single-minded, focused, are extremely quick to form a judgement on people, and have a very short attention span for absorbing information. Nico and Lewis didn’t seem to like the fact there even was another driver in the team so they avoided coming to the factory on the same day if at all possible. They would even avoid mentioning each other and would talk about “the other car” or “the other guy” if they had to. When they were in the same room, the interactions were just quite childish. Like one of them being overly disgusted if the other sneezed or smirking if the other complained about something in the car they have no issue with.
Lewis
While I saw more of Nico in the factory and he felt more like a “normal” member of the team than Lewis, I actually thought Lewis was the “nicer” guy. He always had attention for people while Nico was happy to look past you if he didn’t know who you were or you weren’t “useful” to him. On my second day at the team, I was reviewing some old races, mesmerised by now being able to hear all the radio comms of these races I had seen as a fan, when someone grabbed me from behind, scaring the shit out of me. It was Lewis, big smile on his face, welcoming me to the team and asking what I do. Seemed very genuine. Later on in the year he took the whole race team paintballing after he won the championship, where I had a few chats with him that were equally down to earth and just chilled out. He described the start of the 2014 Abu Dhabi race to me and how indescribable the pressure was to have to make the perfect start but also not jump the start. How with a twitch of his thumb he could have thrown it all away. Was really cool to see that human side.
Later that day someone shot him in the balls during the paintball which was also pretty funny (he had arrived late and had missed the part where we shoved some cardboard down our trousers to avoid this issue).
Nico
I probably had more interactions with Nico than Lewis over the two years I was there. He would come in more often for simulator work. While at the time he was more involved and probing on the engineering side of everything than Lewis was, he’s still not an engineer of course. Information would have to be presented very succinctly, with confidence, and by a person who he trusted. He came across a bit like a super focused robot if I’m honest. He was extremely driven, very determined and didn’t have time for any distraction. His humour was really difficult to place because he would give you shit with a really serious face as a joke. But then he would quite often also just give people shit with a serious face not as a joke. From an engineer’s point of view he was interesting to work with though because nothing would get past him and he was more able to talk “your language” than Lewis. Doesn’t mean he’s not an F1 driver though! I remember during the Austria test of 2015 I was in the garage and had left the wikipedia page of the F1 season open after compiling some numbers. He came over to me and started looking at the table race results and championship standings. He just stood there for a while and then said something like “it makes no sense does it? I don’t understand how he is ahead”. I didn’t quite know how to reply because we were looking at a table of race results that pretty clearly demonstrated why Lewis was ahead. The way he said it really made me understand how these guys have such a belief in their own ability that they just can’t really compute how someone else can beat them.
Monaco 2015 and 2016
Two of the most memorable races for me are Monaco 2015 and 2016. In case you don’t recall, in 2015 we (the strategy team) threw away a Lewis win by pitting him under a late safety car that dropped him from the lead to P3. In 2016 we won the race by transitioning Lewis from full wet tyres to slicks, skipping over intermediates (with a little help from a messed up RIC pitstop).
Only the chief strategist was at the track for both of these races, while the rest of the strategy team was back at the factory. In both races, the strategic decision came down to a few seconds where we’d have to call into question a pretty direct decision from the pitwall. This is incredibly difficult to do. Despite the direct link to the circuit, there were many conversations on the pitwall we didn’t have visibility of, and so it feels extremely risky to jump into the main radio channel from the UK questioning a decision we’d barely have time to reverse. This is why, in 2015, when Lewis was called in for a pit stop in the last few laps leading under safety car, we all pretty much thought there must be a strong reason we hadn’t heard about for this call to have been made. It couldn’t really be a mistake, it was clear to all of us that Lewis would drop to third and finish there. But with GPS being unreliable in the streets of Monaco, all of us back in the UK were looking at predictions based on car positioning from sector times, while those at the track had left their software in GPS mode. In GPS mode, it looked like Lewis had the gap, while in reality he didn’t. We didn’t question the decision, Lewis came in and that was it.
The next year we somehow found ourselves in a very similar position. Lewis was leading the race with a very fast Ricciardo behind him. The track was wet, transitioning to dry. RIC ended up pitting for intermediates before HAM and immediately started taking chunks out of HAM’s lead. HAM got called in, and again in the race support room in Brackley we were pretty convinced we were throwing a race away. All everyone talks about ahead of Monaco is that you can’t overtake and that track position is everything. And now we were called HAM in to put intermediate tyres on, which mirrored RIC’s strategy too late and hence would lead to us being undercut. This time we did intervene. We only had about 5 seconds. My friend jumped on the radio and said “We are throwing the race away, the only way to win is to stay out and go straight to dries, if we are ahead on track RIC will not be able to get past”. We immediately got shouted down, but a few seconds later the call to box was cancelled, I presume after an exchange on the pitwall. We won the race off the back of that call, pulling off the switch from wets to slicks.
Why I left after 2 years
So why did I leave after just two years? There’s quite a few reasons, among which:

• I didn’t want to do anything that wasn’t in the centre of the action, and being in the centre of the action means giving up everything outside F1. It dictates your entire schedule and life. The divorce rate amongst the travelling team is astronomical.
• I didn’t want to spend my life living in the middle of nowhere in the UK. 7 of the 10 teams are based in the UK, and not in the most hip and happening areas. I wanted more options.
• Related, I realised very quickly that outside of F1 people don’t know where to place your experience at an F1 team. If I did this for 5 years it would become very difficult to leave and do something else later on.
• While F1 really is cutting edge when it comes to aerodynamics (although a very niche type of aerodynamics - essentially vortex management), and logistics, prototyping and production, it is (was) definitely not on the cutting edge when it comes to tech. Even in a leading team, the strategy modelling was for a large part stacks of VBA in Excel, very basic monte carlo simulation, and a lot of guesswork from experiences in previous years. There was a huge amount of tedious, manual work and instead of automating it intelligently and in a modern way, they just threw smart interns and grads at it and churned through them. There was little drive or opportunity to change this, as it was working for them (well enough), and the eternal two week cycle between races leaves very little time to invest in building good processes. It was also a wake up call that the guys at the top in the racing (not the design) team are massively experienced in their little bubble, but have had little exposure to how things have evolved outside of F1 in the last 15 years. Hence the spreadsheets.
• I’d been lucky enough to have 80% of the experience I wanted in only 2 years. I’d met drivers, travelled to races, had an impact on them, been on the pitwall (during a test!), I’d even driven the simulator. It felt like I could easily pump in another 5 years and yes I’d be on the pitwall somewhere. But would I want to fly from car park to hotel to racetrack for the rest of my career without actually seeing any of these countries? If I didn’t like it, it would be pretty hard to leave at that point. Which is why the senior core race team never really changes. It’s just groundhog day for decades. And they get really good at it of course, but it is very detached from advances outside F1 and at this point is all a bit embarrassingly old school.
• You’re very tired all the time. And it’s not a good tired, it’s not tired from thinking hard about interesting problems. It’s tired from pumping in the same mind-numbing tasks week after week, tired from fighting jet lag even though you haven’t gone anywhere.

I really, really enjoyed the intensity of my time at Mercedes. It was a dream come true. But I’m even more happy that I was able to realise that dream in the first two years of my career, before moving on to something that I can actually build a life around, something I can do for myself.
It’s also nice to be able to watch the races as entertainment again, even though I have to admit I miss the millions of timing screens, the radio traffic and the split second decisions.

Hello.
I have two (not technically by marriage) stepchildren, both girls age 9 and 6. I've been in their lives for around a year (been with their dad for two years, but we waited a while until I met them, which is a complicated story). They live with their mother most of the time, but stay with us on average 2 nights a week. We want to have them half the time in the future, but are waiting for divorce settlements to be finalised so that we can buy a house closer which will be more permanent.
I absolutely adore these children. Don't get me wrong, they also drive me crazy but I care for them a stupid amount and I'm so happy with how well we've bonded. I am, however, so worried about their health because they are both large for their age and getting bigger and bigger every time I see them. Their mother is large (BMI circa 40) and engages in the "fat positivity" community and is essentially in denial that being fat is bad for your health (she thinks that the increased risk of type 2 diabetes, cancer and heart disease etc. etc. is basically made up by health professionals). I don't know exactly how much the girls weigh as their mum has made it a forbidden topic in their house, but for reference the 9 year old barely fits into age 14 clothes, and the 6 year old struggled to do up a pair of dungarees that were age 10-11. I know kids clothing sizes can be sporadic but this is just a rough idea. The 9 year old has such a pretty face, but you can barely see it because it's covered in so much fat. The 6 year old's belly hangs out over everything, and she's even developed breasts. I wouldn't put them in the morbidly obese category, but they are definitely overweight/obese.
I'm trying to be a good influence on them. I cook healthy dinners, encourage them to go out the house (for walks, or to the park for example) and try to engage with them as much as I can. When they are at their mum's house they seem to spend most of their time being left to their own devices and can easily spend 10 hours on a weekend sitting on their ipads. They rarely go out for walks or to the park, or even to walk their (also fat) dog round the block. The eldest isn't going to school during lockdown so is pretty much stagnant all day every day that isn't with us; and the youngest is at school (yet to be diagnosed autism, so classed as vulnerable and goes to a specialist school) but she doesn't seem to join in with PE as she's scared of it. Their exercise is extremely limited to when their with us and they can barely climb on the equipment in the play park, let alone partake in normal exercise and active stuff like kids their age. I think back to what I could do when I was their age - their development in so many regards is essentially stunted due to a lack of outdoor presence and too much fat on their bodies that results in them not being strong enough to lift themselves up.
On a purely selfish level, that I am ashamed of, I'm also embarrassed by them. Normally I don't care much for what other people think, but when we're out and about people think that they are my children. And I can't help but to think 'I wouldn't have fat children'. My brain has this system of thinking where I always think I could do so much better than their mum (who really isn't a very nice person) and it drives me crazy.
I'm lost. I'm trying but I don't know what to do. I'm nagging my partner constantly but it's taken me months to get him past the point of denial and he won't speak to the girls' mother because she's so ridiculously stubborn and won't listen (she'll say they are fine and healthy). He keeps saying we just need to wait until we move and we can be better with them but part of me worries this won't be soon enough and then it'll be too late. Should I just move on and stop caring? They aren't even my kids so why should I really care? Or should I carry on persisting with this in the hope we might be able to make positive changes? I know it'll be a long term thing to make a difference but when I keep seeing them getting bigger and bigger in the short term it just feels futile.
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Update:
I really didn't expect to receive so many responses - I haven't used Reddit before to post or respond so it was certainly interesting to read them all! There's a mix of attitudes here so I did read them all as it was interesting to see how some people think I'm evil and have no right to interfere, and others think I care (I do care! This is my big problem). Not wanting to necessarily justify myself, there's also a big backstory to my situation and my partner's ex isn't a very nice person... so maybe I could provide some more insight.
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My partner and I used to work together. I had left before we started talking, and although we'd been friendly we'd never made it to the stage of being friends outside of work, let alone on Facebook. I left to study, and at some point some of my old work friends informed me that he was in an open relationship with his wife. We bumped into each other at some friendly drinks and ended up connecting on Facebook and we started talking. I found out his wife had "come out" as polyamorous a few months ago, and had a boyfriend in the states (we live in the UK) that was due to visit in a few months time) and he'd accepted it for an easy life. It's complicated and weird but his wife knew we were talking from the start.
And of course what happened is we fell head over heels for each other. The more I got to know him, the more it became clear that his wife was a controlling, emotionally abusive narcissist that also wanted to eat all the cake without sharing any of it (i.e. she was insanely jealous of me). He begged her not to meet up with the American boyfriend (this was before we'd even been physical, as we basically weren't permitted to see one another) but she went ahead with it anyway, and after she got back from her holiday he stopped sleeping in the same bed. It took a few months but eventually he left, continuing to pay for the house (she only worked part time, if at all) and support the family whilst sleeping on his dad's sofa.
She didn't even take time to get over their relationship, getting straight on the dating websites and meeting another polyamorous man with a wife based in the States. I fully get the impression that any intimacy or romantic attachment in their relationship had not existed for some years, and the main reason my (now) partner hadn't left already was because the effort involved with undoing their life together would be too hard. I don't view her as a great human being (far from it) but she talks to him like he's a piece of dirt on the floor, used to tell him he would never be enough for her and barely pays any attention to her own kids, preferring to sit in her bedroom and watch netflix. On the weekends with her they can easily spend 10+ hours a day on their ipads, and they won't leave the house, not even to walk the dog (who, like the girls, is overweight) or to go to the park. They will occasionally go on days out (i.e. zoo or beach) but these are few and far between.
I moved away to continue with my studies, and for a year we maintained long-distance with visits every other weekend. During the period when the pandemic hit, I decided to move back and start working again and we decided to move in together (he'd been living at his dad's during this period, seeing the girls whenever he could). We moved into a 2 bedroom flat the next town over from the girls', as at the time this was the cheapest thing available with both two bedrooms and a garden (for my cat). It was the most convenient think at the time and living closer would have cost in excess of £150 more a month. This would then allow us to save until we were able to buy a house. Maybe I should have been more specific but legally they are now divorced but they are still in the process of separating financially. My partner has continued to pay half the mortgage (in addition to child maintenance and also now half our rent) for nearly two years, as well as half of the car finance (which he did not use) and various other outgoings such as credit card debt. The financial separation has been lengthy but we're looking at the final hurdle now, courtesy of the ex-wife's new partner moving in and being willing to take over the mortgage/buy my partner out.
Whilst I would love to have the girls half the time now, we're restricted with a lack of space and also potential difficulties with doing this for a number of reasons that I hadn't considered prior to us moving in. For example, my partner couldn't drive my car (which was a manual/stick shift) and he didn't have his own - we changed this to an automatic that we join-own however I later learnt that his anxiety surrounding driving is incredibly high, due to the treatment he received from his ex-wife that prevented him from ever building confidence. As such, he can only do short journeys and so seems reliant upon me to do most of the driving, but I work shifts so I can't always help out. He's also working at home during the day (in their bedroom, which doubles up as his office) so he'd be looking at an hour-round trip to do school drop offs/pick ups (twice a day) so this isn't really practical, especially considering the girls' mother doesn't work.
In a few months, once the house transfer is sorted, we'll be able to move and buy a house big enough to house all of us comfortably - including giving the girls their own rooms each (which they don't have in their mother's house, as she uses the third bedroom for her business) and we'll then be able to have them half (i.e. one week on, one week off), if not more of the time (depending on how much they want to stay). It's not really a matter of custody/attorneys/court battles in the UK, when actually child care can be sorted amicably and fairly allowing children to have good lives with both sets of parents.
Some people have been critical because they seem to think I'm overinvolved. I - in no way - think that I am their mum, but I'm not the kind of person to do things half-assed. If I'm involved, then I'm going to be properly involved and committed to their happiness, health and wellbeing in the long term, and I want to be able to build a proper relationship with them. Part of the reason we waited a year until I met them was because we wanted to be sure that we were committed in the long run, and we didn't want to risk them getting hurt. Once we'd established that we wanted to build a life together we organised a meeting and we never looked back. They're little people that I love and care deeply for, and I just want to do the best for them.
Sure, I have my own set of anxiety, low mood and self esteem issues. I let these affect the situation more than I should do and my frustration regularly gets the best of me. I've never told the girls that they are "fat" but I have expressed my concern to them before that I am worried about their health (i.e. that they don't eat enough vegetables).
Something they enjoyed doing with us recently was tracking their 5-a-day, and I've taken away snacks and puddings from our house so that they end up eating fruit instead. Dinner is simple but with plenty of veg, but I do struggle when they don't seem to like anything that isn't friend chicken or burgers. I'm not limiting the amount they eat but I did buy slightly smaller plates and I'll often put a little less food on it with the idea that they can ask for seconds (but have to eat veggies first!). We're going on walks when the weather isn't completely miserable, and have bought welly boots for them both so that they can deal with the mud. If it isn't quite nice enough for a walk, we'll take a trip to the park where I'll actively join in with the playing, including climbing on the climbing frames and going on slides/swings etc. (provided it isn't too busy with other kids).
​
Research shows that 75% of parents with overweight kids are in denial about this. Maybe having me in their life (as a slight outsider) should be a positive thing? Because at least this means I've made my partner aware of the issue (he was in denial before, completely) and now he wants to make a change.
Anyway, I'll stop blabbering. I need to go see a counsellor but I've been putting it off due to covid restrictions, which means I'd only be able to do video calls (I'm stubborn, but it isn't the same as seeing someone face-to-face). Part of me just wanted to get it all out... I certainly wasn't expecting the response I got (I didn't think anyone would reply) so I do appreciate it. Thanks, ciao.
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Hello There!
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My name is u/houseofcards32 and welcome to airsoft! This thread was created to help beginners and newer players out there. I hope you will get something out of this post, as it contains almost every bit of information you need to get started. This thread gets updated every year with new information and sections, so assume the 2019/2020 guides are out of date. This thread will be automatically updated on January 1st, 2022. At the bottom of this thread will include all of the guides I have created so far, if you are looking for something that is not in here, I would look there first.
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This thread also has a video for each section created by me. Don't want to read the massive wall of text that follows? No worries! Sit back and watch the short 1-3 minute videos on the topic.
Consider liking and subscribing to my youtube channel, cards32 , as I don't make money off of these, but I do make it for beginners/newcomers benefit. Under each section will be a video for that specific section.
How to start airsoft in 2020
Battery Guide (LiPo vs nImh)
Stick with an M4/AK if you are an airsoft beginner
Lancer Tactical is bad
2021 Beginner Thread video playlist (in order)
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Are you looking to start airsoft? Do you need information about the basics? Well look no further! This guide will have 15 sections:
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1. Basic Information
2. How much does airsoft cost?
3. The best beginner rifles (AK/M4 variants) for $100-250
4. Things to generally avoid when playing
5. What should you bring to your first airsoft game
6. What weight bb should I be using?
7. Can I start airsoft as a sniper?
8. What eyepro/lower face projection should I invest in?
9. What is a "MED"?
10. What is a GBBR?
11. The Search bar
12. Orange tips and their legality
13. Airsoft youtubers
14. MSW (MilSim West)
15. What are some cheap gear brands to get as a beginner?
16. Lancer Tactical
17. What airsoft shops should I buy from?
18. Don't go out and spend $1000 before playing
19. Comparing paintball and airsoft is like comparing apples to oranges
20. What are the most common gearboxes?
21. Other guides that may be useful

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Section 1: Basic Information
Video link
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Your first airsoft guns is one of the most important purchases you will make while playing airsoft. As your first gun, it should be reliable, affordable, versatile, easy to work on (V2/V3), high performance, and compatible with as many upgrades and accessories as possible. This means buying and AEG, or Automatic electric gun or Sub-Machine gun (also known as an SMG). Forget about buying sniper rifles, pistols, gas guns, and other exotic airsoft guns until you have more experience, money, and at least one backup weapon.
To play airsoft it is HIGHLY recommended that you have the following items:

• An AEG (NOT A LPAEG)
• Magazines (high capacity magazines are recommended, which holds around 300+ bb's)
• Some batteries
• A charger

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All airsoft AEG's come with a magazine out of the box (sometimes a mid cap), but is highly recommended that you have 2-3 of these while you are playing. Eye protection is the most important thing in airsoft. All airsoft fields/sites require you to wear goggles/masks while playing. For more information check section 8.
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Section 2: How much does airsoft cost?
Video link
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Although airsoft is markedly cheaper than other shooting sports, it's still an expensive hobby. Site fees vary greatly but will typically exceed $25 for a day's play. It is reasonably common to spend in excess of $400 buying, upgrading and accessorizing a single airsoft gun. Gear and clothing can be similarly expensive. It is possible to play airsoft very successfully with just basic equipment, but even the cheapest possible equipment required to play airsoft safely will still cost you a minimum of $100. If you want a competitive advantage, or to play more advanced simulation games, you should expect significant additional expenditure.
It is common for users to approach airsoft with unrealistically low budgets. If you have less than $100-150 to spend, you are not realistically in a position to play airsoft. We will not compromise your safety by recommending you skimp on personal protective equipment. We refuse to recommend Low Power Electric Guns ('LPAEGs'), spring pistols and other ultra-low-budget airsoft guns because their performance is so poor, and their life expectancy so short, that they represent a false economy. You may still be able to afford to rent gear at an organized airsoft site, but not for more than a handful of games at most.
FAQs:
1. ⁠I think I can afford to play. What's the next step?
If you haven't already,read the rest of this guide.
2. Why are you lying to me? I can easily find airsoft guns that cost less than $100.
In airsoft, as in most aspects of life, there is a minimum price below which a product cannot be made fit for purpose. It is possible to buy something approximately gun-shaped for less than $100. Do not confuse this with the ability to buy a gun that will be sufficiently powerful, reliable and long-lived enough to play airsoft with. LPEGs, spring pistols and ultra-low-budget airsoft guns are utterly inadequate for airsoft play and will break rapidly, at which point you will be back to having no gun and will also have lost whatever you spent. In addition, you still need to buy suitable Personal Protective Equipment ('PPE'), which is an absolute prerequisite of play and not free. THE ONLY EXCEPTION to this rule is spring shotguns. The tri-Shot ones. They shoot anywhere from 3-6 bb’s at a time and most shells hold about 30 rounds. These shotguns are only optimal for CQB arenas and highly urban fields. They have extremely limited range so keep that in mind.
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3. The best beginner rifles (AK/M4 variants) for $100-250
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To get into the hobby of airsoft, you will need to have a decent budget. Most beginneintermediate guns cost anywhere from $100-250, but that cost does not include bb's, magazines, batteries, and a charger. Some guns come with a wall charger and a battery, but most users (including myself) recommend throwing the wall chargers away. This is simply because the wall chargers are normally very low quality. Most players recommend starting airsoft with an M4 or AK style variant AEG. Please note that Lancer Tactical rifles are NOT included in this guide, please check section 16 for more information on this topic. Note that the current Covid-19 pandemic is still ongoing, so things might read out of stock on the websites listed. I would check other websites if the items listed are not shown. Commonly recommended choices are:
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• CYMA AK Series -$130 - CM028, CMO40, CM045, CM048, and CMO28S) are clones of the original TM AK-47’s and AKS-47’s , and they include a high cap magazine (500-600 rounds). These are the cheapest AEG we recommend, and are generally considered reliable, upgradeable, and reasonably versatile. However, their all-Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene ('ABS') plastic construction makes them relatively fragile. For improved robustness we strongly recommend spending slightly more to purchase a Glass-Filled Nylon Polymer ('GFP') AR-15 or a steel AK.
• CYMA Platinum M4 Series -$250 - CYMA's newest addition to the intermediate M4 world, with these being one of the most recommended beginner guns of 2020. With updated internals, great trigger response, and a strong gearbox shell being the highlights of this rifle. Note that these go on sale quite often and the price drops around $240-250.
• CYMA Sport M4 Series -$185 - CYMA's solution to "budget" airsoft guns that have good internals and can be had for a decent price. Not as many features as the plat's, but have completely over hauled internals, as shown in Negative Airsoft's video.
• ICS Sportline -$180-200 - ICS' Sportline AR-15s are effectively a re-shell of their excellent regular guns in a GFP receiver. They retain the convenient split gearbox system of the regular guns. Note that most of ICS's rifles are slightly proprietary in their gearboxes, so keep this in mind.
• Maple Armories Marauder -$180 - Made from high density polymer but has an excellent set of internals which has been proven to be better than the Guay Guay lineup. This weapon series is on the more expensive side but has comparible internals to the VFC Avalon series.
• E and C MK18 Series -$162 - These are not really common in the US, but are popular in places like Canada and the EU. The internals on these have been quite good and QC has been almost top notch for something that is under 200. There are other models available in the US, but are way more expensive.
• Arcturus M4 Series -$161 -Arcturus is a relatively new brand in the airsoft market, but has come out the gate strong with their M4 series. This series has a microswtich installed, which is uncommon for other models in this price range excluding Classic Army. It also comes with 2 magazines which is great for beginners.
• APEX Skirmish Series -$95-100 - OEM'd by Classic Army, Apex's Fast Attack AR-15s are a relatively new entry to the market, and are equivalent to Guay Guay's CM16s. Versions with GFP and metal receivers are available. An intermediate equivalent of these would be a GP or ICS AR-15.
• Guay Guay G2 Combat Machines -$207 - Guay Guay has recently come out with a more updated version of their "Golden standard" AEGS. These are still relatively new and have had reports of poor quality mosfets. But other than that, the Gen2's are a superior upgrade to their Gen1 counterparts. Gen1's have been removed from this guide simply due to more updated rifles being out. Upgraded internals, and a better exterior allow for a better quality AEG. An intermediate/high end equivalent of these would be a VFC or a Krytac. These are not as outdated as the gen 1’s, but they still are classified as outdated when it comes to performance.
• Classic Army Skirmish Series -$180-200 - Classic Army's AR-15s are a relatively new entry to the market, and are equivalent to a slightly upmarket version of Guay Guay's CM16s. An intermediate equivalent of these would be a G P or ICS AR-15. These feature a mosfet that allows you to switch to 3 round burst or 5 rebound burst.
• Specna Arms Core Series -$120 -Specna Arms's CORE series of AEG's were removed from last year's guide due to QC issues, but with the issues mostly being fixed in the later end of 2020, they are being readded for their great price, and overall decent internals. Note that all the CORE series of AEG's have the same internals, just different externals, which are polymer to keep cost down.
• Specna Arms EDGE Series -$220 -Another Specna model, with this being similar to the CORE series, but having a GATE X-ASR mosfet, the newer orion gearbox, and an aluminum receiver instead of polymer. Also features a quick change spring system for easier fps changes.
• EMG Helios CORE/EDGE Series -$220-280 -Features the same specna internals, with the EDGE having the mosfet, and an aluminum body, whilst the core has a polymer.
• EMG Helios Umbrella Corp Series -$220-250 -Features the same internals as the CYMA plat's. Just a different body and externals. Normally on sale for $220.

4. Things to generally avoid when playing
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Airsoft is an honor sport, when you get hit, raise your hand high and display your dead rag. Also yell “HIT” as loud as you can so the other player who is shooting you knows that you are dead. Not displaying your dead rag can lead to being shot more than you want to. Calling someone else’s hits are normally frowned upon as you’re going to cause problems on the field and airsoft drama is not worth it. If someone is suspected of cheating, call a ref/marshal over to observe the player. When you are in the field/game area, DO NOT TAKE OFF YOUR EYEPRO!! EYEPRO is the #1 important thing in airsoft. If a bb hits your eye, you more than likely will be blind. Keep your EYEPRO on at all times while in the field. If you are fogging up, walk off the field. Avoid overshooting other players, once you see a dead rag or a red rag come up, or hear “HIT” stop shooting them. Dead men tell no tales! If you are dead, and a teammate asks where you got shot from, simply say: “dead men don’t talk” and walk back to your respawn.
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5. What should you bring to your first airsoft game
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So you’ve finally bought your gun and gear and you’re heading out to your first game. As mentioned previously, you want to make sure you come prepared. As well as your AEG, you want to make sure your batteries are charged and you brought an extra magazine or two. You also want to bring WATER! Staying hydrated is one of the most important things you need to do in airsoft. Being dehydrated will ruin your day and cause problems for you. Also make sure to have a good amount of bb’s for the day. it is highly advised that you wear boots while playing, running shoes can get dirty easily and there will be mud somewhere on the field that you will end up stepping on and getting wet. An extra pair of socks is also a good idea!
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1. What weight bb should I be using?

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This question is very common with a lot of newer players. LPAEG’s (Löw powered Airsoft guns) and Walmart airsoft guns use .12 gram bb’s. DO NOT RUN THESE IN AN AEG! This bb’s are cheap and will break the internals of your rifle. You don’t want to throw your money away do you? I didn’t think so. The lowest weight you can use in your replica is .20 gram bb’s. There are a lot of brands out there for bb’s: Elite Force, BLS,, HPA, KWA and so on. All of them are good brands to buy from. If you are planning on playing indoor, most users will recommend .2-.28 bb’s for the best range and efficiency. If you are planning on playing outdoor, using .28’s and higher is optimal for the best range. Just keep this in mind: the heavier weight, the slower the bb travels.
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1. Can I start airsoft as a sniper?

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It's not recommended no. You can do whatever you want, but sniping is not beginner friendly. Sniping is an expensive virtue and will take a lot of money and time for you to get a rifle that shoots far. Buying a stock sniper will mean you have to put money and parts into it, as the only “good” stock sniper rifle is the SSG24, and the Silverback SRS. The popular airsoft youtuber, Novritsch, has made sniping extremely popular with noobs as he shows a lot of action and gameplay with his guns. Keep in mind that being a sniper is not all action and takes patience and time. His videos are short for a reason. You do the math.
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1. What eyepro/lower face projection should I invest in?

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Eyepro is the most important thing in airsoft. Airsoft is a sport that requires you to have eye protection on at all times while on the field. Lower face protection is required for most players under the age of 18 in most American fields. Anyone over the age of 18 can normally just get away with goggles, but you don't want to have to go to the dentist do you? Didn't think so. There are different types of eye protection for airsoft, ranging from basic shooting goggles, to face masks that protect your face. There are a lot of different goggles and masks out there, but here are some of the most populamost recommended items. Any eye protection you use MUST BE ANSI 787.1+, otherwise you cannot use them! DO NOT USE MESK EYE PROTECTION UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES! They are not anzi rated, and their have been hundreds of cases where someone will shoot someone with mesk eye pro, and the bb will explore on the outside of the google, allowing the bb fragments to get inside an eye.

• Pyramex I-Forces (Slim) -20$ - These goggles are one of the most common eye protection recommended because they are really hard to fog. They are also the cheapest eye protection that this list will have, but these are really amazing goggles. These are full seal but these are not as big and bulky as some others.
• Revison Desert Locusts -$30 - These are another amazing choice when it comes to eye protection. A little more pricer than the I Forces, but provides more protection around the face. Has fine lens curvature and the lenses adjust automatically to shifting or variable light conditions. Please note you can buy these new on their website/evike, but they cost 50-60$ new.
• ESS Land Ops -$85 - Issued by the U.S Army, these goggles are another excellent choice. Features exceptional fog resistance, particle filtration, and comfort. These can also be found on eBay and military surplus stores for cheaper, but keep in mind of scratching.
• Smith Optics OTW -$180 -These no doubt are the most expensive goggle on this list, but these goggles feature a fan inside of the goggle, which allows for no fog at all. The low profile housing of the fan does not interfere with the brim of a helmet. If you want something really good, \*buy once, cry once.\*
• Dye i4/i5 -$100-250 - These are the best option when it comes to full face protection. This was originally designed for paintball, but has been adopted by airsofters as well. The special venting and google coating allows for zero fog. I have had one for 8 months and I have yet to deal with any problems. The prices vary depending on color, but you can find one used for roughly 60-70$. There is an updated mask, the Dye i5, which has an updated back strap and different colors.
• Oakley M-Frames -$120-130 - These are often used by milsimmers as these offer great eye protection in a minimalist setup. Often used by the US military, these offer great non-fogging and are super lightweight.
• ESS Crossbows -$40-80 - The ESS Crossbow Suppressor is the first spectacle frame designed for use with ear cup hearing protection and communications devices. Featuring Z-Bend Geometry, the frame's ultra-thin temple arms help keep noise out by minimizing the effect on the padded seal of ear cups. The slim temples eliminate the hot spots and pressure points that commonly occur when normal eyewear is worn under ear cups.
• OneTigris Mesh Mask -$15-20 - The most common mesh mask in the market, and the most affordable one also. Made out of steel and nylon, this mask allows for maximum comfort as it is has nylon fabric cheek sides.

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9. What is a "MED"?
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If you’ve played airsoft before or are just hearing about this for the first time, a “MED” or minimum engagement distance is utilized in airsoft. Most airsoft guns have semi, and fully automatic. Most fields in the US, do NOT allow full auto within 40-50 feet. Imagine coming around a corner and getting shot with 10 bb’s because the person around the corner didn’t switch to semi. This isn’t Call of Duty, spraying your bb’s all over the place will achieve very little, if not anything. When you get closer than 40-50 feet, switch your AEG to semi. Airsoft, for the most part doesn’t hurt, but getting shot 10-20 times in a row certainly will. Don’t be that guy who full autos people from 10 feet away! It’s being an asshat, and will probably get you kicked out!
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1. What is a GBBR?

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GBBR(Gas Blow-Back Rifles) are the hyper-realistic guns. If you have a larger budget and would like a more realistic experience these are the guns for you. Not usually recommended as starter guns because of the cost of gas and accessories, but not to be entirely ruled out for a select group of people. These guns require maintenance, but most would consider the work to be put to the background in the face of the utter satisfaction of using one of these guns. Check out GasBlowBack for more information on this topic.
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11. The Search Bar
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The search bar is a tool that is at the top of this sub that is used to search for a post or topic. This feature is not used by any beginners as they will probably ignore this guide and ask the question anyways. Most questions have been asked before and you will find your answer. To use the search bar:
A. Open reddit
B. Click on airsoft
C. Using your eyeballs, look at the top of your screen
D. Using your fingers, type in whatever you are looking for (I.E BEST BEGINNER SETUP)
E. Using your eyeballs, look at the results
F. Realize that most people will just ignore this guide and continue asking the same questions every single day.
G. Profit!
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1. Orange tips and their legality

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Orange tips are required for retailers, but you are more than welcome to take them off after you receive your airsoft gun. Just note by doing so you will void your warranty. Also please do not take your airsoft gun out in public and follow basic gun safety. Please check your local state/county rules before doing this though. Note that random strangers on the internet will NOT know your local rules, so I cannot empathize this enough.
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1. Airsoft youtubers

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A lot of users will watch certain youtubers and get a impression of the hobby that does not exist. Remember: Their job is to get views and entertain you, they cut out the parts that are boring. Clickbait content is what most beginners watch and please note that cheaters in airsoft are not as common at they make them to be. If you are interesting in learning more about clickbait, I made a video breaking down airsoft clickbait on youtube. There is of course great content creators out there that don't just make clickbait and I implore you to go look for them.
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14.MSW (MilSim West)
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MSW is considered the only "true" Milsim in the US. Interesting in going? Read the Tacsop.
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1. What are some cheap gear brands to get as a beginner?

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It is also pretty common for airsofters to think they need to spend a bunch of money on super expensive gear to get started. This couldn't be farther from the truth. Good gear does not equal skill (BY ITSELF), and while having good gear CAN help you play, it won't make you a special operator by itself. Most users are on a budget anyways, and investing in cheap chest rigs is a great option to stay within your budget. Note that most of these recommendations will be chest rigs, simply because of the price and functionally of them. Condor is one of the most budget friendly airsoft gear brands out there, as they will be on this list a bunch. NOTE: THE CHEAP CROSS DRAW VESTS ARE NOT INCLUDED ON THIS LIST SIMPLY BECAUSE FOR THE MOST PART, THEY SUCK. Some good budget options ($0-100) would be:

• Surplus Chicom rig -$12
• AK47 Bandoiler Chest Rig -$15
• Chinese AK47 Chest Rig -$20
• NCSTAR 6 Pouch Chest rig -$27
• Condor Ronin Chest Rig -$32
• Condor Rapid Chest Rig -$32
• Condor Gen 5 Recon Rig -$35
• NCSTAR VISM Chest Rig -$45
• LBX Chest Rig-$65
• LBX Tactical Lock and Load Chest Rig -$101

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1. Lancer Tactical

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So Lancer Tactical is not on this guide for a multitude of reasons. For starters, in 2017, their CEO was arrested at shot show under the pretenses of producing non-anzi rated goggles and advertising as such. They were producing goggles that were direct copies of Revision, and lied about their goggles being rated for airsoft. But the primary reason as to why they are not recommended is that their quality control is fucking horrendous. Lancer has created 2 "generations" of guns, with the 2nd generation "having a different oem" meaning that they were magically fixed. Spoiler alert, the QC is still garbage and even their "prolines" having terrible QC, with Reventian having to be SENT 3 for a review, and his 3rd one died. But if you don't believe me on the QC part, check out a compilation of lancer's breaking in the past year.
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1. What airsoft shops should I buy from?

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Recommended US-Based Retailers
Infantryshopusa
Airsoft GI
Evike
Amped Airsoft
Airsoft Extreme
Airsoft Atlanta
Trinity Airsoft
Gas Blowback Central
JustAirsoftAmmo
InfantryShop
Canada based Retailers
Alberta
007 Airsoft
Badlands Paintball
B2 Airsoft
Buy Airsoft
Capital Airsoft/Force on Force Tactical
Comex Hobby
PM Hobbycraft
British Columbia
Badlands Paintball
Camouflage
Milsig
Phoenix Tactical
Trigger Airsoft
Viper Action-Air Innovations
Manitoba
Badlands Paintball
TBD Airsoft
Xtreme Tactics
Newfoundland
Frontline Paintball
Nova Scotia
Venture Airsoft
Scotia Arms Airsoft
Ontario
Action Air Canada
Airsoft Depot
Badlands Paintball
Blackbiltz Airsoft
Canada Wide Airsoft -No Website.
Challenger Airsoft/My Airsoft -No Website. FB Seems inactive.
Chigun Hobby Store
Daymark WindsoSOAR Hobby
DMZ Airsoft & Paintball
Flagswipe Paintball
Forest City Surplus
Gear Up Airsoft
Hero Outdoors
High Percision Airsoft
Infinity Arms
JS Airsoft
JT Military Surplus -No website.
Maier Action Games
Maple Airsoft Supply
Niagara Quatermaster
Nick Sports Shop & Central Surplus
Platinum Paintball -No Website.
Rapidfire Airsoft -No Website
Toronto Airsoft
Ultimate Airsoft
Prince Edward Island
Andy's Airsoft
Quebec
Aventure Airsoft Lanaudiere
Divison XP
Fighter System
Headshot Airsoft -No Website
Tactical Center
Taktik Airsoft
Saskatchewan
SackSoft Armoury
Online ONLY
Airsoft Parts Canada
Ultimate Airsoft
Replica Airguns
Upper Canada Tactical
Western Canadian Airsoft Supply
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Asian-Based Retailers
Redwolf Airsoft
eHobby Asia
ebAirsoft
WGC Shop
Echigoya - Japanese shop, best source for TM guns
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UK Retailers
Zero One
Action Hobbies
Airsoft World
Land Warrior
Fire Support
Wolf Armouries
JD Airsoft
Combat South
Dave's Custom Airsoft
Bespoke Airsoft
Skirmshop
Patrolbase
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1. Don't go out and spend $1000 before playing

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It is also very common for users to approach airsoft with spending a bunch of money. Please don't do this. It is always recommended to rent before playing. After renting, don't go out and buy a shit ton of geaguns. Stay cheap, and don't go all out. Regardless of what you have seen on youtube, having the best gear does not make you the best player. How stupid would you look if you went out and bought a brand new Umbrella Armory and full Crye's if you don't like the hobby? Simply put, don't go out and buy expensive gear, like said above, stay cheap and go out to have fun.
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1. Comparing paintball and airsoft is like comparing apples to oranges

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Comparing paintball to airsoft would be like comparing apples to oranges. They are two completely different hobbies that are very different. Paintball uses balls of paint that cannot go farther than normally 50-60 feet, whilst airsoft uses more realistic looking markers that can go much farther. If you are a paintballer, no problem, just don't come in here and try to compare the two :)
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1. What are the most common gearboxes?

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The V2 and V3 mechboxes are the most common gearboxes found in M4/AK series AEG'S. If you are more interesting in learning about the V2 gearbox, check out the V2 gearbox guide. V2 gearboxes are found in most M4 series AEG's, while V3'S are found in AK series rifles. The MP5 often uses a modified V2/V3 gearbox, it all depends on the brand. The Airsoft Tech is a great resource if you are looking to expand your knowledge. Negative Airsoft is also another great resource, consider checking him out here.
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1. Other guides that may be useful

• GBB Guide
• Searchbar Guide
• How to/How not to deal with cheaters
• Beginner AEG Guide
• 2020 HPA Guide
• 2020 Ultimate Hopup/Bucking Guide
• 2020 BB Weight Guide
• 2020 BUYING AND SELLING GUIDE
• 2020 Barrel Guide
• 2020 Basic Operations Guide
• Diffrent replica guide

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Changelog:
5/30/19-Fixed Formatting and added suggested eyepro section
6/1/19-small typos fixed and section about MED’s added
12/7/19- reposted for Christmas influx of new gun posts
12/7/19- added section on GBBGBB’s.
12/9/19- added section on searchbar and typos
12/27/19- added how the older guay guay are outdated
1/1/2020- post was unpinned so new thread is made.
1/1/2020- updated part about specna
1/19/2020 - orange tip section added
5/16/2020- removed specna cores from the Recommended list of guns due to bad QC
7/22/2020- reposting thread with more updated links as well as adding E and C to the recommended section
7/22/2020- added sections 13 and 14
7/22/2020- Videos added for each section
7/22/2020 - Added more options for eyepro
7/22/2020 -Fixed AMP AMP AMP issue
12/25/2020 - Added 5 new sections
12/28/2020 - Removed G1 CM"s from the recommended M4's.
12/29/2020 - Added new beginner guns to recommended section
12/30/2020 -Fixed spelling errors and guide overhaul
1/1/2020 - Guide re-published

I've made a few posts on here and gunpolitics recently. If you only passed those ones and maybe gave an upvote, please, I implore you to read this one fully.
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I pass through most gun related subs here in reddit, and recently saw this in a post:

How do I respond to this senator’s stance on a proposed gun bill?
Washington Senators are proposing a bill that will ban “large capacity magazines.” I wrote one of our senators, and they’ve recently responded:
“I wish we could easily determine who is a ‘law abiding citizen’ but we don’t give out such identifications.”

They then go on to waffle about other stuff about how these "high capacity" magazines could be used in a crime, but that bit from near the beginning caught my eye. This senators (aide’s) response is making a very distinct argument- everyone is suspect unless proven otherwise. Obviously this is not a stance unique to “high-capacity” magazines, but in this case they shall serve to make a larger point.
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This kind of argument is dangerous.
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The long (but still shorter than the whole video summary is) the kind of legal imposition here is fundamentally different from how the senator's response framed the subject. That these could be used in a crime is what the senator is focusing on. This kind of crime exists in some undefined "not-yet-ness," supposedly defending the community from some group of others who may take form in ways that can not be anticipated, which means that the work of defense and surveillance can never end.
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Adopting measures like this means that security can never go "back to normal." Even if some clear and present danger passed, the rationale behind these laws ensure that it is impossible to repeal them. The surveillance, paranoia and invasive measures can only ever expand, because it's not grounded in any presently known facts about threat or safety; the whole game is about risk managing the possible future. Since the future is unknown and possibilities of attacks or risks can be drawn as wide and dangerous as imagination allows, the justification for security becomes infinite too.
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This kind of legislation, this kind of action fundamentally shifts the nature of the relationship between the state and the people it is supposed to serve to one it rules over (to be sure, this is not the first time, but it is another example of it). The example given in the video is one where a police officer with an automatic rifle is sat in a train station in Newcastle in the UK. The interaction went basically as follows:

Civilian: "Why are you here?"
Cop: "Well we're here for your protection"
Civilian: "Yeah, but the people of Newcastle weren't asked if we wanted more armed cops on the streets, you were just sent here, so it's not really protection on our terms. If we don't have a say in whether or not you're here then it's not really protection, it's more of an occupation isn't it?"
Cop: "Well, if there was a terrorist in here right now, what would you do?"
Civilian (expectation): "I disagree with the premise of the question, which is that a possible future threat is always justification for every actual, present concrete form of coercive security"
Civilian (reality): "Shit I'm about to miss my train!"

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This kind of mindset treats heightened security as the only and best way to stop stuff like terrorism or other attacks. It mentally shuts out other forms of addressing terror, such as attacking the root cause instead of its manifestation in violence. A security mindset treats these kinds of threats as a blank force of nature, like a natural disaster, but, as uncomfortable as it may be to face this fact, these kinds of threats are carried out by people. They have perspectives that can be understood. Not condoned certainly, but understood, and in that knowing you can form a better long term solution than a security state.
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The rest of the video is a really, really good watch, but those are the highlights of the argument.
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Start using this argument when the grabbers start stepping. They are buying into an infinite feedback loop that has no end, and ignoring other solutions to stuff like mass shootings and terrorism that would be more effective while also not fucking over the basic construction of this country.
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Post script- one of the responses I've gotten to this line of argument is "well if the government shouldn't do this, why do you have guns? Aren't you doing the same thing, jumping at bumps in the night?"
I should have hoped the answer to this was obvious, but this is admittedly a foreign concept to quite a lot of folks when they hear the word freedom for the first time, but there is a fundamental difference between the actions of the state and the actions of the individual or community. The state is fundamentally separated from and at odds with the people it rules over (which is why the constitution was made the way it was, and reflects that in much of its construction of the federal government and the entire bill of rights), and when it adopts stances like a security state (of which privately owning a gun is hardly analogous), it is a detrimental authoritarian power grab versus the responsible citizenship of the maintenance of an armed populace.

Hello and welcome! You might've just gotten your Quest 2 and are probably very excited.
First off; whether you're a new user or a VOG Quest veteran, we welcome you to the community and hope you enjoy your stay. If you'd like to chat live on Discord you can join us at the VR Discord. Feel free to post your box-photos and first impressions in this thread. Thanks and have fun!
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If the guide leaves any of your questions unanswered, please write in detail the question you have in the comments.

• Anything that's not in here you might find on our updated Quest wiki
• Sometimes, you can find an answer to your question with a Google search. Not all questions require assistance from community members.
• If you need SideQuest assistance, check out the SideQuest support portal, or click here for setup info.

Now, let's get into the guide.

The Unboxing Experience

The box includes 2 AA batteries, so you don't need to worry about batteries right away (Make sure to remove the battery-tabs from the controllers to start using them, though!).
However, we do recommend you get rechargeable batteries down the line for the benefit of your wallet and the environment. The included glasses spacer we recommend using if you want to wear glasses in the headset.
The box also includes a regional charging brick and a 1m charging cable. This cable is quite short; so not really sufficient for Oculus Link. We recommend getting a different, longer cable for that purpose. You can check out our guide on good Oculus Link cables here.
Alternatively, you can play PCVR games/content with Virtual Desktop. If you need assistance with Virtual Desktop, we recommend visiting their Discord.
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Setting Up

Once you have unboxed the Quest, we recommend checking out this guide by Oculus on how to setup your device.
In short;

• Install the Oculus app from the App Store/Google Play Store.
• Login with your Facebook account or create one if you don't have one already.
  • Games and apps are linked to your account.
• If you don't have one already, the app will ask you to set up your VR profile with a username & profile picture.
• After that you will be asked to configure your privacy settings, add a payment method and set a pin code. The pin-code is used for verifying purchases of apps and games.
• Turn on the headset and make sure it's nearby. Enable your phone's bluetooth and the app will prompt you to pair the devices.
  • If you are not automatically prompted to pair, look in the headset for a 5 digit code to insert into the mobile app.
  • Do not to close or switch apps until the setup process (in VR) is complete.
• Adjust the distance between the lenses by grabbing them and moving them in/outward to find the setting that's right for you. It's important to use the best setting that's closest to how far your eyes are apart to get the best clarity.
• Put on the headset, adjust the rear strap and then adjust the top strap.
• You know it's the right fit when the image is clear, the headset is snug but there isn't a lot of pressure on your face. If you have a hard time getting the default strap to be comfortable; it is recommended to get the Elite strap.

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Some things to keep in mind:

• Keep direct sunlight away from the lenses. Do not store the headset with the lenses facing the sun, as this can damage the lenses and screens.
• Clear your playspace and ensure there are no tripping hazards, pets, young children or things that you could break, hurt, or hurt yourself with.
• To clean the lenses, use a dry optical lens microfiber cloth. Do not use liquid or chemical cleaners and avoid using any rough or dirty cloths.
• Do not use alcohol or an abrasive cleaning solution to clean the straps. Oculus recommends using anti-bacterial wipes for this purpose (Not for the lenses!)
• If you want to wear glasses, take off the face gasket, install the glasses spacer and then install the face gasket on top. Glasses narrower than 142 mm and under 50 mm in height should fit.

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FAQ

• Can I play my Quest 1 games on Quest 2?

Yes. Virtually all Quest 1 games are compatible with Quest 2 and games are linked to your account, not your device. Some games will receive updates to improve graphics to take advantage of the Quest 2's improved processing power.

• Should I get the Quest 64GB or 256 GB?

If you plan on using it for mostly PCVR, 64gb is fine, if you plan on storing only a few games (20 or so), little bits of content, etc - 64gb is fine. However, if you plan on storing large movies, 50+ games, etc then you may want to look into 256.

• What cable should I use for Oculus Link?

Please check our spreadsheet on common cables (and their effectiveness) by the community.

• Do Virtual Desktop and Sidequest still work?

Yes. You can join the Virtual Desktop discord here for real-time chatting and support. Check out the SideQuest support portal for support, or click here for setup info.

• What router should I use for Virtual Desktop? Is this/my router good enough?

Please note that your speed to the internet (the speed that speedtest.net shows for example) is irrelevant to how good your Virtual Desktop streaming experience will be. That being said, you can use Virtual Desktop on any modern AC or AX router, but experiences will vary depending on network setup, distance and speed. You can ask more question in the Virtual Desktop Discord or in the comments below.

• Can I run SteamVR games without a PC?

No.

• How long does the Quest 2's battery last?

Between 2 and 2,5 hours roughly, from a full charge.

• Is Quest 2's (hand)tracking better, worse, or the same?

It seems the common consensus is that it is the same or better. Hand-tracking is uncertain.

• Should I get the elite or the elite battery strap? Is comfort on the default strap bad?

It seems as if the Quest 2 is more comfortable out of the box than the original Quest; but not by much. For the best possible comfort, it is recommended to get the Elite strap or otherwise mod the headset strap. However: Comfort is dependent on your face shape, adjustments, etc. The default strap could be fine for you. The elite battery strap will get you more than the 2 hour battery life at a time; but you could also get your own (bigger) power bank to fulfill this purpose.

• Will Quest 1 prescription lenses fit on the Quest 2 lenses?

Yes, they are the same shape and therefore fit just fine.

• Can the Quest 2 run at 90Hz?

It will not be enabled at launch due to a bug with the guardian system; but will be enabled in a future patch.

• Is my IPD supported?

As long as you are within 2.5mm of 58mm, 63mm, or 68mm you should be able to use it fine. To check your IPD, follow this guide or use the EyeMeasure app on iOS

This post is mod-approved and I hope it's helpful.
My name is Jared A. Brock and today is my 35th birthday. It’s been a wild ride: I’ve walked across hot coals, swam up an underground river by candlelight, eaten bull’s testicles, and roasted marshmallows on flowing lava.
I’ve written three books, directed four films, published 400+ articles everywhere from Esquire to The Guardian to TIME Magazine, road-tripped through 45 American states and nine Canadian provinces, helped get some laws changed, and traveled to forty countries including North Korea and the Vatican.
I’ve enjoyed nearly thirteen years of marriage to my seventh-grade sweetheart, and we’ve been blessed to fundraise hundreds of thousands for charity. Though not without tons of mistakes and some major setbacks — financially, physically, emotionally, spiritually — it’s been a pretty decent trip so far.
I’m lucky, blessed, downright spoiled. And even though I certainly don’t claim to be wise in any way, shape, or form, here are 35 things I wish I’d learned far sooner. None of these are rules or commands for you to follow, just personal reflections from a decade of journaling. I hope they save you a lot of time, energy, struggle, and life:

1. “Save the best for last” is terrible advice.

A French monk taught me this one. Every morning, I put on the newest pair of socks in my drawer. Why wear the rattiest pair? When I sit down to eat, I eat the tastiest bits first. Why let them get cold? After every shower, I put on my favorite clean t-shirt. I have a great bottle of 10-year-old Laphroaig scotch in my cupboard, but I probably won’t drink it for months because I received two bottles of reactor-aged Lost Spirits single malt for Christmas.
Why? Because life is hard enough and we aren’t promised tomorrow. This doesn’t mean we should throw caution to the wind and “live in the moment” at all times, but it does mean we should try to find the golden middle and glean a little bit of pleasure from every day we’re blessed to live. “Save the best for last” is poverty-mentality thinking. It expects worse in the future. Enjoy the best right now — in your marriage, parenting, work, travel, faith, friendship, contribution. Keep all the chips on the table. Be ready at all times to leave without regret.

2. Tools use us.

A hammer literally cannot hit a nail without using a human.A saw cannot cut through a board without using a human.A phone cannot deliver ads without using a human.

3. Avoid false dichotomies.

When given two great options, choose both.When given two horrible options, choose neither.

4. Failure is overcome by one word.

“Next.”

5. Give yourself a shove.

The best way to eat more candy and drink more vodka is to leave them side-by-side on the kitchen counter.
You get it. Willpower is useless. Instead, line up a series of little nudges to automatically get you through your day. If you want to work out, leave your shorts by the door or your cleats in your fridge. My blue diode glasses rest on top of my laptop so I have to protect my eyes before logging online. I can’t not see my vitamins when I brush my teeth, or chia seeds when I reach for the Brita. There’s a book beside my bed, toilet, desk, and car’s gear shifter.
Line up enough nudges and you can shove yourself in the right direction.

6. Awkward is awesome.

My best friend says that The Office gave society a beautiful gift: the ability to embrace cringe. When you meet someone new and it’s slightly weird, pretend you’re Michael Scott. Just glory and bask in the discomfort.
You can awkward-proof your life by being bold: Ask for discounts. Ask for refunds. Ask for phone numbers. Ask for pay raises. Ask inappropriate questions at inappropriate times. Lather yourself in awkward and pretty soon nothing sticks.

7. Ambition is ruinous for your happiness.

Most goal-setters (myself included) live much of life in anticipation of tomorrow, and when that day arrives, they’re either disappointed by their failures or underwhelmed by their successes.
Instead: trust the process. Whiskey, pasta, bread, beer, and cereal all require just two ingredients — wheat and water — but the outcome is completely different based on the process. Identity precedes action. Determine what you want to be, then determine the process that will get you there every single time.

8. The Marines were right: slow is smooth, smooth is fast.

As teenagers, my friend Tyler and I were in a hurry to get somewhere quickly so we drove 120+ miles per hour for forty-five straight minutes before nearly crashing when the speed burned a footlong gash through the tire. By the time we replaced it with a spare, we were late to our destination by more than an hour.
But nevermind driving. Pump the life-brakes sometimes, or at least, let off the gas. You might get there faster.

9. Most “leaders” aren’t leaders.

Celebrities, politicians, and book-hocking business gurus all call themselves leaders. They’re not.
Real leadership is influence that serves. True leaders are selfless and servant-hearted. They put the best interests of others ahead of their own. Politics and media, by comparison, attracts sociopaths like flies to firelight. Never give power to those who seek it. Nearly everyone worth following is dead.

10. Old people know better.

Honoring our elders is one of the most underrated practices in our newness-obsessed society. Sure, there are a ton of old crazy far-right conspiracy theorists, but there are also good people who have survived four wars, six recessions, and twelve presidents and are somehow still smiling. Get to know them.
Also: meet your old-person self. I try to invent a new word every week — one of them is preflection. To ponder the present through the eyes of your future self. Take an hour in silence to listen to your eighty-year-old self. They might know something you don’t.

11. Fire all your employees.

The employer-employee relationship creates an unhealthy power dynamic between humans that simply didn’t exist when we worked cooperatively to feed our clan or village. I love my work life so much more now that I only work with independent entrepreneurs who are my equals. For me, it’s either a one-man show (my writing business), an equal partnership (my film company), or a co-operative endeavor. Life’s too short to be a boss or be bossed around.

12. Accept that you are a voracious locust of doom.

Nail a roll of paper to the wall and write down everything you consume for a year — food, toilet paper, electricity, car fuel, movies, music, social media content, other people’s time, everything. See what I mean?
Saint Augustine said that the human heart can only fully be satisfied by one thing aside from God himself: everything. All the sex, all the money, all the power, all the possessions, all the glory. All of it. Nothing short of everything could ever fully satiate the human heart. We are wired for more.
Understanding this truth is the first step toward real contentment.

13. Forget what the market wants.

Listen to your gut. Your body knows the difference between good and great. Someone said you should never record a song or code an app or write an article unless it makes you laugh, cry, or orgasm. If an idea doesn’t move you, it won’t move an audience, no matter how “commercial” you think it is.

14. Happiness isn’t the purpose of life.

Hitler really was following his bliss by offing millions of Jews. I’m sure Jeffrey Dahmer genuinely enjoyed the taste of human flesh. Bernie Madoff seemed content to bilk charities for decades.
Happiness isn’t the purpose of life. It’s not even in the top ten. Happiness is a seasonal fruit, not a foundational root. Find firm and fertile ground.

15. There is no ugly.

My grandpa re-proposed to my grandma on their fiftieth wedding anniversary and called her the most beautiful woman he’s ever known. Old wrinkly grandma? Yes. Because we choose our definition of beauty through our thoughts, disciplines, habits, and patterns, be they conscious or otherwise.

16. We are what we consume.

The statistical average American is a walking bodybag of sugar, alcohol, caffeine, porn, pills, and digital stimulus. Imagine how different life would be if our only inputs were nature, sleep, sunlight, organic food, and embodied human interaction?
Guard your inputs carefully.

17. We’re going to die quite soon.

Make sure you live first. Practicing memento mori will help.

18. Fame is poison.

One in four Gen Zers thinks they’ll be famous by age 25. One in 3.9999999 Gen Zers are going to have a miserably disappointing life.
Why do people desire the attention of strangers? Because we all need to love and be loved, to know and be known, but are too afraid to risk personal heartbreak to seek it out. Attention is not affection. Influence is not intimacy.

19. Boomers are to blame for half our troubles.

The Me Generation took a free ride at the planet’s expense and is hellbent on taking the rest of it with them. They’re statistically low on empathy — blame the lead, asbestos, and hairspray if you must — but at least acknowledge the reality that life is hard for everyone, and no one has it easier.

20. Children are dope.

Kids are the blood transfusion in our sick system. We need to stop manipulating, brainwashing, colonizing, and propagandizing them, and learn from them instead.

21. It doesn’t have to hurt.

Joy is a choice.

22. Watch comedy before calls and meetings.

Five minutes of gut-busting laughter will prime you for even the most tedious conference call. Your co-workers and customers all have tough lives like everybody else, so brighten their day by pre-brightening your own.

23. No ragrets.

Tattoo it on your neck. Most people play it far too safe. Instead: optimize your life for the least number of regrets and the most amount of selfless contribution.

24. There are better ways to vote.

I’ve manned several local voting stations, and I’ve also hob-nobbed with politicians in Canada, America, and the UK. The reality is that they don’t work for us. They work for their corporate sponsors and private interests.
Democracy isn’t dead. It just hasn’t happened yet, with all attempts to date being stillborn or aborted. Democracy = one voice one vote. Athens wasn’t a democracy — women, slaves, and tenants had zero say. America isn’t a democracy either — no representative system is, because it’s far too easy for private interests to buy politicians. The charade of voting is illusory. All elections are sham elections.
So what to do? Vote with your money and time and attention. One sham vote every four years versus tens of thousands of dollar-votes each year? It’s a no-brainer. My wife and I haven’t stepped foot in a Walmart in more than a decade because thousands of its suppliers are based in China, the billionaire heirs are anti-democratic tax-avoiders, and they treat their employees like indentured servants. Vote for pro-democracy third-party candidates if you must — just understand the game, and also vote in the ways that actually matter.

25. Everything easy has already been done.

So run a little further. And if it hasn’t been done, it won’t be as easy as it appears. The question to ask is: what’s been standing in the way this whole time? Achievement is all about knocking down obstacles. Just make sure what’s on the other side is rightly worth the effort.

26. Broccoli still tastes terrible.

But you’re not a child anymore. Adults do hard things.

27. Fixed-order scheduling > fixed-hour scheduling.

Discipline is great, but it’s also subject to the law of diminishing returns. Life is just too dynamic to schedule with military precision. Free yourself from the tyranny of “only people who wake up at 5 AM are successful.”
All hours are not created equal. It depends on your sleep drive and chronotype. Know yourself. Unapologetically get some sleep, then do your best work at your best time in your best state.

28. “Freedom” isn’t freedom.

America wasn’t founded on freedom. America was founded on violent autonomy.
The ancient Greeks had an entirely different definition of freedom: it was the ability to choose the right regardless of circumstance.

“We talk about freedom all the time, but we’ve stopped talking about freedom a long time ago. Now we’re talking about autonomy. Freedom is different than autonomy. Freedom has boundaries. Truth is one of those boundaries. And morality is one of those boundaries. Autonomy is the ability to do whatever you want whenever you want in whatever way you want. The problem is this: If I’m autonomous and another person is autonomous, and I have preferences and those matter more than the truth, and that person has preferences and their preferences matter more than the truth, when two autonomous preference-seeking beings come together and their preferences don’t match, who is going to win? If truth is on the bottom shelf, truth won’t decide. What will decide will be power. And isn’t it ironic that in our quest for “freedom”, someone gets enslaved?” — Abdu Murray

29. Grandma didn’t use toilet paper.

She used pages from the Sears catalog. Splinter-free wasn’t available until 1935. The Romans used sponges. The Greeks used clay. Francois Rabelais recommended using “the neck of a goose.” Arabians used their left hand.
Never assume our extremely unique cultural moment is “normal.”

30. The quest for wealth is destroying life.

We need a shared global vision. My invented word for it is benevitae: the sustainable flourishing of all creation. Our collective goal should be socioenviroeconomic sustainability. Where to start? We’d do well to let biology determine ecological sustainability and real democracy to determine economic fairness. Our current trajectory is worse than the Space Shuttle Challenger.

31. Ninety-nine isn’t enough.

Water boils at 100 degrees Celcius. The difference between 99 and 100 is the difference between zero and one. Not-boiling, boiling.
Corollary: 101 doesn’t make it any more boiling.

32. Divide-and-conquer is a business model.

Near the end of high school, dozen friends and I binge-watched multiple seasons of LOST in our friend Mike’s basement. It was one of the most hilarious, riotous, enjoyable experiences we had as a group.
And it was the last show we ever watched together.
People used to go to restaurants in large numbers, to the movies by the dozen, climbing over each other for one of the limited video game controllers, packing out our churches, cheering on our sports teams by the busload. We were almost never alone, and we were far happier. Now we order in, watch Netflix, stream Minecraft, catch the highlights, watch porn, and go to bed. It’s killing us.
Resist the urge to be alone. It’s too easy, and it’s the exact opposite of what we really need. The #1 thing that’s correlated to human happiness is human togetherness.

33. Self-improvement won’t save us.

The great lie of individualist-consumerist culture is that we can improve our way to personal perfection and communal utopia. But it’s incrementalism at best.
It’s just chasing infinity.

34. We know nothing +/-.

On the scale of all that is known, and all that is knowable, our individual understanding is essentially mathematically zero. The entirety of human knowledge is a rounding error.
This is the beginning of humility.

35. The sun is not on fire

This whole list began in Texas. I was at an observatory in the Davis Mountains and it was the first time I’d paid attention to astronomy since grade school. For three decades, I’d wrongly assumed the sun was a giant ball of flames.
But there’s no fire in space because there’s no oxygen in space. It just looks like fire because of how our eyes perceive light through the atmosphere and prism.
As I stared at the real-time image of the sun on the observatory wall, I nearly wept. The sun actually looks like a giant, boiling, grey brain. And then it hit me: I have so many assumptions to set aside and so much left to learn.
So pay attention. Don’t worship the “question everything” mantra, but instead spend your life seeking truth, and wisdom, and understanding.
You know what you need to do to get where you want to be.

This has been an absolutely miserable year but finally it’s coming to an end, and even looking up now that Facebook and Google are being sued by Federal and State governments. If you played Cyberpunk I’m sure you’ll also have your fingers crossed that both companies get the sledgehammer into little pieces, with Amazon and the App Store soon to follow. Next year is up in the air right now; it could be the year XR is completely strangled by those soulless corpo’s at Facebook, or it could be the year that OpenXR, anti trust action, and consumer apathy towards VR cut their legs out from under them. Things look completely up in the air at this point. So take the holidays and enjoy VR while you still can, next year we might just be playing Valve’s Citadel while the ship goes down.
Well Steam’s Winter Sale is here and it’s a great time to pick up a lot of great games, hidden gems, and so on. This is my list of games to pick up. Some of them are the best prices these games have ever had. I categorized them by price tier, and I put a few standouts in bold either because they’re a great game or a great deal, or both.
Merry Christmas
[I also made a hardware guide for headsets and PC components, a guide to using steamVR, a guide about how to use the Index for AR, and a master acab list of great VR games, demos, and software]
The Sale ends on January 5th at 10AM PT
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• PAYDAY 2 (-90%, $0.99) Has a full VR mode that makes the whole game VR and lets you play with flatscreen players. It’s a lot more impressive than you would expect, especially at this price (free with the base game). It has two handed guns, full access to all the content and crossplay with non VR players, a UI on your tablet watch, etc
• Half-Life 2 (-80%, $1.99) You need to use Garry's Mod to run this in VR but the whole game works.
• Naked Sun (-90%, $0.59) Two hand wave shooter style game where you’re being moved through a robot city and fighting ogg enemies with guns and a shield.
• Scanner Sombre (-75%, $1.49) Spelunking through echolocation and a great art style. At this price and with this concept I’d say it’s definitely something to experience in VR.
• Steady (-50%, $2.49) Like the lockpicking puzzle from Alyx or those boardwalk games were you move a ring over wire without touching them together. 50 levels.
• fpsVR (-20%, $3.19) This is a must have utility for SteamVR. My guide to using SteamVR explains why and how to use it.
• Windlands (-90%, $1.99) the first windlands game, it’s a grappling hook style adventure exploration game.
• Evolution VR (-51%, $0.49) This is like that first phase of Spore, where you’re an amoeba eating larger ones and evolving with new limbs. I consider it a steal at this price, although it’s going to become free soon according to the devs.
• PROZE: Enlightenment (-85%, $2.99) Puzzle adventure game set in the tundra
• Evil Robot Traffic Jam HD (-80%, $0.99) Tower defense
• Interkosmos (-33%, $3.34) A space survival game where you’re sitting in a tiny broken space capsule and have to make it back to earth.
• Neonwall (-90%, $0.99) Guide a ball through neon obstacle puzzles
• Spuds Unearthed (-75%, $2.99) RTS TD type thing. I found its balance super frustrating when I tried it but it has a lot of polish and this price is great.
• Squishies (-75%, $2.49) Puzzle game with nice art that looks polished
• Zooma VR (-66%, $2.03) Look at the steam page, it’s basically an adaptation of that arcade game where you shoot colored balls at other colored balls to match them up and pop them.
• Obstruction : VR (-68%, $3.19)
• Fingers: Mini Games (-35%, $1.94) Screw around with finger physics mini games with your index controllers.
• Chroma Lab (-40%, $2.99) Particle simulator that’s kind of trippy
• Drone Hero (-90%, $0.99) Drone obstacle course game
• Defendion (-80%, $$2.19) Laned fantasy strategy game
• Bonfire (-50% $2.49) A little story where you’re crash landed on an alien planet with Ali Wong and meet cartoon aliens
• Cliffstone Manor (-75%, $1.99) Difficult escape room style game
• Moonshot Galaxy (-65%, $1.74) space mini golf game
• Protogon VR (-80% $1.99) Combination minigolf pinball game with neon crazy graphics
• Power Tools VR (-50%, $0.99) Chip away at a stone block with power tools
• Race The Sun (-80%, $1.99) Endless forward obstacle racer with options VR support
• SpellPunk VR (-73%, $2.96) Competitive spell casting game
• Strings (-90%, $0.99) It’s a smaller, more basic game, basically a shooter with different items you use to fight enemies as you teleport around stages.
• SweeperVR (-50%, $1.99) Minesweeper in 3 Dimensions
• PolyCube (-50%, $2.49) complex 3D tetris
• UNTITLED (-50%, $2.49) 3D surreal puzzle game
• Intruders: Hide and Seek (-90%, $1.99) Gamepad horror game
• WRG games bundle (-96%, $0.65) Escape room and a non VR game

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• Apex Construct (-75%, $4.99) This is where the energy battery puzzles come from. It's early VR but really strong on story, progression, and interactions, the combat is mostly archery
• FORM (-70%, $4.44) “A surreal adventure where puzzles are built from dreams and memories”
• NIGHTSTAR: Alliance (-60%, $3.99) Bullet Hell in space, but with a story and customization
• Blasters of the Universe (-75%, $3.74) Bullet Hell with a lot of polish and progression and you unlike new weapon parts
• FREEDIVER: Triton Down (-50%, $4.49) Drowning simulator, shorter but high quality
• Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes (-70%, $4.49) This is one of the best VR party games, easy to play remotely or in the same room with other plays holding a printed out or mobile browser manual helping the VR player disarm a bomb.
• Out of Ammo Fun Bundle (-78%, $4.48) A bit rough but still getting updates and still low poly fun. First one has multiplayer. They’re both FPS/RTS but the first one is war themed, while the second one is a zombie game.
• Orb Labs (-50% $4.49) A stealth puzzle game where you use different orbs to complete puzzles around lasers, turrets, and other hazards.
• Thumper (-80%, $3.99) Best selling surreal rhythm game, best with a gamepad. I definitely recommend it if you are fine with the gamepad controls.
• Vetrix (-20% $4.79) Tetris inspired. It has a two layer deep grid allowing for lots of 3D shapes that you can stick into place by hand in a twist on the usual formula. It has its own 8bit tunes, special blocks, multiple modes, and a bunch of color profiles based on the gameboy’s aesthetic.
• Transpose (-75%, $4.99) A game where you solve puzzles with a recording of yourself. It’s one of the best and more creative puzzle games in VR.
• Operation Warcade VR (-75%, $4.99) Old but the concepts work really well. It’s like a 3D light gun game that pulls you in for some moments
• Echo Grotto (-50%, $3.99) Echo Grotto is a spelunking game with stylized graphics. You pick your gear and then use a throwing based teleportation system that leaves a trail behind you.
• HATCHICK (-75%, $3.74) Like Xortex from the lab, a bullet hell inside a dome
• Journey For Elysium (-50%, $4.99) Greek mythology adventure game, a black and white art style
• Just In Time Incorporated (-75% $3.74) You appear in slow motion to save people who have Just In Time Insurance. Super basic graphics but the gameplay is fun and for this price it’s a good buy.
• Psychonauts in the Rhombus of Ruin (-75%, $4.99)
• Shooty Skies Overdrive (-50%, $4.99) It’s a bullet Hell with polish and a voxel style.
• Portable Farm (-20%, $3.99) It’s a light farming game, but the hook is that this runs on top of other games like an overlay.
• Balloonatics (-65%, $3.49) Single and multiplayer hot air balloon combat. A big update is coming.
• Axegend VR (-50%, $4.99) Tower Defense mixed with some fantasy combat
• Buzludzha VR (-60%, $4.79) If you like VR tourism then this is pretty good.
• Carnival Games VR (-75%, $4.99) Party game style game. It crashes unless you turn off the game’s haptics in input bindings
• Bandit Point (-50%, $4.99) Renaissance robot shooter where you possess different robots in combat
• Downward Spiral: Horus Station (-70%, $5.99) Zero G space thriller
• Flotilla 2 (-50%, $4.99) Turn based RTS in 3D between space battleships
• VR Furballs - Demolition (-60%, $4.79) Angry birds style game
• Townsmen VR (-50%, $4.99) This was barebone and felt like a demo, but it’s going to get a big update that scales it up into a game and should be free for anyone who owns this version.
• Starblazer (-75%, $4.99) A 3D space RTS with multiplayer
• Skyworld: Kingdom Brawl (-50%, $4.99) This is a classic VR RTS scaled down to a quick 1v1 RTS battle.
• RuneSage (-60%, $3.99) Open world puzzle fantasy game
• 2945VR (-45%, $3.29) Space shoot em up

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• Groundhog Day: Like Father Like Son (-33%, $10.04) Sequel to the movie with a similar idea where you relive the same day over and over and progress
• HORIZON VANGUARD (-33%, $10.04) Sega Saturn Style arcade shooter on a hoverbike. Don’t let the graphics fool you, this is a really well made puzzle game in a Sega Saturn style
• Fujii (-35%, $9.74) Gardening with a weird forest spirit
• Garden of the Sea (-50%, $5.99) Animal Crossing looking zen farming game by the devs behind Budget Cuts 2, early access but steady updates are coming adding features and more mechanics..
• GORN (-50%, $9.99) Cartoon melee colosseum game, VR classic that has killed a thousand controllers
• Contractors (-50% $9.99) smallest player base of the big shooters but full of good ideas and strong gunplay. Now has mod support, including custom maps, weapons, and modes like world war II, ninja warrior, Halo, etc
• 1976 - Back to midway (-50%, $7.49) Just came out, it’s a good game, already on sale. This is a good deal. This is a 2.5D shoot em up that has “immersion zones” where you take direct control in first person. It really captures the idea of stepping inside an old arcade machine really well.
• Creed (-75%, $7.49) This is a pretty good multiplayer boxing game that goes for a more arcade style, Graphics are good, it’s polished, and obviously it’s licensed from the movie
• Bizarre Barber (-50%, $5.99) Arcade game about cutting aliens’ hair as they come by in passing subway cars. It goes for a more surrealist vibe.
• Garry's Mod (-33%, $6.69) This needs a community hack to be VR, but it works and even lets you play HL2 in VR
• Cubism (-20%, $7.99) A tetronomo style puzzle where you need to figure out how to make the finished shape out of the pieces you’re given, in 3D. Feels like it’s made by Apple.
• Gravity Lab (-40%, $8.99) Rube goldberg puzzler where you build machines to get the ball from the start to the finish, sci fi settings.
• Pierhead Arcade Bundle (-63%, $7.48) The first one is stronger and a great little VR boardwalk with multiplayer to show off to people with high quality minigames,and with an update this week they made it so if you own both, then the games carry over into 2, which has index support and a ton of its own games too.
• Prison Boss (-60%, $7.99) The best crafting game in VR, you play a prisoner who makes and sells contraband, so it’s business sim as well since you buy equipment and supplies to make various products.
• Tabletop Simulator (-50%, $9.99) (4-Pack for $29.99) (Most DLC -50%,) Look, the VR support here has issues but since it’s a board game simulation all you need to do is make sure you can sit down, move around, and grab things (just make your own bindings from the desktop SteamVR settings). Since it uses the Steam workshop it’s an insane value with endless excellent quality content. The matchmaking system means you can play all kinds of games at all hours with thousands of people.
• Westworld Awakening (-80%, $5.99) If you love the show this is a must have, pretty well received as just a good game overall.
• Superfly (-34%, $9.89) This is a super hero sim game in VR. You can have six different types of powers with their own movement and combat mechanics around a cartoon city
• Ultrawings (-50%, $7.49) Super user friendly flight sim with VR controls. I definitely recommend it. You complete missions to get money to spend on new planes across several cartoonish islands that you fly between.
• Shooty Fruity (-55%, $8.99) One of the best wave shooters in my opinion, but the controls are a little broken for the Index since it doesn’t use SteamVR input.
• RUSH (-60%, $7.99) Wing suit skydiving game
• Climbey (-31% $6.89) A classic VR climbing game with multiplayer and steam workshop support for courses
• Space Pirate Trainer (-40%, $8.99) Everyone’s favorite wave shooter, one of the first wave of room scale VR games that came out with the Vive. There’s no progression but it handles the mechanics of dodging bullets and dealing with growing waves of enemies really well with a lot of modes for your weapons.
• Spectro (-50%, $7.49) Ghost hunting game that feels a bit like it’s made for kids but it’s still a good roguelike.
• The Curious Tale of the Stolen Pets (-50% $7.49) Cutesy puzzler abou finding a bunch of stolen pets on little floating islands you interact with.
• ViSP - Virtual Space Port (-50%, $7.49) You build these blocky space stations in third person trying to hold off attacks by aliens.
• A Fishermans Tale (-35%, $9.74) A recursive puzzle game where you’re a fisherman in a box messing with a fisherman in a box who has a fisherman in a box…
• I Expect You To Die (-60% $9.99) A james bond style escape room game with a ton of polish and a lot of content, one of the best of the genre.
• Ultimate Fishing Simulator VR (-66%, $10.09) It’s realistic fishing, in VR.
• The Forest (-50%, $9.99) Port, has good co op, suniverseurvival with crafting and base building in a forest full of mutants.
• The Mage's Tale (-70%, $8.99) I haven’t been able to try this one, but it’s well reviewed and has a nice art style.
• 2MD: VR Football (-30% $9.09) This is basically quarterbacking in VR. You throw the ball but you don’t run around with it. Also you throw with the trigger by default, for safety reasons. It’s still fun, but it’s definitely not a full football experience.
• Deism (-30%, $5.59) This a god game with a low poly art style, it’s in early access with a lot of updates.
• Cave Digger (-50%, $9.99) Steampunk mining game with multiple endings
• The Thrill of the Fight (-20% $7.99) This is the more realistic boxing game more like a simulation, and it's good as a workout.
• Carly and the Reaperman (-50%, $9.99) Escape from the Underworld (-50%, $9.99) One of the best asymmetric games, this is a co op platformer adventure where the VR player helps the gamepad player. Works with Parsec/Remote Play Together
• Grapple Tournament (-34%, $9.89) Grappling hook PvP arena
• Gun Club VR (-60% $7.99) For a gun sim, get H3. The value in this game are the missions where you have to hit cardboard targets across different themes and weapon types like WWII, modern day, zombies, or carnival style targets.
• Swords of Gurrah (-30%, $6.99) Multiplayer sword fighting with a little community.
• Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice (-75%, $7.49) Port of third person game, really high quality but gamepad controls.
• IL-2 Sturmovik: Battle of Stalingrad (-85%, $7.49) A HOTAS based WWII combat flight sim
• Marble Land (-60%, $5.99) A physics base puzzle game about getting the marble to the goal
• Combat Tested (-69%, $6.19) This is a mixed game, but it’s really creative with the gritty super powers you have while you try to escape from a lab full of people trying to stop you.
• Blind (-75%, $6.24) You can only see by making noise (canes, throwing things, etc)
• Adapt or Perish (-40%, $5.99) Evolutionary strategy game with a VR mode
• Pinball FX2 VR (-60%, $5.99) Made for VR realistic pinball
• Assetto Corsa (-90%, $7.93) Racing sim with optional VR
• Seeking Dawn (-80%, $5.99) Not great, but super ambitious with story and alien enemies and crafting and base building and just generally more than I expected, and it actually kind of works.

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• Pavlov VR (-40%, $14.99) Pavlov is basically a game that set out to be Counter Strike VR and became the Garry's Mod of VR and the most creative community outside VRChat. I’ve seen and played everything from roller skate racing, a remake of the entirety of Super Mario 64, TF2 Payload, over a hundred TTT maps, some of the best Battle Royale I’ve seen in VR, Slow-mo zero G modes, SCP, LifeMod and DarkRP, five completely different kinds of zombie modes, and a lot more. It’s been a fixture of SteamVR and pretty soon they’re releasing a World War II update with character models and new guns for the USSR, USA, Germany, and UK, new maps, and multi user tanks that you use in first person. It’s as much a must have as there can be, as long as you like multiplayer shooters.
• Vertigo Remastered (-40%, $14.99) A 19 year old genius kid who worked at Valve and Cloudhead games made this on his own. It feels like a scaled down Alyx with nice physics, creative weapons and tools, and great personality across a campaign.
• Paper Beast (-30%, $13.99) One of the standout PSVR games. You’re in a surreal papercraft desert with dynamic and lifelike paper animals. It has a story and then a smaller sandbox mode. It’s a surreal style experience that works well in VR.
• Jet Island (-35%, $12.99) take on a huge open world with an island of enemies on your hoverboard
• Falcon Age (-35%, $12.99) You play a young falconer who uses her whip and bird to fight off colonizing robots that are strip mining her planet. It’s a pretty high quality game and semi open world.
• Budget Cuts 2: Mission Insolvency (-50%, $14.99) VR stealth with a portal style teleport gun and a bow. It’s well written and has a lot of polish. Sequel to one of the standout classics of early VR.
• Superhot VR (-40% $14.99) This is the game that sold me on VR. It’s basically the Matrix, where time moves when you move. It’s actually not a port of the original superhot, which is why the sequel isn’t coming to VR. I think it’s slightly overrated, there isn’t a ton of content, it just seems more concise than the marketing conveys
• Gadgeteer (-20% $11.99) Even more rube goldberg puzzler, but more of a dominos style of gameplay.
• Ironwolf VR (-30%, $13.99) Submarine simulator, has destroyer mode now too with coop and some competitive multiplayer. I definitely recommend this as a co op experience.
• Hotel RnR (-40% $11.99) You’re a dead rocker who makes a deal with the devil to destroy hotel rooms
• Duck Season (-35%, $12.99) Make someone else play this without explaining it to them. Tell them it’s just Duck Hunt.
• Down the Rabbit Hole (-40%, $11.99) Third person Alyx in Wonderland game with player choice
• 3dSen VR (-40%, $11.99) 3D NES emulator that makes them feel like a totally new experience.
• The Wizards Bundle (-68%, $15.92) The first one is an okay wave shooter, the second is more of an adventure game with great graphics and more variety.
• Thief Simulator VR (-27%, $14.59) A semi open world game where you go around stealing people’s phones, jewelry, and cars.
• Vox Machinae (-45%, $13.74) If you like Mech games this is basically a must buy, you control it by hand with all the bits and bobs of the cockpit and the graphics look really good. VR and flatscreen with crossplay multiplayer.
• Yupitergrad (-15% $12.74) A grappling hook adventure game set aboard a collapsing soviet space station
• Windlands 2 (-60%, $11.99) This is a grappling hook style game with somewhat basic graphics but large worlds and big enemies. Some people have called it the best spiderman game in VR.
• Hello Puppets (-30%, $13.99) Cartoon horror with weird humor, your hand is an evil puppet
• Moss (-50% $14.99) A third person platformer adventure game about a little mouse
• Skytropolis (-55%, $11.24) A vertical citybuilder, which is a rare genre in VR. It’s from 2017 and doesn’t get updates any more but it does work and it’s not a bad game in the genre.
• Pixel Ripped 1995 (-30%, $13.99) A love letter to 16 bit gaming. You play video games inside the game and have to avoid getting caught playing in the middle of the night, etc.
• ModBox (-25% $11.24) This is a sandbox game creator with steam workshop support. IT has a lot of potential and supports asymmetric play, VR multiplayer, and creation inside and outside of VR.
• New Retro Arcade: Neon (-35%, $12.99) This is kind of buggy, and you need to use the unofficial arcade builder, but as a social VR experience for friends it can be pretty cool. Roms aren’t shared online unless the other people are on parsec or something, but a few activities like movies, the built in games, and bowling are actually multiplayer. The arcade is persistent for you and your friends even if you’re doing different things in different rooms.
• Phasmophobia (-10%, $12.59) The big new co op horror multiplayer game, but this one also supports VR
• Synth Rider (-40% $14.99) This is the closest Beat Saber style game to the original, with a smoother style of gameplay. But the maps feel unbalanced, like every difficulty or gameplay setting is the exact same map just being automatically tweaked. This can make it feel unfair or constricting.
• Into the Radius (-30%, $20.99) Basically Stalker VR, kill enemies and complete missions for cash as you progress
• Mini Motor Racing X (-50%, $19.99) Racing game that you control with your actual hands which is great but the tracks can be pretty small and with lots of tight turns since it’s a micro car game. Also has a rocket league mode which is fun.
• Stride (-25%, $14.99) Basically mirror’s edge in VR. You run and jump and wall run across different environments, with some combat and stealth too. There are two modes out now and another one coming soon with a story.
• BattleGroupVR (-30% $17.49) This is probably the most polished RTS in VR, made by one dev but it’s right up there with final assault and works better in singleplayer. Multiplayer is being tested right now. It’s a space real time RTS where you’re on the bridge of one of your ships and you can command the others in holograms, see the battle in third person, and the graphics are great. There’s a story and campaign too
• Until You Fall (-20%, $19.99) This is basically Infinity Blade in VR. It does melee by having lines appear in the air and you need to line up your sword with them to block enemy attacks, with some later enemies requiring you to duck off to the side to dodge attacks. It’s a roguelike so you fight through as many enemies you can, small stage by stage, until you die and spend the money you earned on new weapons and abilities.
• STAR WARS™: Squadrons (-40%, $23.99) As an experience, Squadrons is exactly what you expect. It’s really immersive and really feels like being in a star wars dogfight
• The Talos Principle VR (-60%, $15.99) Croteam are the devs of the classic Serious Sam series, and when the Vive came out they went all in and converted all their games over to VR, including their puzzle game Talos Principle. It was one of the higher quality experiences back then and it still holds up.
• Tales Of Glory (-40%, $17.99) First person medieval war RTS. It’s been in early access for a long time but the dev has put in a ton of work and made it a pretty unique experience with some of the best medieval combat outside Blade and Sorcery combined with strategy and base capture.
• Universe Sandbox (-33%, $19.99) Just got an update redoing the entire VR UI side of the game.
• Automata Break (-15%, $16.99) An asymmetric tower defense game you can play with a friend or alone.
• Skyrim VR (-67%, $19.79) Good port, works better than Fallout4VR with a big modding scene. This price is a bit higher than it has been in the past.
• Ragnarock (-15%, $16.99) Rhythm game where you beat the drums on a viking ship to metal and celtic rock. This seems like the best beat saber style game I’ve seen alongside Synth Riders, and the music is distinct.
• Industrial Petting (-15% $16.99) You farm alien pets to sell them back on earth. It’s an industrial production kind of game, with multiplayer support and VFlatscreen modes
• In Death (-50%, $14.99) Roguelike archery game set in Purgatory. Price feels a little steep when it stopped getting updates on PC in early 2019.
• Angry Birds VR: Isle of Pigs (-30%, $10.49) Basically Angry Birds in 3D. You can shoot in room scale and teleport to different spots to get a better angle. There's a fair amount of content too.
• Arizona Sunshine (-63%, $14.79) The first big co op zombie game. It shows it's age but it's still popular and has some DLC. I would recommend this one only on sale and mostly if you're planning on playing co op.
• L.A. Noire: The VR Case Files (-50%, $14.99) I think the cases are taken from the original game, but it's LA Noire in VR. There's driving, shooting, interrogations, looking for clues, everything from the original game. Seven cases.

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• Half-Life: Alyx (-25%, $44.99) The best looking VR game and one of the best games of this generation.
• Boneworks (20%, $23.99) This game is a must buy, but do not get it if you’re new. This is a game where pushing on a wall with your hand pushes the camera back. It will make you sick if you don’t have VR legs. The combat, melee, physics puzzles, are all extremely strong and it has an 11 hour campaign, along with arena, zombies, and sandbox modes. Another content update is also coming soon.
• The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners (-20%, $31.99) This is a great game. It’s less Left for Dead and more realistic in the sense that tension is very high and both humans and zombies are threats. There’s light crafting, upgrades, and collecting supplies, complete with physics and a faction systems and multiple paths to go down.
• Vacation Simulator (-20% $23.99) The best minigame collection game with the games integrated into three worlds with a lot to do, across multiple settings with progression and a basic story. Super immersive.
• No Man's Sky (-50%, $29.99) All new updates apply to VR too. Performance is spotty but the entire massive experience is carried over into VR, and there’s multiplayer too.
• Hot Dogs, Horseshoes, and Hand Grenades ($19.99) This game isn’t on sale but it’s getting an advent calender with daily updates until christmas. This is basically the ultimate “labor of love” game in VR. Detailed physics simulation of lots of guns, big recommendation for those with any interest in sandbox, has game modes like Take and Hold and Team Fortress, single player only.
• Pistol Whip (-20%, $19.99) This doesn’t go on sale as often. I would say it’s the first rhythm game that can actually go toe to toe with Beat Saber. It doesn’t have custom maps, but it gets regular content updates and just got a set of five campaign levels.
• Ultimate VR Stealth Bundle (-68%, $35.72) Budget Cuts 1, Budget Cuts 2, Unknightly, and Espire
• VTOL VR (-15% $25.49) This is the most advanced made for VR flight sim with full VR controls, tons of customization, and a bunch of modern fighter planes. It’s a community favorite and it’s even getting multiplayer soon.
• AGOS - A Game Of Space (-33%, $20.09) This got a super mixed reaction. It’s basically a third person satellite simulator. If you like the movement method you’ll like the game, otherwise you probably won’t. Watch some gameplay on youtube.
• Sairento (-35%, $19.79) This is like a ninja version of Superhot. I didn't enjoy it too much but many people like it. It has a lot of different weapons and you can do things like bounce off walls up to an enemy and cutting their head off with a katana.
• Gnomes & Goblins (-35%, $19.49) This got a mixed reaction. Basically it’s a game where you visit a community of gnomes and has two parts. In the first part you go on a little adventure meeting the gnomes and hanging out with them. But the rest of the game is doing activities and collecting artifacts around their town to fill your house.
• Disassembly VR (-30%, $20.99) Destruction and deconstruction physics sandbox simulator, just added melee combat.

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Also worth taking a look at, over at Fanatical they’re doing a “make your own bundle.” 2 games for $6.99, 3 games for $9.99, 5 games for $14.99

• Cosmic Trip - A very polished VR base capture RTS in first person where you build and manage drones and mine for crystals on an alien planet.
• Sprint Vector - Basically a footrace game you play by swinging your arms, set on an alien gameshow.
• Polybius - A trippy tunnel shooter with surreal pixel graphics, based on the haunted arcade game.
• Rainbow Reactor- Kind of like a sac toss arcade puzzle game.
• Conductor - An escape room style adventure game with a physics gun.
• Battlewake - This was a really hyped game that kind of flopped. Basically it looks really great graphically but the gameplay loop feels really repetitive and kind of shallow. For co op at this price it's a good buy.
• Raw Data - Early polished VR wave shooter, but it shows its age. It has multiplayer but the index support is pretty bad.
• Dungeons & Treasure VR - A small voxel fantasy roguelike with multiplayer support.