In this extra-long episode, Swag dives into preparing his logistics system for robots! He works to ensure that parts can move seamlessly across the factory once the system is ready. Prioritizing progress, he reshuffles his research queue, delaying the rocket control module to fast-track logistics research. However, it turns out the research needs more than expected! Swag pivots to green circuit production, ensuring it has the copper coils required to craft efficiently. Tune in to see all the problem-solving, tweaks, and frustrations as Swag pushes toward his factory goals!
Swag Plays Banished S2 E24 | Winter Hardships and a Shortage of Stone
In this episode, tragedy strikes Otterview as some settlers succumb to the harsh winter, battling starvation and the bitter cold. Despite the losses, the resilient community pushes through, determined to thrive. A new storage barn is constructed to support the growing production of finished goods, and work resumes on a much-needed house for a young family. With many homes occupied by an aging population beyond childbearing years, the future of Otterview depends on this crucial step toward renewal.
Episode 36: St. Benedict of Nursia
In this episode, Swag dives into the life of St. Benedict of Nursia. Learn about the man who is considered the Father of Western Monasticism and what he went through in his life.
Jedi Mantra vs. Catholic and Biblical Teachings – The Truth of the False Hope of the Jedi
In the fictional Star Wars universe, the Jedi mantra is the heart and soul of the Jedi Code, by which the Jedi are supposed to live their lives. Some people have taken it as a code to live by their lives, but I strongly believe that the Bible and Catholic teachings show it to be a false road to live your life by. In this blog post, I am going to examine the mantra line by line and compare it to what the Bible and Catholic teaching has to say on each topic.
Let’s begin with the first line of the mantra: “There is no emotion, there is peace.” The Bible makes it very clear that emotions are part of human nature and should NOT be suppressed – managed, yes but never suppressed. Many Psalms express many different emotions, and even Jesus who is both God and man (100% of each) expressed many different emotions during his time on earth. Many of the church fathers also wrote about emotions stating that we need to control and deal with them and not suppress them to truly live a life worthy of God. Anakin’s fall during the third movie shows what happens when we try to suppress them, and why it’s such a bad idea to do so!
Now let’s examine the next line: “There is no ignorance, there is knowledge.” Once again, the Bible makes it clear that learning is key to overcoming ignorance, and that the fear of God leads to true wisdom. In the letters of the New Testament, the writers made it perfectly clear that knowledge was gained by studying under wise teachers and obeying them was the will of God. Philosophy can only take you so far, you need to be grounded in real-world knowledge and God’s ageless wisdom to truly see the path for your life!
Onto the next line in the mantra: “There is no passion, there is serenity.” Just from reading this, I am laughing with sadness like I have for every other line so far! Passion is part of human existence and the Bible and Catholic teaching makes it clear that harnessing your passions will take you farther than ignoring them! Many Catholic saints were driven by the passion for their faith to become the people they are remembered as today. I’ve been doing a series on Catholic saints for my podcast over on Spotify, and I can say for certain that passion for Christ was a part of every saint’s life story!
The second last line of the mantra is just as bad: “There is no chaos, there is harmony.” I hate to break the news to you, but life is full of chaos and the Bible makes it clear that trying to live in harmony is something to be obtained for here on Earth, but is ultimately a part of Heaven. Only by living your life for God can you start to use the chaos in your life for something good and start to manage it effectively.
In my humble opinion the last line of the mantra is the worst: “There is no death, there is the Force.” The Bible makes it pretty clear that death will come and after it comes judgement. Also, the dead can not come back and warn the living to change their ways, as the Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus in the Gospels makes very clear! Repent today and turn to God before it’s too late!
Let me be quite clear – the Force is completely a work of fiction by George Lucas and should not be taken seriously! Force ghosts do not exist (I won’t say if real ghosts exist – that’s why the Church has cleansing rites for places.) and you should not hope to become one after your death! It is final and you will pass on to either judgement in hell for rejecting God or eventual eternal rest in Heaven after being cleansed in Purgatory. There is no third option!
Take a good look at what the Bible and the Catholic Church teaches today – both offer real truths about our world and the way to live life in harmony with God and your fellow humans and nature. Don’t be caught by the false promises of this mantra – I’ve shown you earlier how false each line is! Turn to God today and accept his free gift of salvation – all you need to do is accept!
In this exploration, we’ve seen how the Jedi mantra falls short of offering true hope and guidance compared to the profound truths found in the Bible and Catholic teachings. By turning to God, we can find real peace, wisdom, and purpose—gifts that go far beyond the false promises of fiction. May this post inspire you to seek the ultimate truth and embrace the salvation freely offered through faith in Him.
Creative Engineering E17: Taking Refined Storage to the Next Level!
In this episode, Swag takes a deep dive into Refined Storage, starting with the creation of a Crafting Grid and a Pattern Grid. He then crafts an external storage unit to connect his main storage area to his processing factory. To top it off, Swag encounters a Wandering Trader—find out what exciting items he manages to snag! Don’t miss the action!
Swag Plays Factorio S2 E30: Laying the Foundation for Processing Circuits!
In this episode, Swag gears up for advanced circuit production by creating an area to produce more complex circuits and sulfuric acid—key components for crafting the new circuit type. As the episode wraps up, Swag selects his next research project, taking another step closer to unlocking the rocket base and securing victory for the season. Don’t miss the action—tune in to see it all unfold!
Streaming Schedule Update: What to Expect
Greetings everyone!
In today’s blog post, I’d like to explain how my streaming schedule is going to look. I’ve chosen this schedule to allow my YouTube series to catch up to my livestreaming world for the Creative Engineering modpack, partly so that I won’t forget what I’ve learned in my livestream world when I record a new episode, and partly so that I don’t become bored with it too easily. I’ve chosen different themes for each day I will go live when I can, and I have an announcement later about Saturdays, so please read on.
Let’s start off by discussing that weekday streams are dependant on a couple of things being satisfied:
- I must have the day off work (ie. I must not have been offered a shift and accepted it) OR
- I must work a morning shift AND
- I must work 4 hours or less AND
- I must start by 8 am.
If either set of conditions is met, I will stream that weekday – but I also must not have released a video on YouTube that morning (so no livestreams Monday, Wednesday, or Friday). The weekday streams will start around 8 or 9 am America/Edmonton time. I appreciate your understanding as I juggle work, livestreaming, and creating content—it means so much to me!
With that clearly explained, I can now explain the theme for Tuesdays going forwards: Retro Gaming Tuesday. This means I will be playing games like Mario Party 7, Mario Kart: Double Dash!!, and other Nintendo titles that I own via emulation on my PC (which is completely legal as I actually own the games themselves), using my controller instead of a standard Nintendo one. I love playing these old games and I hope to share my enthusiasm for them with you on Tuesdays going forwards – don’t forget I have a Mario Party 7 Party Map to finish and one final vs CPU map to beat!
Thursdays are going to be “OpenTTD Thursdays” from now on folks! You got that right – I’ll be working on growing my transportation empire in this game – I got until 2050 before my current game ends and I want to have a blast doing so with you folks! From building larger and larger railway networks, to building new highways and airports, this is gonna be epic! I love watching my company grow and ensuring that I don’t hit bankruptcy is part of the fun – what good or fun is a large company if it’s not profitable?
Saturdays are gonna be “Modded Minecraft Saturdays” where we dive into the world of modded Minecraft together – I’ll mainly be streaming from my Creative Engineering streaming world, but maybe I’ll switch it up in the future – I do have a Minecolonies settlement that I’d love to show off live to you all – and if either my Banished or Factorio series ends before the other (most likely the scenario that will happen), I’ll start a new streaming world in my Peaceful Mekanism modpack! Due to real-life situations, I may not always go live on Saturday – if so, I’ll be sure to announce it via social media – so consider following me there! Be sure to not miss a second of the action – you’ll probably regret it if you do! I should also mention that if I get enough viewers concurrently when I am live, I will consider making the first Saturday of each month “Community Saturday” instead where we’ll be playing “Golf With Your Friends” or “Quiplash” together for fun and laughs!
Finally before I let you go today, I’d like to mention that I have set up a second store with FourthWall. You can find merch there with discounts for Tier 3 Twitch subs and members there – you can support me via merch, memberships, or via simple donations in this store! The membership gives you a discount in the store as well as access to the Supporter Area of my Discord as a “Full Member” there – don’t forget, that’s where you can help me beta-test modpacks before they are released to the public on CurseForge! Your support allows me to keep producing content and livestreams that we can all enjoy together. It means the world to me and helps keep this community thriving! Did you know that any purchases you make in my shop will appear as alerts whenever I’m live? It’s a fun way to show your support and get recognized in real time!
Until the next time I post here, may God bless all of you!
Swag Plays Banished S2 E23 | From Summer to Winter: New Builds, Tough Times in Otterview
In this episode, the citizens of Otterview complete the new trading dock and hunting lodge, but with no one to staff the latter, challenges arise. As iron supplies dwindle, construction halts to preserve resources. Winter hits hard—citizens face hunger and freezing conditions while struggling to gather essentials. Can they survive the harsh season, or will Otterview’s future be in jeopardy due to a shrinking workforce? Tune in to find out!
Episode 35: St. Francis of Assisi
Discover the inspiring story of St. Francis of Assisi, from his privileged beginnings to his humble embrace of poverty and devotion to God. Learn how his faith transformed lives, inspired movements, and left a legacy that endures to this day. Plus, explore thought-provoking reflections on living a life worthy of your calling. Don’t miss this heartfelt journey into the life of one of history’s most beloved saints!
Goodbye Pyramid, Hello Display Sign
Dear readers,
It is time to say goodbye to the Pyramid of Support. It was cumbersome at best and took a while to get started on any new world. I am also never in the mood to do sandstone block square pyramid math to figure out if the pyramid has the right number of blocks on it, due to people unfollowing and un-subscribing to my channels making it more complex than it needed to be.
Fear not, my faithful supporters – your support is not in vain and you will still be rewarded for milestones. Instead, say hello to the much more efficient Supporters Sign powered by Create’s Display Board! With simple name tags that can updated in any anvil, updating the numbers is easy, and the math is simple – just addition of the two channels separate totals to get my total supporters number!
Milestones will still be celebrated by the posting of signs – so please help me get to 500 Twitch followers and 75 YouTube subscribers – they are the next two big milestones I want to achieve – and it would be awesome if we did so sooner rather than later!
Another bonus of switching to the Display Board for visually showing the totals is that next season, I will be automating it with the ComputerCraft:Tweaked mod and it’s Create addon. Yes, I will have to learn Lua between seasons (sorry, but I’m not gonna learn it on-stream), but it will reduce the work I have to do once I get it setup correctly.
I’ll be able to do more automation next season with this computer mod in the pack as well as the changes I’ve got planned for season two of Creative Engineering on both YouTube and Twitch! I will not give you any hints as which mods are staying and which mods are going and getting replaced as I want to keep that close to my chest until I am ready to start putting together the season two modpack.
Overall the Creative Engineering modpack for season one was designed for a classic flat Minecraft world, where you would need to treat every resource you could get your hands on as precious. Season two will be returning to regular world generation, and so you can guess how this might effect my choice of mods for it. I will say that Villager life and happiness will be one of the focuses of season two, but how that will affect the modpack is still in the air.
In conclusion, the move from the Pyramid of Support to the Supporters Sign represents a step toward simplicity and efficiency, both for now and as we head into the future with new tools and plans. I’m excited about what’s to come with season two of Creative Engineering—new challenges, creative opportunities, and the chance to grow this community even further.
Thank you for your continued support—it truly means the world to me. Let’s hit those next milestones together and keep building something amazing!