Respect The Chief

You're home now. We could finally make an officer of you. You'd have Admiral without much of an argument from anyone.
No offense, sir, but "The Admiral" doesn't have quite the same ring to it.

Master Chief Petty Officer John-117 is the most important figure of the human race in the mid-26th century. Abducted at the age of six by the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI), he was conscripted into the SPARTAN-II program. The initiative was originally designed to crush human rebellion against the Unified Earth Government as the human Insurrection movement neared its tipping point. John endured harsh physical and mental training, survived the physical augmentations required by the program, and was later matched with state-of-the-art Mjolnir battle armor.
Throughout his training and early career, John emerged as a clear leader among the Spartans and was set to lead a successful UNSC campaign to stop a brewing human civil war. Though through circumstance, he became the sole savior of the human race several times over. First, in the face of an alien hegemony called the Covenant--an advanced alien empire bent on the complete destruction of humanity. Later, against an eldritch parasite known as the Flood which toppled both the Ancient Human and Forerunner empires of the past. Most recently, John defended humanity against the efforts of an ancient Forerunner general called the Didact, who returned to take his revenge against humanity for wars fought a hundred millennia in the past.
Notes

• Feats are shown in chronological order in-universe
• Feats showing relevant scaling or context will be indented
• Hover over a feat to see the source.

Height: 6'10" // 7'2" (In armor)
Weight: 130 kg // 451.3 kg (In armor)

General Info (Augmentations / Mjolnir Armor)

Pre-Augmentation / Training
Spartans were heavily trained almost daily since they were kidnapped at the age of 6, leading them to become physically and mentally prime by the young age of 14 even before receiving their augmentations.

Dr. Halsey marveled at what a spectacular physical specimen he had grown into. Fourteen years old and he had the body of an eighteen-year-old Olympic athlete, and a mind the equal of any Naval Academy honors graduate.

Description of an unaugmented 14 year old John; The Fall of Reach Ch 6

Augmentations
Codenamed Project: ASTER, the Spartan candidates were augmented to drastically increase their physiology and physical capabilities. Their bones were laced with powerful material to make them 'virtually unbreakable', their muscle tissue density was increased and lactase recovery time was decreased, they were given hormones to boost skeletal and muscle growth, increased eyesight, and had their nerves altered to drastically increase reaction time.

• At the age of 14, Spartans could sprint at bursts of 55 kph (~34 mph) and had estimated reaction times of 20 milliseconds, though they would likely be significantly higher in combat due to adrenaline. They could lift three times their body weight and they have night vision.

MJOLNIR Armor / Stat boosts

The feats in this RT will sorted by which armor John is wearing, as each iteration of Mjolnir armor increases his abilities further.
Unarmored - These feats occur after John receives his augmentation, but without any Mjolnir armor. They also all happen to occur when he is 14 years old and still recovering from his augmentations.
MJOLNIR Mark IV - The Mk IV was the first iteration of armor given to John and the rest of Spartan II's at the age of 15.

• General description, it doubles it's wearers strength and increases reaction times by a factor of five.
  • Their reaction times were previously given to be a low end of 20 milliseconds, meaning with Mk IV it is at a low end of 5 milliseconds.
• The suit is so reactive and powerful that normal humans would be torn apart trying to use it.
• The suit can operate in vacuum by recycling air for 90 minutes. It is also shielded against radiation and EMP.
• The armor possesses motion sensors and thermal imaging to detect enemy troops.
• The armor is almost immediately given additional prototype upgrades, such as thrusters, surveillance drones, wrist-blades and active camouflage.
  • The active camo allows Spartans to walk right in the middle of a group of soldiers without them noticing.

Neural interface / Onboard Computer
Mjolnir armor is linked to Spartans with a neural interface, which means they simply have to think and the armor would perform an action. Combined with the onboard computer, it allows Spartans to do things such as place Waypoint markers, or targets on their HUDs with a thought.

• An example of its use during a fight, John can move his limbs with a thought to overwhelm attackers.
• The suit 'knows what John is thinking before he does', it's able to control the suit functions and John can control the suits thrusters with his thoughts.
• The onboard computer can predict where artillery shots would land during an artillery barrage, and guide them to safer locations.
• Spartans can share targeting data.
• Mjolnir's onboard computer can place HUD markers at designated targets.
• The onboard computer can calculate probable landing zones for enemy dropships.
• Mjolnir predicting the optimal time to dodge plasma cannon fire from Banshees.

MJOLNIR Mark V - Deployed almost two and a half decades after the previous iteration of MJOLNIR, the Mk V now possessed recharging energy shields but retained the same double strength multiplier as the Mk IV.

• General description, it includes two major improvements being the addition of rechargeable energy shields and the ability to house an AI (See previous Cortana section).
• The suit has sound receivers that can hear a whisper a hundred meters away.
• Energy shields begin regenerating 5 seconds after last being hit and take 4 seconds to fully recharge from a total drain (Gameplay).

Cortana - Cortana is the AI that was paired with Master Chief for Operation: REDFLAG, she is present for the feats that occur while John is wearing MJOLNIR Mk V and most while wearing Mk VI.

• Cortana provides tactical and strategic information to John in the field, is able to infiltrate computer and communication systems and greatly improves John's reaction time.

Hacking

• Cortana was loaded with ONI's best insurgency/hacking software in preparation for Operation: RED FLAG.
• While put to work checking the ssytems of a UNSC warship, Cortana runs through ONIs computesecurity systems on the planet Reach for fun, easily overwhelming other ONI AIs.
• She hacks a Covenant carrier, first from the outside disabling it's weapons and communications systems for a short while, allowing her squad to board it. Then when aboard the ship she develops a path for her ground team, gives false tracking info to the Covenant hunter-killer teams and ultimately vents the ships atmosphere killing most of the thousands of Covenant aboard.
  • Outside of Cortana, the Covenant were generally far above the UNSC in terms of network security, with Dr. Halsey comparing the Covenants understanding of human systems within a few weeks of first contact to the UNSCs understanding of the Covenants after several decades.

MJOLNIR Mark VI - Due to the UNSCs rapid advances in technology, the Mk VI was deployed less than two months after the Mk V rendering it obsolete, containing major improvements in both shielding and stat multipliers.

• The Mk VI increases the wearers strength by a factor of 5, making them 2.5x stronger than in previous Suits. The Suit also has self contained biofoam injectors, pumping Spartans full of the UNSCs miracle drug in case they are ever injured.
  • Biofoam stabilizes most wounds and allows limited combat ability even in the event of limb loss.
  • A Spartan suffering from a gruesome headshot has his wound filled with biofoam and is back in combat within a relatively short time.
• The Mk VI's energy shields are much more powerful and recharge a lot faster.
• Energy shields begin regenerating 4.25 seconds after last being hit, and take 1.75 seconds to fully recharge from a total drain (Gameplay).

MJOLNIR GEN 2 - The second generation of MJOLNIR armor developed after the Human-Covenant war ended. Every aspect of the armor has been improved upon and thrusters are now built into each set of armor, drastically increasing maneuverability.

• Every suit now comes with built in thrusters.
  • Spartans can use their thrusters to effectively fly.
• The armor expects when combat is coming and optimizes it's systems automatically.
• GEN 2 armor has 360 degree vision that sees far into the EM spectrum.
• Magnet Boots - Allows Spartans to fight while walking vertically down the side of a skyscraper sized ship.
• The armor has self repair systems in case the shielding and suit is ever pierced.

Skill

Unarmored

• At the age of 14, John kills/cripples four ODSTs easily. - literature version
• John alongside three other Spartans capture a bunker from guards wearing the Mjolnir Mark I armor, which would have taken 2 to 3 platoons of Marines to capture. - Mjolnir Mark I info/picture.
• Spartans have been trained to fight in zero gravity.
• Spartan IV candidates are trained in several martial arts such as Aikido, Jiu-Jitsu and Krav Maga. Presumably the Spartan IIs are heavily trained with them.

Mk IV

• At the age of 15, John alongside Kelly, Fred and Linda wiped an army of well over 100 Covenant, including several Elite Ultras, Zealots and a Field Marshall.
• John and his Spartans are trained to identify high value targets based off subtle visual cues, making it easy to snipe enemy commanders.
• While defending a planet over the course of a few days, John alongside the rest of Blue team destroyed over 100 Wraith tanks.
• Speedruns through a Covenant carrier alongside Fred and Kelly.
• Both Dr. Halsey and Cortana conclude John is overall the best Spartan.
• He has been awarded every major service medal except the Prisoner of War Medallion.

Mk V

• During Johns testing for the Mk V armor, he faces off against a fighter jet that is so fast it regularly travels in and out of visible range. John tanks it's 50mm autocannons, then deflects and tanks an anti tank missile, afterwards sprinting away at 66 mph though he tears his Achilles tendon doing so.
• While fighting a particularly massive (10 ft+ tall) Sangheilli in low gravity, John uses his skill to beat the Elite even though they were evenly matched in strength.

Mk VI

• John escapes deadly situations so often that he almost believes that death is optional for him.
• He's confident he can wipe out an entire Covenant unit of 50 infantry and 4 Wraith tanks without any heavy weapons, but he chooses to save a group of soldiers instead.
• Merks 40+ Brutes by himself.
• Each Spartan II has 'the equivalent combat power of an entire Sector Fleet'.
• John is proficient in all aspects of infantry tactics, as well as low gravity combat. He is able to effectively lead detachments the size of battalions, and UNSC personnel of all ranks generally defer to his leadership.
  • John was offered to be made an Admiral by the UNSCs Fleet Admiral and head of their Security Council, but he refused.

GEN 2

• Alongside Blue team, John fights through a massive army of Prometheans.
• Spartans are able to punch out the Warden Eternal while evading his sword swings.

Strength

Unarmored

• During John's first time working out while recovering from receiving his augmentations, he notes that 1 G of gravity feels too light and 2 G's feels more normal.
• 14 year old John breaks the bones of ODST's and disfigures them with his strikes.
• At 14 years old, Spartans could not train against normal humans anymore due to repeatedly killing them by accident, so their trainers had to be placed in Mjolnir Mark I armor.
• At the age of 14, John kicks a man wearing a MJOLNIR Mark I exoskeleton eight meters away.
  • Another child Spartan could dent the heavy metal plates of the armor with his punches, the armor is impervious to light weapons.
• At the age of 14, John wrenches and rips a 30 millimeter minigun off a MJOLNIR Mark I exoskeleton with his bare hands.
• Shortly after receiving their augmentations, Spartans could lift three times their body weight.

Mk IV

• The Mk IV doubles it's wearers strength.
• During Johns first test of MJOLNIR he could shatter concrete targets with a punch
• John lifts a Spec Ops Elite overhead and folds him on his own energy sword.
• 15 year old John lifts and throws a cargo sled that was large enough to haul an entire platoon alongside a couple of pieces of artillery, and long enough to hold two Spartans lying end-to-end.
• John buckles the leg of a Special-Forces/Bloodstar Elite sideways with a stomp.
• John beats the arm of a Silent Shadow Elite until it's wrist is snapped sideways.
• Effortlessly punches through a weapons locker that was undamaged by a man bashing it with a large gas canister.
• John can effectively wield 110 kg Gauss cannons and use them for hit and run attacks against a column of 50 Covenant tanks.
• At the age of 16, John is able to withstand 12 metric tons of force on his legs.
• While 16 years old, John gets pinned down by an alien spider-like vehicle that was larger than a Warthog but it doesn't crush him, he is able to partially lift it. He also implies he has pushed Warthogs off of him before.
• Rips a steel and bullet-proof glass security door off of its steel reinforcing on a wall.
• An Insurrectionist general believes John can rip him in half.
• Crushes a Jackal's skull with a kick.
• John, alongside three other Spartans (one of whom was injured and missing an arm) push a 3x3x6 meter quartz monolith, an object that would weigh over 125 metric tons.
• John travels while carrying a half-ton Spartan over his shoulder.
• The Franchise Development Director of Halo, Frank O'Connor, states that Spartans can flip and bench press tanks, which correlates with their in game ability to flip tanks.
  • Halo CE's manual states that flipping vehicles is accomplished by his strength.
  • While flipping tanks is a high end / outlier for Spartans wearing earlier armor, GEN 2 wearing Spartans have been shown flipping tanks with only the shock wave of their strikes.

Mk V

• The Mk V possesses the same 2x strength multiplier as the Mk IV, so he should be able to replicate these feats in the previous Mk IV section.
• Runs through a field of razor wire, snapping them effortlessly.
• While specifically holding back to not kill them, John cripples many ODST's who are trying to kill him. Notably John breaks alot of bones, pulls a gun that is being held by an ODST so hard his shoulder dislocates, and bends the barrel of an assault rifle rendering it useless.
• A trio of Grunts landing on him and attempting to take off his armor is laughable to him.
• Caves in the skull of a Grunt with a pistol-whip.
• A melee attack breaks a Jackals energy shield gauntlet and launches him off of a cliff.
• Flips a Warthog.
• Flips a Warthog again but this time from grabbing it by the bumpers.
• Cracks the spines of a pair of elites with his strikes.
• Punches through a human skull inside a Flood Proto-Gravemind
• Crushes the skull of an elite with a punch and again reiterates he is strong enough to flip Warthogs.
• Crushes the skull of a Grunt with the butt of his assault rifle.
• Spartans are able to punch though tank armor.
  • Wraith armor is completely impervious to .50 caliber AA rounds.
  • Wraiths are durable enough to tank shots from their own mortars, which vaporize titanium battle plate, concrete and flesh within a twenty meter radius.
  • Spartans wearing Mk IV are shown in official artwork to be able to rip open tanks and toss armored Brutes (>1 metric ton) away with one arm.
  • A random Spartan wearing Mk V is able to destroy Covenant tanks in H2H, and several Spartans hold off a Covenant army of 30000.

Mk VI

• The Mk VI increases the wearers strength by a factor of 5, making them 2.5x stronger than in the previous Mk IV and Mk V Suits.
• Punches through the head of a Jackal.
• Tosses a Brute behind him.
  • Armored Brutes weigh over a metric ton.
• John can punch through UNSC ship metal.
• Tanks a melee attack from a Promethean Knight, then punches it off of him.
• John can rip off the arms of Promethean Knights and impale them with it.
  • Promethean Knights are strong enough to toss around Warthogs which weigh 3 metric tons.
• John stabs into the hull of a Lich (Covenant ultra heavy siege platform) while free falling with no leverage.
• John can overcome an Elites energy shielding with a single punch.
• Pushes and kicks a missile hammer several meters. (A 2x3x1.5m block of Titanium which is roughly the dimensions of the missile hammer would weigh over 40 metric tons.)

GEN 2

• Lifting Warthogs (3 metric tons), bending steel and shattering concrete is a baseline feat for all Spartans, not indicative of their limits.
• John shatters a Battle Rifle by hitting Spartan Locke with it.
• Overpowers Spartan Locke.
  • Locke is strong enough to flip over a 42.3 tonne tank with the shock-wave of his attack, effortlessly fly and run through walls as well as tackle aircraft out of the air, and boost through the bulk of a massive stone statue.
• Spartans can snap the necks of Elites.
• Spartans can instantly kill an Elite with a two-handed strike.
• Spartans can rip through Forerunner Armigers.
  • Forerunner Armigers are strong enough to throw humans dozens of meters away.
• Spartans can kill a Forerunner Armiger with a stomp.
• Spartans can punch out the legs of the Warden Eternal.

Durability

Mk IV

• The Mk IV doesn't possess energy shields, it relies entirely on the armor plating for protection.
• The armor has a refractive coating to help disperse incoming energy attacks.
• During Johns first test of MJOLNIR, bullets were harmlessly deflecting off his armor.
• The Mk IV can tank numerous Covenant Carbine shots, though they come close to penetrating the armor. Covenant Carbines fire 8x60mm projectiles at hypersonic (mach 5+) velocities making them far more powerful than almost any modern small arms.
• A .50 caliber depleted uranium round fired from an AA gun glances off John's armor.
  • [Limit] A young Kelly states that sustained fire from that weapon would penetrate the Mk IV.
• Tanks fire from hundreds of skilled marksmen with their rounds only 'dinging' his armor.
• Tanks plasma fire from a Covenant Ghost.
  • Ghost plasma is stated to be 5000 degrees.
• Tanks the nearby detonation of 1 MT nuke (John was at ground zero and had only 30 seconds to sprint away before it detonated).
  • Nukemap stats - Because the event was on a moon with minimal atmosphere and gravity, the heat and radiation figures are much more important.
• Tanks Covenant Needle and Spike rounds that can separate an ODST into pieces.
  • In the same novel it's stated that ODST's wear bullet proof armor that is effective at tanking armor piercing rounds, and someone wearing that armor harmlessly tanks small arms fire from several shooters.
• Tanks several Needle Rifle shots, with the needles shattering off his armor.
• Shrugs off being directly hit by a Hunters 2 ton shield.
• Spartans can tank anything short of a direct hit by a Wraiths plasma mortar, which vaporize everything within a 20 meter radius.
• Tanks Plasma Rifle fire from a hundred Drones who were chasing after him.
• Harmlessly tanks a nearby grenade detonation that spatters his faceplate with shrapnel.
• Spartans in Mark IV have similar durability's to light tanks.
• Covenant Needler shots bounce off his armor.

Mk V

• The Mk V is the first armor to possess energy shields, with each further iteration of armor gaining much more durable energy shields.
• A three round burst from an MA5B assault rifle drops his energy shields a 'hairbreadth'.
• Tanks shots from 30mm chainguns without even noticing he was being hit and without his energy shields breaking.
• Tanks 50mm autocannon fire from a jet without his energy shields breaking.
• Tanks the detonation of a nearby Scorpion missile designed to take out tanks. He was launched six meters and the missile itself created a two meter deep crater, though his energy shields did break.
• Covenant Needler shots bounce off his energy shields.
• Tanks a lifeboat crash that ripped open the craft and mangled everyone else aboard.
• Tanks a shot from a Hunters fuel rod cannon without his energy shields breaking and can tank direct hits even when his shields are low on charge.
• Tanks a melee hit from a Hunter while his shields are already low from tanking a fuel rod shot.
• Tanks an explosion from crashing a Banshee into a wall without any injuries.

Mk VI

• Tanks crashing into the Titanium hull of a warship at an extremely high velocity.
• Unharmed by a nearby Wraith's plasma shot which killed three other soldiers who were further away from it than him.
• Unfazed by a massive explosion.
• Tanks plasma fire from 6 Hunters.
• Tanks the detonation of a point blank plasma grenade that vaporizes a Brute Chieftain and scorches close to a dozen nearby Grunts.
• Tanks a fall from orbit onto the Earth, and while his armor locks up automatically due to the impact, John himself is uninjured.
  • Official artwork shows John falling from orbit.
• John tanks the laser blasts of 343 Guilty Spark, a Forerunner Monitor.
  • Another Spartan wearing slightly worse armor tanks more Forerunner monitor attacks, which are powerful enough to vaporize Hunters who weigh 5 metric tons and are covered in starship armor.
• Tanks being hit by a Warthog at very high speeds.
• Tanks a fall from orbit onto the planet Requiem completely unharmed, crashing into a lot of debris along the way.
• Tanks a melee attack from a Promethean Knight and punches it off of him afterwards.
  • Promethean Knights are strong enough to knock around Warthogs which weigh 3 metric tons.
• Unharmed after being thrown into a wall extremely hard by the Didact.
• Tanks a slipspace rupture crash that creates a massive crater from his impact (Ghost for scale).
• John had his evolution accelerated by the Forerunner known as the Librarian, giving him an immunity to the Composer which digitizes living creatures.

GEN 2

• Survives getting his head crushed by the Didact, then being thrown into Fred extremely hard.
• Tanks an extremely deep fall without any problem.

Speed

Unarmored

• John notes how objects appear to move in slow motion to him shortly after receiving his augmentations
• Special Forces appear similarly slow to John.
• John could move in blurs and was able to dodge point blank stun rounds from a 30mm cannon.
  • Another child Spartan dodges the stun rounds in mid air.
  • 14 year old Kelly dodges fire from several shooters and is too fast for the self-targeting system to track.
• At the age of 14, Spartans could sprint at bursts of 55 kph (~34 mph) and had estimated reaction times of 20 milliseconds, though they would likely be significantly higher in combat due to adrenaline. This is shortly after they received their augmentations and is expected to increase as their bodies adjust to the changes, and likely as they age as well.
  • Spartans experiencing the world in slow motion due to adrenaline is something they refer to as 'Spartan time'.
• [Limit] John is unable to completely dodge close range fire from three shooters, getting hit by three bullets.

Mk IV

• The Mk IV increases it's wearers reaction times by a factor of five. Their reaction times were previously given to be a low end of 20 milliseconds, meaning with Mk IV it is at a low end of 5 milliseconds.
• The first thing John does in MJOLNIR is move his arm almost FTE to his already augmented self.
• During Johns first test of MJOLNIR at the age of 14 he was fast enough to dodge bullets.
• Evades fire from hundreds of skilled marksmen while he was in a low gravity environment that limited his maneuverability.
• Moves to block a Needle Rifle shot after it was fired.
• Moves out of sight of several people faster than they could see.
• Jogs at 25mph for 10 kilometers alongside other Spartans.

Mk V

• ODST's move in slow motion to John.
• Dodges bullets after they are fired by an ODST, and again but after they are fired by three ODST's and again.
• With the help of Cortana, John deflects a Scorpion anti-tank missile that was tracking him.
• Immediately after tanking an anti-tank missile, John sprints ~66 mph across a half-kilometer distance though he tears his Achilles tendon doing so.
• He's able to dodge the laser weapons of Forerunner Aggressor sentinels.

Mk VI

• Immediately sprints at a speed of ~45 mph from rest.
• Intercepts and blocks a Covenant Beam Rifle shot after it's fired from roughly 30 meters away, which is a weapon that fires at ~Mach 10.7.
  • Another Spartan wearing the same armor dodges beam rifle shots twice including once from point blank. It's also being fired by a specialized Spartan Sniper if there are any doubts on it's accuracy.
• Maneuvers in mid-air to dodge gunfire from numerous Brutes.

GEN 2

• Spartans can avoid a sword swing from the Warden Eternal without even looking.

Marksmanship

• While running, John scores several headshots on Jackal snipers with his pistol.
• While Sprinting at around 45 mph, Chief is able to land multiple head and neck shots on several Jackal snipers who are around 30 meters away from him, shooting fast enough that his Magnum shots bleed together.
• Spartans can routinely land accurate sniper shots over a kilometer away while they are on the move.

Mobility

• John could balance atop and leap across ten meter tall wooden poles 10 centimeters in diameter even though he weighs half a ton in his armor.
• Spartans can jump ~25+ meters vertically onto a moving vehicle using his thrusters. (Mammoths are 27.1 meters tall.)
• Without using thrusters, Spartans can leap into the air 'like crickets' and engage aircraft.
• Spartans can easily scale cliffs.
• Spartans in GEN 2 armor can use their thrusters to effectively fly.

Endurance

• At 15 years old John is capable of sprinting 7 kilometers while expecting to do combat immediately after.
• 16 year old Blue Team covers 19 kilometers in 33 minutes, stopping twice to do weapon checks, running on rough terrain with support equipment, and running with their weapons in their hands. Roughly 24 mph sustained over 19km, with no intended rest before initiating combat.

Other Spartan Feats / Additional Scaling

Weapons / Equipment

Enemies / Additional Scaling

The four Spartans that composed Blue Team covered his back, standing absolutely silent and immobile in their MJOLNIR combat armor. Someone had once commented that they looked like Greek war gods in the armor … but his Spartans were far more effective and ruthless than Homer’s gods had ever been.

Two months ago I launched my first Steam release into Early Access, Starcom: Nexus. My personal inspiration for the game was an ancient DOS game called "Starflight" that I loved as a kid. I wanted to create an open-world universe full of mystery that combined the joy of exploration with the joy of blasting alien ships until they explode like piñatas.
Here is an inchoate collection of my rambling notes on the journey so far.
An open-world RPG is a very ambitious project for a solo developer. While it's my first Steam game, it's not my first game. I've released two moderately popular Flash games (and another Flash game that never really found much of an audience). My second Flash game was a space combat game called Starcom released waaay back in 2009. Players' enthusiasm for that game is what convinced me to begin work on Starcom: Nexus. Still, this was going to be bigger in scope, technical risk and literal scale than anything I'd done before by, well, a lot.
One of my earliest and biggest regrets is that when I released the original Starcom Flash game, I never included a way for players to connect with me. It's been played over two million times by hundreds of thousands of players, most of whom are probably unaware that Starcom: Nexus exists.
Years later, in 2014 I added info to the game that led players to a survey and mailing list form, but due to the viral nature of Flash games there was no way to update most copies of the game that are out there. Even though I'd missed the bulk of players by that point, there was enough of a positive response to convince me of a potential market for the game.
Shortly thereafter I started on what would be the first iteration of Starcom: Nexus (then called Starcom 2) in Unity. I spent the next few months cobbling together a prototype in my spare time that had the basic mechanics, but failed to "find the fun." Frustrated, I put the project aside.
Fast forward to 2016, I decided to give the project another go, starting from scratch again but sticking with Unity. Again, I worked on it between contract projects.
By March 2018 I decided I needed to make a decision. I had spent an estimated 2000+ hours (including untracked overhead) and several thousand dollars on the project. Up until this point I'd alternated between treating it as a sort of hobby project and a real job. This pattern had allowed me to make progress while also earning money doing "real" work, but without concrete deadlines and constraints it was easy to see how the project might go on indefinitely and never coalesce into a completed product.
I didn't take the decision lightly. I've read quite a few stories and postmortems of indies who had followed the exact same path as me only to release their game to a fanfare of crickets. And that's ignoring the countless devs who never even get that far: they work for years on a passion project only to put it down one day and never pick it back up.
Having put so much time into the game, it seemed terribly painful to deliberately choose that second option. But going forward on that rationale alone was the epitome of the sunk-cost fallacy. I decided to re-evaluate the project's prospects using the Bygones Principle of "How realistic is it that if I continue, the game will justify its future costs?"
At this point, the Steam achievement data "leak" hadn't happened yet, so I was forced to rely on fuzzier methodology. I compiled a spreadsheet of games that shared multiple attributes with mine. The results were all over the place, but there were some encouraging points. There are plenty of examples of indie games in the genre that sold tens of thousands of copies without triple-A or even triple-I quality levels. On the other hand, more recent titles seemed to be faring less well. Whether this was due to the "indieapocalypse," survivor bias in my search results, or simply a change in market preference was unclear, but suggested I needed to adjust my expectations accordingly.
Still, if I could release the game in some form by early 2019 and keep external costs low, it seemed realistic that it could achieve some level profitability using the more forgiving "forward cost" metric.
To minimize the risk of catastrophic failure I added two constraints to the project:

• I had to reach some deliverable in the next 12 months that would provide a concrete metric for sales. The most likely candidate being an Early Access release on Steam.
• I had to start taking marketing seriously.

Marketing

Marketing has never been a particularly strong suit of mine. I think most indie developers can empathize: we really want to believe that if we work hard and make a great game, sales will take care of themselves. I'd much rather understate the qualities of my game and have people be pleasantly surprised when it exceeded their expectations than be telling everyone my game was awesome and hear people say "meh, you spent how long making that?"
But all my research has consistently pointed at one conclusion: the success of a game on Steam depends almost entirely on reaching its market before launch.
Aside: By the time Starcom: Nexus launched, I had compiled a spreadsheet following 120+ games' along with pre-launch followers (which is a rough proxy of market awareness) and first week review counts (which is a rough proxy of sales). The Pearson correlation was 0.91, which is pretty darn high compared to the other tea leaves of marketing data.
As I mentioned earlier, I had setup a mailing list so that fans of the flash game could sign-up for news. These were my Glengarry Leads: the people most likely to purchase the game. As of May 2018, I had about 400 subscribers, although I wasn't sure how many were still interested or even using the same address since the list had been created in 2014.
I also had about 75 Twitter followers and a newly created Instagram account.
Since then, I've kept a marketing-specific journal of my activities and progress. I won't fill up this space with its minutiae, only give a high level accounting:

• I spent at least 10 hours a week doing some kind of marketing activity. Most of it was a complete waste of time. I discovered indie marketing is like buying lottery tickets, except instead of spending money you spend time, creative energy and money.
• Twitter wasn't a complete waste of time. It's mostly devs tweeting to devs, but some of the first small streamers to pick up the game found me via tweets.
• Instagram was a complete waste of time. The game has a lot of pretty visuals from its planets and planet anomaly renderings that I thought would be well suited for Instagram. But despite thousands of followers and hundreds of likes for every post, I have never seen any connection between posts and incoming traffic to the Steam store.
• Personally contacting streamers and content creators produced results. One of my first curator reviews, Brian of Space Game Junkie, covered the game after I contacted him via Discord. I individually emailed 85 Youtube streamers, ten of whom eventually created videos. These were mostly smaller streamers, but a couple generated over 1000 views and one of the larger streamers generated 20k views. These produced a non-trivial percentage of the game's total pre-launch wishlists. (Average daily wishlisting was low enough that it was pretty clear where a particular spike came from.)
• I emailed about 20 press contacts with no major coverage, although PCGamer did mention the game in a post on "Five new Steam games you probably missed."
• I spent over 50 hours creating the game's trailer
• In the final push, I hired a freelance PC marketer to help with some of the ground work and contacting additional press/streamers (tavrox).

The single take away I'd give is that I spent a lot of time getting word of the game out there. Often with no result, but I don't know a better way; there was no magic channel that drove most of my visibility. Indie games are competing with hundreds of other quality titles at any given time and they're all vying for the same attention.

Beta Tests

One of the aspects of Starcom: Nexus's development that I feel was an unqualified success were the beta tests.
You can't spend thousands of hours developing a game and still be able to look at it objectively. There are inevitably areas that you understand so intuitively you're barely aware of their presence but will confound players. Or conversely, there may be parts you've gone through so many times you can't imagine how anyone could not find them tedious, but still would delight the first time player.
Effective beta testing meant putting the game in front of real in-market players. While many developers conduct beta tests in person so they can observe the results first hand, I conducted all tests online. I did this for two reasons: First, I considered it important that the testers be representative of my market, for which the best source was my mailing list. (For obvious reasons in person tests wouldn't be practical for subscribers scattered all over the globe.) Second, I wanted the experience to be as close to that of an actual customer as possible: playing at home, on their own time, without the developer lurking over their shoulder.
Since I wasn't going to be there, I needed some way to collect objective analytics data and players' subjective experiences.
I looked at Unity's analytics system and found it wanting: it seemed to be exclusively focused on mobile monetization models with DAU tracking, retention, funnels, etc. but no way to ask the data the questions I wanted the answers to. Most critically, there didn't seem to be a way to follow the experience of a single player from launch to final quit and imagine their experience.
Fortunately, I came from a web dev background, and was able to put together a basic event tracking system using PHP and MySQL in a day. On top of this, I added an in-game feedback system patterned after the one in Subnautica. At any point in the game, players could (and still can) press F8 and a dialogue will pop up allowing them to report their experiences.
The admin side is pretty ugly, but with access to the data I could tell:

• At one points in the game were most players quitting and not restarting?
• What percentage of players were consuming all the content?
• How many players were finding the various hidden conent?
• What exceptions were getting thrown?
• What framerates were players getting?
• How often did players choose to go "off path" and explore on their own vs. follow the natural path of the game?
• How long did it take players to reach the end of the content?

The first round of closed betas had a fairly small sample (only 10 actually started the game) but told me two important things: One, half the players stopped playing very quickly, without ever making it more than five minutes in. Two, other than that the game was in significantly better shape than I thought. Of the five players who didn't stop in the first five minutes, all of them consumed the entirety of the game's content. Previously I had guessed that the game had about 40 minutes of content, but the analytics showed that the median time to end was closer to two hours.
Tweaks to the game subsequently demonstrated that the early drop out rate was due to players needing a bit more direction on what to do at the start.
Over the next five months I conducted a total of five closed betas with over 120 players who submitted 250 in-game comments, plus loads of additional suggestions via email or Discord. Their data and feedback helped eliminate a large number of bugs and design problems that otherwise might not have been found until the game entered Early Access and I'd learned about them via negative reviews.
Some additional tips on Beta Testing:

• The first round of beta tests was download only. Problematically, Windows will put up a pretty scary warning message for unsigned applications that it doesn't recognize and this may have contributed to the low participation rate. In subsequent beta rounds I gave players the option of both a Steam key and a direct download.
• For Steam keys, players had to reply to the invite email requesting the key and were notified that the key would expire on launch. I did this primarily because I believed the early momentum from first day sales is pretty important to Steam's algorithm. But I subsequently discovered another reason: at a certain point after announcing one of the beta rounds, someone started stuffing the mailing list with dozens of email addresses in a short period of time. I suspect it was a key scammer hoping to get keys they could resell after the game's launch.
• The closed beta helped build the game's mailing list. It also, I think, got players who were invited more excited about the game and in building the community.
• As an incentive to participate, beta testers got their name or handle in game credits.

The Launch Window

I had been soft-promising a 2018 Early Access release in my promotional materials. After the first round of closed Betas in August, it seemed that was a very reasonable goal. Entering Early Access in 2018 would be ahead of my schedule target. I would have some concrete sales numbers that could tell me if I needed to wrap up Early Access quickly or if I could justify spending more time on creating more content and features.
There's a lot of uncertainty around how wishlists convert to initial sales and how those initial sales portend long term sales. Jake Birkett's survey suggested that the median game will see 0.4 sales for every wishlist in the first week. But his sample size was very small: removing the top outlier cuts that number almost in half. Also, the data includes both full releases and Early Access titles and was collected from games released back when Steam had much fewer new titles being released. So I considered 0.15-0.25 to be a more realistic multiplier.
A week after making the game's Steam store page live in August, I had 150 wishlists. Clearly not enough; I decided not to commit to a release date until the game had at least 2000 wishlists. That number didn't guarantee profitability by a long stretch, but it was a number that made it likely the game would at least cover its external costs at a minimum.
For the first few weeks the store was open, wishlists advanced by about a dozen a day. Then in September it got its first bump when Space Game Junkie gave it a curator review. A small Youtube Streamer, Dad's Game Addiction did a video that eventually got 2000 views. Then another mid-sized genre channel and another. By mid-October I'd hit 2000 wishlists. In contacting these streamers I'd mentioned a 2018 release date and having hit the minimum target I felt fairly committed.
If you've read any guides to launching an indie title, you probably know a) don't launch during E3, b) don't launch in October or November, and c) for god's sake don't launch in December.
The biggest specific title I wanted to avoid launching near, Star Control: Origins, had already released. The second biggest specific title I wanted to avoid, X4: Foundations, was scheduled for late November. If I wanted to give it a wide berth, I either had to rush the release, release in mid-December, or postpone to 2019.
After checking the various upcoming releases I noticed that there really weren't a lot of big scary titles in December. And at this point we were close enough to December that I expected the biggest titles to have been announced.
Going back through recent years I noticed that there didn't really seem to be any concentration of big games that launched in December. And there were a number of potentially competitive space-themed games vaguely threatening to come out in "early 2019."
It's a typical example of a game marketing problem: you're presented with an important decision, minimal or incomplete information, and you'll never know if you really made the best choice.
I decided to go with December 12th as the target release date.

The Launch (with numbers)

Okay, I know a lot of you read none of that and just skipped ahead to see some numbers. I do that too, but I think there is some useful information back there for aspiring solo devs and small studios.
I have been described by more than one person as "stoic." But in the days immediately leading up to pressing "the button" I was a nervous wreck. My (very supportive and patient) wife would repeatedly assure me that I was not pressing a button that would end the world or even my world. No matter what happened, we'd be okay.
I'd been working 60 to 70 hours a week for months to get to this point, which wasn't even the end, but a sort of half way point in the marathon in which you find out if you had already lost but still had to keep running.
On the path to Early Access release I'd spent 3800 hours over the equivalent of 16+ full time months and approximately $10,000 of my own money on external costs (character portraits, music, assets, LLC formation, etc.)
In my marketing journal, I had made a prediction that there was an "80% chance it will sell between 400 and 2000 copies. If I had to pick a number, I'd say 800, but I have to admit there's a wide range of uncertainty." I considered anything below 250 copies "catastrophic failure" and anything below 500 copies a significant disappointment.
At launch, from Steam's data I had driven roughly 40% of the visits (via external websites and direct search results) and Steam had delivered the rest, primarily via the Discovery Queue and Currator recommendations.
The game entered Early Access priced at $16.99 with a 15% discount.
Within 72 hours of launch the game had recouped its external costs and by the end of the first week on sale it had sold 1560 copies.
As of writing, two months after launch the game has sold over 3200 copies netting roughly $28k after Steam's cut, chargebacks, VAT, etc. Somewhat "mysteriously" the game's anonymous analytics report 6000 unique players.
For a solo indie game dev's first Steam release, I think that's fantastic.
It still remains an open question how much total revenue the game will generate over its lifetime compared to the time I eventually end up spending on it; it still has a ways to go before it recoups even its "forward cost" threshold outlined earlier. There's quite a range of possible "tail shapes" for the game, and a particularly large uncertainty around the effect of Early Access graduation. But I'm happy to report that the game is doing well by my expectations.
TL;DR:

• External development costs: ~$10,000
• Development time to EA launch: 3800 hours, 16 months
• Wishlists at launch: 3600
• Price: $16.99 (15% launch week discount)
• First week: 1500+ copies sold
• First two months: 3200 copies sold, $45k gross, $28k net
• Sales to review ratio: ~33:1
• 92% positive review rating out of 97 reviews

This turned out a lot longer than I planned, but I hope many of you find some useful information in there. Thanks for reading! (Edit: And thanks for the gold and platinum!)

Previous Posts in this series:
India - u/llyyrr
England - u/heatedpete
West Indies - u/ser_poopy_butthole
Pakistan - u/areeb07
Squad
Batsmen : Kane Williamson(c), Martin Guptill, Colin Munro, Henry Nicholls, Ross Taylor
Bowlers : Trent Boult, Lockie Ferguson, Matt Henry, Tim Southee, Ish Sodhi
All-Rounders : Colin de Grandhomme, Jimmy Neesham, Mitchell Santner
Wicket Keepers : Tom Latham, Tom Blundell
ODI Form
WWWLLLWLWWW
ODI Ranking - 4
Fixtures
June 1 - v Sri Lanka
June 5 - v Bangladesh
June 8 - v Afghanistan
June 13 - v India
June 19 - v South Africa
June 22 - v West Indies
June 26 - v Pakistan
June 29 - v Australia
July 3 - v England
New Zealand face low ranked teams early, which could provide them with a headstart in the tournament. Also, this could be an opportunity for them to try out different combinations and/or strategies, so that they are fully prepared to face the bigger fishes later on.
Probable Starting XI

1. Martin Guptill
2. Henry Nicholls
3. Kane Williamson(c)
4. Ross Taylor
5. Tom Latham(wk)
6. Colin de Grandhomme
7. Jimmy Neesham
8. Mitchell Santner
9. Matt Henry
10. Trent Boult
11. Lockie Ferguson

Key Players
Ross Taylor - Arguably their best ODI batsman in the current moment. Over the past 24 months, he has been in some exceptional form. And his ability to switch gears and go all aggressive makes him a key player in their squad.
Kane Williamson - Eventhough his recent IPL season wasn't up to the mark, he still remains one of their stabilizers. Kane has groomed his aggressive game over the past few years, so again, like Ross, they would need him to fire consistently.
Trent Boult - He will be leading the kiwi pace attack in the World Cup. Also, looking at the massive scores which are being scored regularly on the English decks, Boult's ability to take wickets with the newer ball would be in need.
Players To Watch Out For
Martin Guptill - He is an experienced veteran of the white ball game. And, New Zealand would depend on him for brisk starts. Despite of his weakness against the spinners, the english wickets would play out in his favour. Another double ton? Only time will tell.
Mitchell Santner - He has been rapidly improving his batting over the course of the past few years. He played a match winning cameo for his franchise in this year's IPL. Add his cunning bowling variations into the mix. They would depend on him to take up the finishing role in case they would want to play 5 proper bowlers.
Lockie Ferguson - He has been in some stellar form when it comes to bowling in the middle overs. His pace would be the key. On the english wickets, his ability to generate bounce and deceive the batsman with occasional slower ones would be handy. NZ needs him to step up, to strike a few wickets of the opposition in the middle overs.
Strengths

1. Strong middle order
2. In form bowling core
3. Neesham's twitter bants

Weaknesses

1. Lower order batting. (Decent but not great)
2. Inconsistent opening stands.
3. Kane's weakness for the Oye-Hoye™ Trophy.

Prediction
NZ will give a strong fight to the other contenders for the 4th position, namely, Pakistan, West Indies and South Africa.
Things to discuss

1. Should Munro open the batting or should they have an additional finishe6th bowling option in Neesham?
   
2. Should Sodhi play in the starting XI. If so, then whose place does he take?
   

Hi, everyone! I'm posting very early because of the 14 hour time difference. I'll be around late afternoon US EST to answer any questions. Enjoy!
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Section One: Assets and Debt
Retirement Balance: $183,040. Our combined balance between Australian superannuation and US 401K. Life insurance and disability insurance policies are paid out through my husband’s super account at $1,150.00 annually.
Home Equity: $493,000 on a 2 bed/1 bath apartment with a large courtyard in the inner Eastern suburbs of Melbourne. The property was purchased by my husband prior to our relationship for $273,000 with $70,000 down. He is a frugal person and works in a lucrative field, so he saved a ton in bachelorhood to make the investment. He rented it out while living in the US for several years to cover mortgage payments. We are now joint owners and the unit was appraised at $600,000 this past year (who knows how that will drop in the looming recession but we don’t plan to sell).
Savings Balance: We pool all of our money into an offset checking account so that the interest on our mortgage loan is reduced. Once we finish the mortgage, we will be moving our emergency fund ($50,000) into a HYSA and then look at sinking funds for our other savings, which include an annual travel fund ($6,000)*, gift/holiday savings ($900)*, pet medical expenses ($300)*, and vehicle maintenance ($600)*.
\Reflects the current balance at the time of the diary, not the total annual amount saved.*
Checking Balance: $65,000 but this includes our savings due to the fact that it’s an offset account. We’ve taken a few big blows this year because we both left our jobs for a two month US road trip 10 months ago, prior to me getting pregnant/moving to Melbourne (YOLO it was worth it). We also had the cost of a shipping container for the move ($6,500) and vaccinating/shipping our cat ($5,700) to Australia. Additionally, we bought a 2014 SUV in cash when we moved here ($10,000) because new cars are absurdly expensive in Australia and I didn’t want yet another monthly expense.
NOTE: I also hold a US checking account in only my name as a stipulation of staying at home with our kid(s). It’s got $10,000 to get out and back to the US in a rental with any kiddos, which I feel is just the smart thing to do. We also have wills and a post-nuptial agreement regarding the division of assets.
Investment Account: We only have one so far for a total of $5,000 through Vanguard. We’re refocusing our savings towards investment now that we have our emergency fund full.
Family Trust Account: We have a trust for our son to use in adulthood. The balance is $50,000 and it is all from an inheritance my husband received from his late godfather.
Credit Card Debt: N/A, we pay the balance in full each month and use points for family travel.
Student Loan Debt: N/A, this has recently been paid off. The total was approximately $130,000 for a combination of 2 Humanities Bachelor’s degrees, 1 STEM Bachelor’s degree, 1 STEM Master’s degree, and 1 Humanities Master’s degree. If you divide it by the total number of diplomas, we got a good deal (lol kill me). We both have/had careers directly relating to our degrees, so it wasn’t a total waste but definitely my personal greatest financial mistake (guess who likes the Humanities?).
​
Section Two: Income
I work as a Freelance Transcriptionist/Soon-to-Be Stay at Home Mom (currently v pregnant). Prior to quitting my job, I was the director of my department and working in Information Management. My husband works in Implementation for a software company. I am paid on a weekly basis and my husband is paid monthly.
Main Job Monthly Take Home:
Husband: $10,410.00 + $1,500.00 superannuation contribution by the company.
Side Gig Monthly Take Home:
Me: ~$750.00 after I set aside a portion for taxes but it varies.
Monthly Take Home Total (excluding superannuation): $11,160.00
​
Section Three: Expenses
Monthly Fixed Expenses
Mortgage: $1,826.00 - we have $107,000 left and will own outright in five years
Council Rates: $175.00 - billed quarterly
Owner’s Corporation Fees: $165.00 - billed quarterly
WateHot Water: $81.00
Electricity/Gas: $100.00
Husband Private Health Insurance: $198.00 - paid to avoid the Medicare Levy Surcharge at tax time, which would be $4,500+.
NBN Internet/Two Cell Phones: $182.00
Home Contents and Car Insurance: $104.00
Kayo Sports Subscription: $14.00 - we share a basic account with a buddy who pays $11 monthly for his portion.
Netflix: $13.99
Other Subscriptions (Cloud Storage and Amazon Music): $9.50
Annual Expenses: $26.50 - we have annual expenses such as pet registration with our Council, footy club memberships, etc. and I just include the monthly portion of the total annual cost.
​
Monthly Savings Contributions
Home Savings: $2,000.00 - New category since we’ve replenished our emergency fund. We want to save to build a larger home in about five years. All leftover discretionary money is put here.
Travel: $1,000.00
Gifts/Holiday: $150.00
Pet: $50.00
Vehicle Maintenance: $100.00
Investment Accounts: $2,000.00 - We have just started dipping our toes in investing and do so in blocks of $5,000.
​
Day One: Sunday June 9
4:30 AM: I wake up because my kitty has turned her head to snore directly into my right ear. Since I’m 7 ½ months pregnant, any waking up means I’m now committed to staying up for at least the rest of the morning so I turn on my heated blanket, take thyroid medication with a pint of water, and grab a coffee.
6:00 AM: Text back and forth with my husband (S) since he’s currently in the US on a work trip. He’ll be back in a couple of days and I miss him but I’ve been enjoying having the bed (mostly) to myself. I update him on North Melbourne’s footy game from last night while eating muesli and yogurt. Once we say goodbye, I stream the replay through my Kayo app to our bedroom TV. We don’t pay for cable (basic service is free here) but I follow the NHL, my husband follows Australian cricket, and we both follow the AFL and US college basketball. We can stream live games from every league to our smart TVs, so it’s a huge value for us sports nuts.
10:00 AM: I doze in bed for a few hours and complete one transcription project through Rev, which pays out $30 for an hour total of work. There are far fewer jobs on the weekends but it’s also easier for me to claim them on US-based sites because of the time difference. I’m going to my friend’s (J) dinner party tonight and have offered to make desserts, so I need to get my ass in gear. I shower and complete my AM skincare which consists of: Fresh soy face cleanser, Timeless Vitamin C serum, Klairs moisturizing toner, a royal jelly essence whose origins I can’t trace, Neutrogena Hydro Boost Gel moisturizer, and Biore Bright Milk SPF 50+.
2:00 PM: I’ve finished making a disappointingly small apple pie and huge pan of triple chocolate brownies. I go to our office/nursery and pick up another transcription job, which is shorter than the last and pays $27. All of my earnings are untaxed, so I automatically divert a portion of every month’s profits to pay US taxes as an independent contractor. I never owe a lot because I don’t earn much; transcription is more a way for me to retain a sense of independence and keep my brain sharp than a huge income source. When I brought up staying at home, S helped me figure out a setup that made sure I kept parts of my life separate from being a mom and wife.
3:00 PM: My husband FaceTimes me from NYC so I can talk to one of my best friends and his husband (who is one of S’s best friends). They’re hosting S for the fun part of his US trip and it’s so good to talk to them. We chat for almost an hour and it’s actually really painful to finish the call but they all need to go to bed. I decide to text my friend to schedule a regular call because he expressed feeling really isolated since we moved.
6:00 PM: J’s husband (M) swings by to pick me up for the dinner party so I don’t have to get a cab. We lent our car to my in-laws this past week as they’re driving family from out of the country to see Adelaide. M is a very long-term friend of my husband’s and they work together too - we have predictable friendship patterns. These two are my favorite Aussie couple and some of the sweetest people I’ve ever met. They’ve really bent over backwards to make me feel at home in Australia.
1:00 AM: J outdid herself with an amazing lamb roast, roast spuds, and a spinach and feta pie. I got to meet a few other friends of hers, spend time with lots of cute kiddos, and had such a good time. We stay up super late talking about work, politics, and life in general but I’m dead on my feet, so I call a car and head home. ($10.93 - Transport)
Daily Total: $10.93
Day Two: Monday June 10
9:00 AM: I’m finally up and feel like I’ve been hit by a bus. Is there such a thing as a lack of sleep hangover? Kitty escorts me to the kitchen for medicine, water, and coffee. I get back in bed when my mom asks to FaceTime, so I talk to her for a bit but it leaves me super upset due to some really cruel/critical things she says. My relationship with my parents is tenuous at best due to a long history of abuse and this conversation really pisses me off. I text my sister for advice and open up to my mom about my issue over a text message. I get an “I’m sorry that’s how you feel” and decide to just freeze her out of my life further. I’ve been slowly putting limits on contact with my parents for a while now at the suggestion of a therapist and haven’t gotten any signs from the universe that it’s a bad idea yet.
11:00 AM: Stress eat peanut butter toast and an apple.
12:30 PM: Take a bath and text with S while he’s waiting to catch his final plane out of San Francisco. We talk about the stuff with my mom and he doesn’t think I’m overreacting, so I feel a bit better about my decision to be honest with her even though I didn’t get the reaction I was hoping for. I suspect my stress is more of an anxiety attack since I’ve had to go off of my SSRI during pregnancy. In general, it’s been pretty manageable but I’m more easily impacted by negative interactions. I do a few loads of laundry and tidy the apartment to distract myself.
2:00 PM: A flat-faced cat rescue that I follow posts on Facebook about a GoFundMe campaign that they’ve started to pay for medical treatment of three special kitties. I make a one-time donation and share the link. ($50.00 - Other)
7:00 PM: I’ve done two small transcription jobs for a total of $46.00. It’s already dark outside since we’re in winter, so I reheat some pappardelle ragu for dinner and curl up in bed again with kitty. We start watching Happy! and I’m hooked - Christopher Meloni is amazing.
8:30 PM: I go to bed early after so little sleep last night. The baby is not on board and seems to think he’s Lord of the Dance as soon as I turn over.
Daily Total: $50.00
Day Three: Tuesday June 11
6:30 AM: I wake up to a text from S saying that he has just landed. A short time later he calls and offers to pick up Macca’s breakfast on the way home because he’s an angel. I order a sausage and cheese McMuffin, hash browns, apple juice, and large skim cappuccino. ($25.93 - Food + Drink)
7:40 AM: He’s here with our car - and food! We kiss hello and immediately get down to breakfast and gossip.
11:00 AM: I’ve managed to eat basically everything in the house over the past week so we head to Cole’s for a big shop. We end up with kiwis, bananas, strawberries, apples, oranges, lemons, broccoli, iceberg lettuce, carrots, brussel sprouts, asparagus, double chocolate muffins, tomato and cheese rolls, shredded tasty cheese, string cheese, ramen noodles, wet cat food, chocolate chips, 0% Greek yogurt, salsa, salted butter, chocolate Fibre One bars, ranch dressing, taco seasoning, low carb tortillas, a two plug adapter, dryer sheets, garbage bags, frangipani soap, laundry detergent, fruit and nut muesli, unsweetened almond milk, frozen veggies, beef mince, salmon steaks, streaky bacon, chicken breast, scotch fillets, soft drinks and cordial, regular and garlic pappadums, gummies, shredded coconut, bread, and flavored popcorn. ($187.67 - Food + Drink)
3:00 PM: I complete a lengthy transcription job which pays $70.00. Some of the material I get is so bizarre and fascinating — it definitely keeps an otherwise monotonous job interesting. This audio was a podcast interview of psychic mediums and it made me feel like a super grounded person, so that’s always good.
6:00 PM: S and I have both been grazing all day so I just roast brussel sprouts with bacon and honey for a light dinner. Our upstairs neighbor keeps beehives at a family farm just outside of the city and we got a big jar of local honey from her that I’m crazy about.
8:00 PM: I want some alone time so I shut myself in the office and setup my drawing easel. I’ve drawn my entire life and especially enjoy doing portrait work - I can get lost in the process for hours and it’s so meditative. Once my back hurts too much to keep going, I pack up and resolve to find a life drawing group in Melbourne to replace the weekly sessions I did in NYC.
Daily Total: $213.60
Day Four: Wednesday June 12
4:30 AM: Kitty wakes us both up by sprinting in circles around our bed and screaming for food. She is promptly booted out the door and we try to get back to sleep but it takes me until 6.
7:30 AM: Wake up again and put on the morning news while I enjoy a double chocolate muffin and a cup of coffee. I check my email to find out that I was granted a personal lot in our community garden ballot! The annual fee will be $100, due in August, and I’m going to be growing produce to supplement our food shops. S has moved to working from home most days (we share the office when I pick up transcription work), so I run to chat with him about the garden until he needs to get on a conference call.
9:50 AM: I am converting my US licence to a Victorian one today, so I catch an Uber to VicRoads in Carlton. My driver and I chat a lot about Melbourne’s infrastructure, the differences between Australia and the US, and the experience of immigrating. We arrive in no time and I’m even early for my appointment. ($12.62 - Transport)
10:40 AM: Success! I have no idea how heinous the picture came out but I’m going to receive my 10 year Australian licence in a week or two. ($276.70 - Other)
11:00 AM: I catch another Uber back home and this ride is silent, so I scroll through Reddit and my emails the whole time. Once I’m home, I heat up a frozen meat pie for S and eat a tomato, cheese, and bacon roll for my own lunch. ]($11.78 - Transport)
3:00 PM: A friend of a friend swings by to drop off a box of baby items that she put together for us. We just met a few weeks ago and she’s kindly gifting us all the leftover baby supplies from her two kids, including a nice carrier and tons of adorable clothing. I offer her a cup of coffee but she has to run back to work, so I say goodbye and happily lug the box inside.
5:00 PM: It’s hella early but I’m so hungry already. I make beef soft tacos with a side salad for dinner and eat them on the couch while balancing the plate on my belly. I also pull a butter chicken base I made last week out of the freezer to thaw overnight.
6:00 PM: We spend the rest of the night watching the news and then the Australia vs. Pakistan match of the Cricket World Cup. I humor the cricket because my husband rubs my feet the whole game.
Daily Total: $301.10
Day Five: Thursday June 13
4:30 AM: Welp. I’m up because I passed out really early, so kitty and I head to the kitchen for medication and water.
5:45 AM: I eat a bowl of muesli and yogurt while browsing baby items on Amazon. My US jewelry insurance provider refunded me a portion of my premium from last year ($57) after I cancelled the policy, so I’m going to get a couple items to use up the credit on my AmEx. End up with a baby bath, hooded panda towel, bag hooks for our stroller, and a NoseFrida (ahhhh, parenthood!). ($56.19 - Home & Health)
9:00 AM: We are in the midst of working to have our owner’s corporation manager removed and will also be taking her to court in the future for monetary compensation but this kind of shit takes so long. I’m in charge of collecting ongoing evidence of her lapses in service, so I fire off an email that I know will get completely ignored. She hates me and is pettying herself into a financial pit but that’s not my problem.
12:00 PM: I go to our garden to measure the perimeters for a sketch I’m working on. My in-laws have a handyman neighbor that’s between jobs right now and we’ve been wanting to revamp the yard anyway, so I’m working on what amounts to a set of before and after blueprints for him to reference during the renovation. While I’m outside, I rake and sweep up halfheartedly since a storm will undoubtedly come soon and undo it anyway. Back inside I eat a double chocolate muffin, an apple, string cheese, and garlic pappadums for “lunch” while I draw.
3:00 PM: I actually got a response from the body corporate manager which answers none of my questions but does state that I am horribly behaved and rude because I haven’t adapted to Australian customs. Super normal reply to a request for files; I’m saving this one for later. Did I mention we pay this old bat’s salary?
6:00 PM: Completed two transcription jobs for a total of $42 today. It’s dinner time so sous chef kitty helps me make butter chicken with garlic naan and cauliflower rice. Since I stay at home, I obviously cook dinner more often and have been maintaining inventory sheets for our freezer and pantry. They help to cut down on food waste and double purchases, especially for tinned goods and meat.
10:00 PM: We head to bed after staying up late (hahaha) to watch a footy match. I do my PM skincare routine before falling asleep which consists of: DHC oil cleansing, Cerave Hydrating Cleanser, Klairs moisturizing toner, Laneige overnight lip mask, and Creme de la Mer. Slug life.
Daily Total: $56.19
Day Six: Friday June 14
5:30 AM: Wake up and do the normal morning routine. Once I have coffee, I head to our office because S said he was going into work today instead of remotely. This week has been a bit slack on the transcription, so I claim two jobs in a row for $57 and get moving.
9:00 AM: Break for yogurt with strawberries and muesli. S comes in to kiss me goodbye and I go take a shower once he leaves.
10:30 AM: Do some grooming on kitty and then get back to work. So many of the files today sound like they were recorded inside a toilet tank but I finally find a really long focus group video to work on. It’s a verbatim job, which entails capturing every single stutter, false start, and interruption. These are my specialty because they pay the best and are the least popular. I tend to include too much detail in my transcriptions naturally, so I prefer verbatim requests. The job is $75 for 3 total hours of work.
1:45 PM: Make a beef and cheese quesadilla with a side of roasted broccoli for lunch. That file was rough listening so I decide to call it a day early.
3:00 PM: I bake peanut butter cookies and listen to The Adventure Zone podcast.
6:00 PM: S is home and I get started on dinner. He also hands me his receipt from lunch at the fish and chippy so I can log it in the spending spreadsheet for June. I make scotch fillets with harissa/garlic roasted carrots and asparagus. Kitty sits in the high chair and patiently watches the process; I like to think I’m The Barefoot Contessa of cats. ($13.00 - Food + Drink)
8:00 PM: The rest of the night is dedicated to footy. We do manage to go over S’s billable hours since he’ll be taking his four weeks of annual leave when the baby arrives. He’s been maximizing his hours over the past few months to ensure a good bonus (typically an additional $10,000 to $20,000 annually). The bonus is never accounted for in our budget since it’s variable, we just throw it in savings when it arrives.
Daily Total: $13.00
Day Seven: Saturday June 15
7:30 AM: Kitty and I wake up on the couch because we moved out here around 4 AM. Our bed retains so much heat and I couldn’t fall back asleep after my customary late night pregnancy pee. I take my medication and make coffee. S is up too and the three of us crawl back in bed to watch the morning news.
9:00 AM: S makes bacon and scrambled eggs for breakfast in bed. Once we eat, I help him organize his receipts and submit expenses from his work travel.
11:00 AM: There’s a super saver matinee deal going on at the nearby cinema so we make plans to see _Men In Black: International_ this afternoon. S buys the tickets online and also purchases vouchers for a regular soda and popcorn each through our bank’s app. They have a deal with Hoyt’s Cinemas on discounted tickets and concessions for credit card customers. The bank tickets are always cheaper than those through the cinema but are only available for weekday movies and anything before 2 PM on weekends. It would be truly frugal to bring our own drinks and snacks since Hoyt’s allow you to carry in anything, but I am obsessed with movie theater popcorn and fountain soda. I’d rather spend the extra money and make the trip more enjoyable. ($47.36 - Entertainment)
1:45 PM: We get to the theater, grab our food, and have our parking ticket validated. That’s the big thing I miss about Brooklyn - we didn’t ever have to drive/find a park and I consistently walked 5+ miles a day.
4:30 PM: The movie was cute but it’s basically a standalone and hardly seemed to be part of the original franchise. S and I chat about the stoned kid next to him who ate an entire bag of gummi worms during the previews and browse the shops. It’s the end of the financial year here so everybody is doing huge sales.
4:45 PM: Grab an adorable fleece onesie with little bear ears on the hood at Cotton on Kids. We discover afterwards that there is also a little tail on the butt. ($15.00 - Clothing + Beauty)
7:00 PM: We meet J, M, and their kids out for dinner at a Ichi Ni Nana. S and I get spicy edamame, miso soup, wagyu sliders, veggie gyoza, barbecue pork bao, and a banoffee dessert to share. S also has a couple beers and we throw in cash for our portion. ($90.00 - Food + Drink)
9:00 PM: Home and in a food coma. We talk to the baby for a little bit and fall asleep with kitty in between us.
Daily Total: $152.36
Weekly Total: $797.18
​
Spending Breakdown
Food + Drink: $316.60
Clothes + Beauty: $15.00
Home + Health: $56.19
Fun + Entertainment: $47.36
Transport: $35.33
Other: $326.70
​
Reflections
Aside from the cost of my licence conversion, this week is fairly typical although we would normally have an additional night out. It’s winter here and the weather is crap, so we stayed in more than usual and I’d estimate we typically have another $50 in food/drink expenses per week from a pub night.
I’m happy with our current planning and think we’re on the right track for our financial goals. I’m challenging myself to hit a record high with my transcription income next month before the baby comes but that’s just a personal goal.

Sports betting website development services have taken leverage in the past one year. The task of predicting results of sports matches and the way to place bets on the outcome of any sports match or events is a great way to accomplish revenue followed by a huge fan base. While sports betting games like cricket and football include people earning their bread and butter, however, it also includes people who bet for entertainment. You can provide millions with the platform to bet using the right sports betting API.
A bet has two possibilities. Either you win, or you lose. Bookmakers or bookies are the companies that provide sports betting services for the betting agency. Betting exchange is the service provider who offers a marketplace. The customer or the candidate who places a bet is called Punter.

WHAT DO YOU MEAN BY A SPORTS BETTING API

API is an application programming interface that is set between two websites to fetch data from the other. The website provides an application programming interface that creates flexibility for the other site. Ones the application programming interface is implemented to one website, the website that is executed will have access to all market odds.
Also Read: A GUIDE TO AN ADVANCED MULTILEVEL BETTING EXCHANGE PLATFORM

NEED A SPORTS BETTING API

The entrepreneurs have taken sports betting to a new level by providing a common platform to all the sports lovers. This concept of best sports betting API has provided wagers to sports lovers and service providers, through which the customers are also benefitted and earned a significant profit in the market.

WHICH ARE THE BEST SPORTS BETTING API PROVIDERS?

A number of sports betting API has made entry to business and some have become the leading sports betting API provider in the market. Here are some of the list:

• Bet Fair- The Betfair API, is the only platform that is the torch bearer to this world as they are the ones who introduced the online betting exchange and still stand as the big fish of the ocean. They are the largest platform of the world for online betting and by using Betfair API exchange, developers can create the best betting tools and interface to use with sports exchange and generate great revenue. Some features like finding markets, current bet details, bet placing, checking history are the key aspects of Betfair API.
• SharkScope- The best service provider with all information on poker tournament results. Through this developers can add real money to the games without any hassle. They have the possibility of having data about players and their playing streak over time. The SharkScope API offers the developers to integrate the information into their developed apps. Developers can develop apps on SharkScope tracks using the company’s comprehensive API.
• Pinnacle Sports- Pinnacle Sports API provides the clients, and its participants access to an XML API that provides live odds and enables the clients to place bids directly. The sports betting API is an online service that includes all the information on betting on various sports like football, soccer, baseball, rugby.
• eODDMakers- eODDMakers analyze services using Odd makers engine with the necessary information that keeps them updated with market sports. Through this API developers get access to integrate the database with the respective applications. With the help of eODDmakers , get JSON and XML betting feeds that prove beneficial pre-match and live in-play betting odds.
• Betable- With the help of Betable’s, the developers can add real-money legally to the games without the hassle of the cumbersome and costly processes of obtaining a gambling license. Betable API enables developers to get legally formatted a platform to bid using real money on the respective applications. Therefore, making it possible for the developer to add a variety of games to bid using this API.

SPORTS BETTING API PRICE

Please do not consider the cost as the deciding factor while you invest in sports betting API. The owners do not generate revenue when they lose a bid but also get a commission when they win and the adds that appear on the website give another fixed income.

HOW TO INITIATE PAYMENT FOR A SPORTS BETTING COMPANY FOR SPORTS API?

The primary area of concern is the cost and flexibility of the mode of payment when one decides the project. Depending upon the policies of different best sports betting website development company in India, either you are asked to take things digitally or use currencies.
Read More

Sports betting is beginning to go mainstream also. The thing that was mentioned using a wink and a nod would be currently discussed publicly. There are shows on major sporting programs that pay to wager daily. It’s really a boom time for sports bettors, and also the playing field is still open for those who are not used to the match.
Retail sportsbooks and gambling apps are still established in legalized countries. Because of this, gaming lovers have lots of legal on the web and portable sportsbook options. Online sports betting sounds somewhat complicated at first, but it is going to feel a whole lot less foreign when you get some experience.
This guide intends to help decrease your learning curve tremendously. Let us start out with the basic principles.

• What’s Sports-betting?

Bettors try to predict the outcomes and create their very best bet on which the result is. Bettors an average of a bet with a sportsbook. Odds-makers at the assorted novels will put lines or chances for its readily available wagers.
Essentially, chances clearly show the chances of a certain event occurring. Additionally, they indicate the potential yield for all those that gamble successfully. Sportsbook provides a vast selection of markets. From leading sports like NFL gambling along with NBA gambling to niche offerings like cricket along with rugby, you will discover lots of wagering opportunities out there. The very same applies in regards to betting types.
The most ordinary bet simply entails selecting a winning side. But, you will find lots of different means to bet and facets to think about. Sports betting is a popular pastime that’s bringing more attention thanks to legalization in several markets.

• Sports-betting 101

You are brand new to sports gambling and prepared to begin. Now what?
Beginning any new undertaking might be overwhelming initially, but a lot of times you’ll find it isn’t really that tough once you start grinding. That is true with sports gambling. Much like many other scenarios, it is ideal, to begin with, the fundamentals and builds from there:
Advantages of sports-betting: Sports gambling has ever turned into a blessing for every one of those countries that have ever entered. A clinic that has been illegal has become generating additional tax revenue. What’s more, occupations are and continue to be established in each new industry.
Steps to Start Betting on Sports: it may not be much easier to begin gambling on sports betting. Most operators are working out the legal niches, and enrolling in an account using them is just a snap. From that point, you are able to remove and add funds from the accounts easily and start researching chances.
The Mechanics of sports-betting: Among the coolest things concerning sports gambling is that you’re able to get as complex as you prefer at your own pace. It is possible to keep it simple and follow the fundamentals or dip in with both feet to boost your level of skill from the beginning. That is ultimately your decision personally; also there isn’t any wrong or right strategy. It boils down to a question of what is most effective for you personally.
Knowing the chances: that really is a place that could confuse those brand new to the match. A brief, chances inform one of that the suggested probabilities and possible yield for powerful wagers. For a simplified case, negative chances imply a well-liked and less yield potential. While favorable chances point out an underdog and also the capacity for larger yields.
For every one of those categories, there exists a ton more to comprehend proceeding forward. As you progress, you’re able to research issues, like chances, in a great deal more detail. Provided that those foreign notions will develop into something that you know well.

• Things to Bear in Mind

Sports betting can be exceedingly enjoyable, and additionally, there is the opportunity to earn a profit whilst doing whatever you like. That is clearly a win-win scenario, however, additionally, it is critical to get into it using a transparent mind.
Almost always there is the prospect of hitting a significant parlay you are likely to have rich using overnight. A sports betting is hard and maybe quite a grind, but that is also part of this allure. Begin sports gambling using realistic expectations sufficient reason for a laser-like give attention to being more disciplined. For all those not used to the match, you need to think about the money you’re wagering as a portion of one’s entertainment budget.
Just bet what you’re comfortable gambling and do not exceed this amount. There’ll be a lot of time and energy to enlarge your bets as your skills improve; therefore there is no requirement to dash it as long as you are learning. Last but most certainly not least, bear in mind this is something which you ought to discover entertaining and fun. In case it stops sense like this — or in case you struck on the inevitable losing series — you shouldn’t be reluctant to simply take a rest. Having a step backward and forth representing somewhat will permit you to tweak your approach and plan where required. Obtaining a breather and obtaining additional view might cause one to feel rejuvenated if you are prepared to play.

• Just How Do Sports-books Generate Income?

Sportsbook operators are for-profit entities. Therefore, they are not only providing a gambling market place out from the goodness in the hearts. The target for these may be exactly the very same as you: to earn money. Novels that do not accomplish that goal won’t be around as long. Odds-makers who always have a beating will gradually be trying to find a fresh field of work. Nevertheless, the overwhelming bulk of operators that are established are excellent at what they’re doing.
They turn into a profit as an outcome. Therefore, just how do they accomplish so? Sports-books earn money by the commissions that they collect for shooting action on stakes. That can be known as the vig or even juice. Let us consider a good illustration working with a normal group of point spread odds of -110.
In case your bet is more correct, you are going to reunite 0.90, and that’s the own 0% bet and a benefit of .90. So just why not double your funds? That is since the bookmaker has essentially maintained a proportion of their yield for themselves. Additionally, think that the operator can also be taking bets on each side of the equation.
In an ideal environment, they’ll receive even actions on each side. 1 / 2 of those stakes will likely triumph, as the spouse will probably soon lose. The internet of the things they collect, no matter what they cover out, reflects profit. Obviously, maybe not all of the stakes will bring even actions, which explains the reason you are going to observe chances move once they have been published. In case the book maker’s accountability using a single side of a result gets too great, they’ll create the likelihood a little more positive on the opposite hand to draw in more activity.
Mistakes Need to Avoid
Whenever you’re beginning with something brand new, it’s vital to see that there is going to soon be a learning curve. Mistakes will occur on the way, however, you are able to study on everyone and boost your general knowledge base.
If it comes to sports gambling, you are likely to make mistakes. You’ll miss something which appears obvious on your handicapping ahead of this match. Or you can set a bet on chances that unexpectedly turn into far more positive on the negative you’re leaning. It’s going to occur, and there is absolutely no solution to protect against every mistake. But, you’ll be able to prevent many big pitfalls which might create your sports gaming profession shortlived.
Do Not Chase Your Losses: You are likely to drop a few stakes. Any sports bettor who lets you know to win all of the time is not really being honest. When reductions happen, analyze the reason why suck it up and then proceed. Don’t make an effort to “get “ by Slimming down since you are “because of a win” Which is an instant recipe for tragedy.
Do not Bet On your mind: It is critical to own a crystal clear funding in mind for their own sports gambling console. Simply deposit that which you could manage to reduce, and also withstand the desire to go ahead when things are not moving away. If your long term budget has been gone, then simply take that as a chance to have a rest and return back into it having a transparent head.
Do not Be Unrealistic or over-estimate Your Skills: From nature, most sports fans are enthusiastic. Some people may take this for the extreme and feel as though they’re always right and therefore are not able to create a lot of money gambling. You shouldn’t be this guy or woman. Understand that you are going to have work to accomplish aside from your sports consciousness grade, and keep your profit aims reasonable.
Sports gambling can be considered a wonderful source of entertainment and also a potentially rewarding enterprise. Nevertheless, the probability of happening increases whenever you stop the aforementioned advantages.

FC Internazionale Milano 2018/19 Preview

by members of FCInterMilan
About:
After a schism with Milan Cricket & Football Club, some of the directors got together at a pub and created a separate identity, FC Internationale Milano with the famous words;
"This wonderful night bestows us with the colours of our crest: black and azure against a gilded backdrop of stars. It shall be called International, because we are brothers of the world."
It took just two years for Internazionale Football Club Milano to win what was the first of 18 Scudetti for the Nerazzurri. The Golden period was, undoubtedly, from 1960-68, which gave us 2 European Cups, 3 Scudetti, & numerous other finals appearances & other smaller titles. It's known in our history as 'La Grande Inter.'
All-in-all, we're known for the Italian Treble, a history of good players, never having dropped down to Serie B, and unleashing what went on to become the bible of Italian football, the World renowned 'Catenaccio'.
Stadium: San Siro
Capacity: 80,018
Manager: Luciano Spalletti
Website
FCInterMilan Subreddit

2017/2018 Season Recap

Pos	GP	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	PTS
4	38	20	12	6	66	30	+36	72

What went right?

Most importantly, Inter brought in Spalletti, a tactically competent manager who knows Serie A very well and has proven to be a leader since the first few training sessions. (He told a fan off who was insulting Ranocchia during training). Inter was supposed to go big in the transfer market this season, being linked with the likes of Di Maria, Arturo Vidal and Nainggolan. However due to Financial Fair Play and the Chinese government putting a limit on foreign sport investments, Inter fans saw their high expectations crushed. The summer 2017 mercato was underwhelming, but functional. Some old, unhappy or deadwood players were sold or loaned (Palacio, Banega, Kondogbia, Biabiany, Gabibench). Inter then got a defensive leader in Skriniar (A masterstroke by Ausilio), who exceeded all expectations and helped Inter to be the 4 the best defence in Serie A. Cancelo was Serie A’s best right back, after he settled into the team by December. The promising young Karamoh became a fan favourite. Borja Valero guided our midfield well throughout the first half of the season but was completely exhausted in January.
Due to limited player options Spalletti's robust play (mostly wing dominant) was great until the winter. Once opposing teams realised that, instead of trying to stop Icardi, that if they cut off the wings, Icardi was useless & suffocated, the whole complexion of the games changes. Inter dropped a lot of points to mediocre teams. Ausilio, under the guidance of Spalletti, then went about trying to rectify the situation by bringing in Rafinha. Within a couple of games complexion of play changed, with him lighting up the midfield and attack in the second half of the season, contributing to the run for CL.
Spalletti also halted Brozovic’s transfer to Sevilla on deadline day in January and changed his position, putting him as regista for the tired Borja Valero, with outstanding results. When Icardi was injured, Eder was put as a starter and stepped up, netting 3 goals in 5 matches. Icardi did what he is paid for and secured the title of capocannoniere alongside Immobile with 29 goals each. It is his highest Serie A tally so far.

What went wrong?

As explained previously, tactics got stale, and opposition adapted. Candreva, supposedly a flying winger, couldn't score a single goal all season. Bereft of his pace, his crossing was wayward too. Furthermore, since no European nights were present, squad was thin. Once Perisic suffered a drop in form, and Valero showed his age, the effect on the results was brutal.
Other than that, no significant injuries were suffered. Spalletti did well to navigate a really tricky season, and Ausilio did well to help the team on in January, when zero funds weren't available.
(by u/head_in_the_clouds69)

The Critical Last Match of the season:

It came down to the final matchday: Lazio - Inter in Rome. Inter started the match dominating in possession and Lazio very aggressively pressing them high in their own half, managing to win a ball and get a nice action going which finished with a shot by Marusic, which would have gone wide out but was unfortunately deflected by Perisic’s face to make a very unlucky own goal in the 9th minute.
Inter started pushing, but took some risks as Milinkovic- Savic hit a post on a freekick and Lazio had a few decent chances. The goal came in the 29th minute when the corner taken by Brozovic was chested goalwards by the D’Ambrosio, which Strakosha managed to block off with his hands before D’Ambrosio hit it in the net with some sort of bicycle kick from behind the keeper. In the 41st minute Lazio hit again on a textbook counter with an amazing through ball by Senad Lulic to Felipe Anderson who was too speedy for D’Ambrosio and slotted it perfectly past Handanovic. Inter comes out for the second half attacking, Lazio trying to hit on the counter. To spice things up in the second half Spalletti brought on Eder for Candreva (someone please take him) in the 63rd and the young Karamoh for Rafinha, who had a hard time unmarking himself between the lines and played a poor match, in the 68th minute.
In the 75th minute Inzaghi makes a choice that would later reveal its importance, by taking of Immobile (who was injured prior to this game) and putting a swole fullback, Jordan Lukaku (same build as his brother at ManU), defending the 2-1 lead. Two minutes after the substitution De Vrij, who signed on a free with Inter 3 weeks prior fouls Icardi in the box, who would have had free shot on goal otherwise. Icardi steps up to take it as cool as a cucumber with his usual composure from the penalty spot to tie Immobile as joint top scorer with 29 league goals. A minute later Lulic gets his second yellow for an unnecessary tackle on Brozovic in Inter’s half of the pitch, stupidly giving Inter the edge over the remaining 15 minutes.
Inter puts in Ranocchia as a third CB to have an advantage on set pieces and play some sort of 3-5-2, going all in. In the 81st minute on a corner both Ranocchia and Vecino make a run to the first post, the ball flying millimetres over the head of the CB before being headed in by Vecino who was just behind him: LA PRENDRE VECIIIIIIIIIINOOOOOO! Inzaghi puts on Nani for De Vrij in desperation but Lazio can’t turn it around anymore, Inter go to Champions League on level points with better head to head record.
Shout-out to Walter Zenga, who, even as the coach of another team, kept Inter in his heart, and without who's contribution (his team drew 2-2 against Lazio in the match before Inter's), Inter would not be in the Champions League this season.
Match highlights
What the fans think (by FCInterMilan):

1. What important bits are noteworthy for the casual fans?

(by u/vik1980):
Suning's Importance
By the time Moratti sold the club, it was in complete disrepair. A couple of decades of indulgence & excess as drained the club. We no longer had the young talent to guarantee a future, or the funds to throw at young but proven players. Thohir's importance in the turnaround cannot be overstated. His involvement was akin to finding a banged-up sports car and giving it a complete engine overhaul, and a spanking new paint job. Only Thohir was only in it for the short-term. He never planned on starting a new era. Thankfully, he achieved his goals fantastically. He turned the club around, and then found an owner who had the long-term view Moratti longed to see at the club. Suning's time at the club is making to buying a first-class sports car, and them assembling a complete racing team around it.
They've only continued Thohir's initiative of opening up Youth Academies all around the globe, with reports of them cropping up in Asia, Africa & South America like wild mushrooms. They're also not just taking a long-term view, by concentrating on young players only. By their eagerness to bring Modric, they show their football knowledge. Modric's game or physical built is not one that'll age poorly. And his recent performances in the World Cup and influence in Real Madrid's Treble (3xChampions League) means his brand value in China will push Inter to the next level there.
Furthermore, they've been involved in everything concerning not just the club, but football in general. They've been involved in buying Serie A telecasting rights for China, along with other major leagues. This, along with their ownership of Jiangsu Suning FC means they're in it for the long haul. Their goal is to not just spend money and taking Inter to the top (like Abrahimovic at Chelsea) before losing interest. They plan on making a whole business in and around this sector, calling it Suning Sport. Suning is a multi-billion dollar company and have already established great contacts with the owners of Atalanta & Sampdoria (two clubs with notoriously good youth development track record).
Given all these facts, once Inter can free themselves of FFP, their might on the transfer market will really begin to shine through, and the fact that they have a team in China too, means they'll also attract massive fans there, and tempt big names into accepting Inter before going for the golden ticket in China. Simply put, Inter's current cycle is a snowball rolling down a mountain. It'll only get easier to turn it into an avalanche.
Spalletti's Influence
In all this, it's impossible to overlook Spaletti's influence at the club. If Ausilio is doing such a wonderful job in the transfer market, it's thanks to Spalletti clearly explaining to him the kind of players he wants for the team, and why he wants them. He also understands some of the reasons behind the club not making all the transfers he wants. This is the big difference between this market, and Mancini demeaning the sale of Icardi to fund moves for Yaya & one of Zlatan or Dzeko. If Vidal is not at Inter, it's because Spalletti deemed him 'not essential' to his project. If Nainggolan is there, it's because Spalletti clearly explained & convinced the management the reasons why he was indispensable. If Ausilio is the thoroughbred racehorse, Spalletti is the jockey on top of him. Simply put, not a single blade of grass in Appiano Gentile is where Spalletti doesn't want it to be.
Whether he ends up leading this club to eventual trophies (by way of consistent performances & results) or just ends up becoming the Ranieri to a Jose Mourinho type coach who takes the club to that next level is unimportant. Just the fact that he's the first coach since Jose Mourinho who's starting a second consecutive season at the club tells you how important his role is. He brings continuity & stability the club hasn't seen since Mourinho himself.

2. Transfers

In

Player	Position	Age	Moving from	Fees
Radja Nainggolan	MF	30	Roma	€38m
Matteo Politano	FW	24	Sassuolo	€5m loan (€20m option)
Stefan De Vrij	DF	26	Lazio	Free
Kwadwo Asamoah	DF	29	Juventus	Free
Lautaro Martinez	FW	20	Racing Club	€23m
Federico Dimarco	DF	20	Sion	€7m buy back
Samuele Mulattieri	DF	17	Spezia	Undisclosed
Šime Vrsaljko	DF	26	Atletico Madrid	€6.5m loan (€17.5m option)
Keita Balde	FW	23	Monaco	€5m loan (€34m option)

Out

Player	Position	Age	Moving to	Fees
Geoffrey Kondogbia	MF	25	Valencia	€25m
Davide Santon	DF	27	Roma	€9.5m
Nicolo Zaniolo	MF	18	Roma	€4.5m
Federico Valietti	DF	19	Genoa	€5m (buy back clause)
Davide Bettella	MF	18	Atalanta	€5m (buy back clause)
Jens Odgaard	FW	19	Sassuolo	€5m (buy back clause)
Dodo)	DF	26	Sampdoria	€5.5m
Yuto Nagatomo	DF	31	Galatasaray)	€2.5m
Eder)	FW	31	Jiangsu Suning	€5.5m
Jonathan Biabiany	MF	30	Parma	€1.5m
Federico Dimarco	DF	20	Parma	Loan
Alessandro Bastoni	DF	19	Parma	Loan
Xian Emmers	MF	18	Cremonese	Loan
Lisandro Lopez)	DF	28	Benfica	Loan return
Joao Cancelo	DF	24	Valencia	Loan return
Rafinha)	MF	25	Barcelona	Loan return

Which players are you expecting to have breakout seasons?

Lautaro:

• Given enough playtime, which shouldn't be that hard with 3 competitions, I expect he'll have a strong season. He has been doing fantastically in the preseason and I could potentially see him as a starting partner with Icardi. (by u/Cerozz)
• This kid reminds me of Luis Suarez. One can even call him a cross between Tevez, Aguero & Suarez. He's technically sound, physically strong, high work-rate and good movement. He's even a solid finished off either foot. Inter have a real gem on their hands, and if they can develop him right (not use him as a AM, Trequartista, winger, but develop him mostly as a forward), he might end up surpassing Icardi & becoming one of the best forwards in World Football. Icardi's best season, in terms of assists, was when he played with Palacio as a partner. Since then, his assists have dried up simply because there's no-one to lay the ball off to. I expect that to change this season and see him getting 8+ assists. Simply put, with Lautaro's arrival, Icardi should be both worried & happy. It'll mean the clubs dependency on him will be reduced, but it'll also mean he'll have much more of a chance to move for much higher wages. If you think it's outlandish to think this, just watch Lautaro's growth this season. (by u/vik1980)
• I am really hyped about Lautaro: his addition to the squad is exactly what we needed, last year we lacked a good back up for Icardi, which meant that Mauro had to play even when he was not 100% fit and moreover, it forced us to have basically one tactic (or slight variations of it with only 1 forward). Having Lautaro in the team increases the depth and could create a good partnership in attack. I am also hoping that Skriniar will confirm himself as one of the best CBs in the world, even in this case I think Spalletti will try to adopt the 3 atb system more often. (by u/mangowhymango)

Dalbert:

• He had a bad first year, overshadowed by the more technically gifted Cancelo. He was rumoured as flop and a few teams were interested in buying him after this decent preseason. Spalletti is forging him as he forged Cancelo, just on the left side instead of the right one. (by u/head_in_the_clouds69)
• Also, I still haven't given up on Dalbert. If he stays, I still say he'll end up surprising Inter supporters. (by u/vik1980)

Who was the best buy so far?

Asamoah:

• The left side has been plagued for years (the Dalbert experiment continues). We miraculously sold Santon and Nagatomo, and were able to snatch up Asamoah on a free. So far in preseason, Kwadwo, who was a rotation player at Juventus, has shown quality and experience. Though he may not be a flashy player, he is technically gifted and can adapt to play LB, LM and LW, works hard in training and genuinely appreciates being at the club. (by u/zodiac55)
• Another great signing. If he stays healthy he'll be a great option on the left side. He's a good veteran to have.

Lautaro:

• Lautaro will win the balon d'or in the next seven years. I fucking said it! His positioning and the way he reads the game is already on a high level. If he keeps putting in the work I think he can be one of the best players we've seen in a real long time. I'd rather not go for Rafinha and give those minutes to Lautaro. (by u/internazionale)
• Lautaro is showing in pre-season that he deserves a place. I really hope he can play alongside Icardi (whether beside or behind) in the team. He is a talent and needs to play. I'm so excited for his future alongside Icardi.

Vrsalkjo:

• I can't say much about him. I didn't watch the World Cup so I don't know much about him other than I heard he did good. That is a bit scary as Atletico fans don't seem to high on him and we all know players can perform well at the World Cup, earning a big transfer, and then flop. So I hope he does good. (by u/soulagony)

Nainggolan:

• Not much needs to be said here. He's one of the best midfielders in Serie A and the World. He will soon decline with his age and play style, but he will give us a few good years and good value.

De Vrij:

• Him alongside of Skriniar can form one of the best defences in the league. They are both relatively young and incredibly talented. I have high hopes for de Vrij.

Politano:

• Good replacement for Candreva. I'm not exactly against Candreva like a lot of people are, but if Inter are to make the next step they need to improve in quality. Politano will provide that. He's not a superstar, but he's a great pickup to provide us depth by pushing Candreva further down the order.

3. The Future

Inter's future as a well-oiled machine:

• Most of the current squad is in different age group batches. There's the 24-26-year-old group (Icardi, Politano, De Vrij, Brozovic, Vrsaljko etc.) who can keep the club rolling for the next 5-7 years, the 30+ group (D'Ambrosio, Miranda, Handanovic, Nainggolan, Perisic, Asamoah etc.) who'll add veteran leadership to this team, and the 20-23 yo's (Karamoh, Skriniar, Lautaro, maybe Keita) who'll take the club forward. Currently, the only position that'll need to get looked at in the short future is Handanovic, and being that he's a goalkeeper, that's not a pressing need at all.

Is there anything to worry about?

• One thing I'm worried about is what'll happen in the next transfer window for Inter. They'd taken Cancelo & Rafinha on loan with option to buy, but didn't, even when they played great & were integral to getting International back to Champions League football. Next season, we'll have to buy Politano, Sime, Keita and probably another midfielder (Modric, Paredes, Barella etc.). That's a lot of money committed to going out for players who'll already be here. It means that we'll only be able to pay off these transfers, but not strengthen further, unless we have an exceedingly deep run in the Champions League. While this squad won't require too much more spending, it'll still need some tune-ups, and committing an outlaw of 90-100m to retaining current players will mean FFP will be watching us like a hawk before we try to bring anyone new in. (by u/vik1980)

Predicted XI (4-2-3-1):

Handanovic;
Vrsaljko, De Vrij, Skriniar, Asamoah;
Vecino, Brozovic;
Politano, Nainggolan, Perisic;
Icardi(c)
Bench: Padelli, Ranocchia, Miranda, D’Ambrosio, Dalbert, Gagliardini, Borja Valero, Candreva, Karamoh, Lautaro Martinez, Salcedo, Keita.

Wrap Up

Shout outs: Mauro Icardi carried the team with his 29 goals, often being ice cold in crucial moments. Candreva hasn’t scored a single one; Karamoh, Eder and Rafinha and Brozovic had a total of 10 between them. The only one managing to slightly keep up was Perisic with 11 goals (+11 assists). Behaved like a true captain this transfer window, calling up, welcoming and offering to help them settle down in Milano. Also seems to have a friend + mentor role for Lautaro Martinez, which makes him seem like a veteran amongst the others, although being only 25 years old. Icardi is the kind of player of stays silent and works hard on himself and always wants to win. He might disappear in matches but in the blink of eye reappears where he needs to with a clinical finish. Mauro’s not very technical but is extremely good in the air despite being “only” 1.81m (compared to Dzeko’s 1.93m) and very clinical, needs few chances to score. He presses extremely well and seemingly without exhaustion, which I just noticed in the recent friendlies where he was on the bench and the replacements barely put any threat on the back line of the opposing team.
He is our 8th top scorer in history with 107 goals in 182 appearances and I can easily see him become number 1 if he stays for the next 4+ years. Top scorer is Giuseppe Meazza with 195 goals in 303 apps).
Summary: 'Houston, we have a project.' We sold deadwood, we kept our key players, added great functional signings and also promising talent. Aim is to create havoc in CL, considering we’ll probably get the group of death as we are in pot 4. Object is to have a good showing. Round of 8 would be good, if we aren’t drawn against a Top 5 team then quarterfinal would be absolutely awesome for this team with little experience in such a competition. In the league the aim is not to challenge Juve for the scudetto, but to firmly establish ourselves within the top 4. Will be tough considering Lazio and Milan’s good mercato and the Roma’s and Napoli’s consistency in being top 3 in recent years. However, I think Napoli might be a little weaker than last year and Roma approximately the same, has lost experience but gained a lot of unpredictability and young talent, that, if nurtured right, can give them good results.
Why like them: We're impartial to colour, race, nationality or creed. If you're a good football player and have grit to be there, there's a place for you in the team. As long as you follow the same guidelines in showing support, there's a place for you between the fans. Highest fan attendance in Italy, good tifos.
Why dislike them: You are a fan of a team in Pot 1-3 of the Champions League draw. Inter, through poor and non-existent European experience of the past, will likely be in a group of death scenario and should not be taken lightly. Apart that, there's no reason. Unless you support a rival Italian club, you can't not love the founding principles of this club.
If the team was a cartoon character, who would it would be: Popeye, before AND after he's had his spinach showing both sides of la PAZZA INTER.

By members of FCInterMilan (special shoutouts to u/vik1980 and u/head_in_the_clouds69)

FC Internazionale Milano 2018/19 Preview

by members of FCInterMilan
About:
After a schism with Milan Cricket & Football Club, some of the directors got together at a pub and created a separate identity, FC Internationale Milano with the famous words;
"This wonderful night bestows us with the colours of our crest: black and azure against a gilded backdrop of stars. It shall be called International, because we are brothers of the world."
It took just two years for Internazionale Football Club Milano to win what was the first of 18 Scudetti for the Nerazzurri. The Golden period was, undoubtedly, from 1960-68, which gave us 2 European Cups, 3 Scudetti, & numerous other finals appearances & other smaller titles. It's known in our history as 'La Grande Inter.'
All-in-all, we're known for the Italian Treble, a history of good players, never having dropped down to Serie B, and unleashing what went on to become the bible of Italian football, the World renowned 'Catenaccio'.
Stadium: San Siro
Capacity: 80,018
Manager: Luciano Spalletti
Website
FCInterMilan Subreddit

2017/2018 Season Recap

Pos	GP	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	PTS
4	38	20	12	6	66	30	+36	72

What went right?

Most importantly, Inter brought in Spalletti, a tactically competent manager who knows Serie A very well and has proven to be a leader since the first few training sessions. (He told a fan off who was insulting Ranocchia during training). Inter was supposed to go big in the transfer market this season, being linked with the likes of Di Maria, Arturo Vidal and Nainggolan. However due to Financial Fair Play and the Chinese government putting a limit on foreign sport investments, Inter fans saw their high expectations crushed. The summer 2017 mercato was underwhelming, but functional. Some old, unhappy or deadwood players were sold or loaned (Palacio, Banega, Kondogbia, Biabiany, Gabibench). Inter then got a defensive leader in Skriniar (A masterstroke by Ausilio), who exceeded all expectations and helped Inter to be the 4 the best defence in Serie A. Cancelo was Serie A’s best right back, after he settled into the team by December. The promising young Karamoh became a fan favourite. Borja Valero guided our midfield well throughout the first half of the season but was completely exhausted in January.
Due to limited player options Spalletti's robust play (mostly wing dominant) was great until the winter. Once opposing teams realised that, instead of trying to stop Icardi, that if they cut off the wings, Icardi was useless & suffocated, the whole complexion of the games changes. Inter dropped a lot of points to mediocre teams. Ausilio, under the guidance of Spalletti, then went about trying to rectify the situation by bringing in Rafinha. Within a couple of games complexion of play changed, with him lighting up the midfield and attack in the second half of the season, contributing to the run for CL.
Spalletti also halted Brozovic’s transfer to Sevilla on deadline day in January and changed his position, putting him as regista for the tired Borja Valero, with outstanding results. When Icardi was injured, Eder was put as a starter and stepped up, netting 3 goals in 5 matches. Icardi did what he is paid for and secured the title of capocannoniere alongside Immobile with 29 goals each. It is his highest Serie A tally so far.

What went wrong?

As explained previously, tactics got stale, and opposition adapted. Candreva, supposedly a flying winger, couldn't score a single goal all season. Bereft of his pace, his crossing was wayward too. Furthermore, since no European nights were present, squad was thin. Once Perisic suffered a drop in form, and Valero showed his age, the effect on the results was brutal.
Other than that, no significant injuries were suffered. Spalletti did well to navigate a really tricky season, and Ausilio did well to help the team on in January, when zero funds weren't available.
(by u/head_in_the_clouds69)

The Critical Last Match of the season:

It came down to the final matchday: Lazio - Inter in Rome. Inter started the match dominating in possession and Lazio very aggressively pressing them high in their own half, managing to win a ball and get a nice action going which finished with a shot by Marusic, which would have gone wide out but was unfortunately deflected by Perisic’s face to make a very unlucky own goal in the 9th minute.
Inter started pushing, but took some risks as Milinkovic- Savic hit a post on a freekick and Lazio had a few decent chances. The goal came in the 29th minute when the corner taken by Brozovic was chested goalwards by the D’Ambrosio, which Strakosha managed to block off with his hands before D’Ambrosio hit it in the net with some sort of bicycle kick from behind the keeper. In the 41st minute Lazio hit again on a textbook counter with an amazing through ball by Senad Lulic to Felipe Anderson who was too speedy for D’Ambrosio and slotted it perfectly past Handanovic. Inter comes out for the second half attacking, Lazio trying to hit on the counter. To spice things up in the second half Spalletti brought on Eder for Candreva (someone please take him) in the 63rd and the young Karamoh for Rafinha, who had a hard time unmarking himself between the lines and played a poor match, in the 68th minute.
In the 75th minute Inzaghi makes a choice that would later reveal its importance, by taking of Immobile (who was injured prior to this game) and putting a swole fullback, Jordan Lukaku (same build as his brother at ManU), defending the 2-1 lead. Two minutes after the substitution De Vrij, who signed on a free with Inter 3 weeks prior fouls Icardi in the box, who would have had free shot on goal otherwise. Icardi steps up to take it as cool as a cucumber with his usual composure from the penalty spot to tie Immobile as joint top scorer with 29 league goals. A minute later Lulic gets his second yellow for an unnecessary tackle on Brozovic in Inter’s half of the pitch, stupidly giving Inter the edge over the remaining 15 minutes.
Inter puts in Ranocchia as a third CB to have an advantage on set pieces and play some sort of 3-5-2, going all in. In the 81st minute on a corner both Ranocchia and Vecino make a run to the first post, the ball flying millimetres over the head of the CB before being headed in by Vecino who was just behind him: LA PRENDRE VECIIIIIIIIIINOOOOOO! Inzaghi desperately puts on Nani for De Vrij in desperation but Lazio can’t turn it around anymore, Inter go to Champions League on level points with better head to head record.
Shout-out to Walter Zenga, who, even as the coach of another team, kept Inter in his heart, and without who's contribution (his team drew 2-2 against Lazio in the match before Inter's), Inter would not be in the Champions League this season.
Match highlights
What the fans think (by FCInterMilan):

1. What important bits are noteworthy for the casual fans?

(by u/vik1980):
Suning's Importance
By the time Moratti sold the club, it was in complete disrepair. A couple of decades of indulgence & excess as drained the club. We no longer had the young talent to guarantee a future, or the funds to throw at young but proven players. Thohir's importance in the turnaround cannot be overstated. His involvement was akin to finding a banged-up sports car and giving it a complete engine overhaul, and a spanking new paint job. Only Thohir was only in it for the short-term. He never planned on starting a new era. Thankfully, he achieved his goals fantastically. He turned the club around, and then found an owner who had the long-term view Moratti longed to see at the club. Suning's time at the club is making to buying a first-class sports car, and them assembling a complete racing team around it.
They've only continued Thohir's initiative of opening up Youth Academies all around the globe, with reports of them cropping up in Asia, Africa & South America like wild mushrooms. They're also not just taking a long-term view, by concentrating on young players only. By their eagerness to bring Modric, they show their football knowledge. Modric's game or physical built is not one that'll age poorly. And his recent performances in the World Cup and influence in Real Madrid's Treble (3xChampions League) means his brand value in China will push Inter to the next level there.
Furthermore, they've been involved in everything concerning not just the club, but football in general. They've been involved in buying Serie A telecasting rights for China, along with other major leagues. This, along with their ownership of Jiangsu Suning FC means they're in it for the long haul. Their goal is to not just spend money and taking Inter to the top (like Abrahimovic at Chelsea) before losing interest. They plan on making a whole business in and around this sector, calling it Suning Sport. Suning is a multi-billion dollar company and have already established great contacts with the owners of Atalanta & Sampdoria (two clubs with notoriously good youth development track record).
Given all these facts, once Inter can free themselves of FFP, their might on the transfer market will really begin to shine through, and the fact that they have a team in China too, means they'll also attract massive fans there, and tempt big names into accepting Inter before going for the golden ticket in China. Simply put, Inter's current cycle is a snowball rolling down a mountain. It'll only get easier to turn it into an avalanche.
Spalletti's Influence
In all this, it's impossible to overlook Spaletti's influence at the club. If Ausilio is doing such a wonderful job in the transfer market, it's thanks to Spalletti clearly explaining to him the kind of players he wants for the team, and why he wants them. He also understands some of the reasons behind the club not making all the transfers he wants. This is the big difference between this market, and Mancini demeaning the sale of Icardi to fund moves for Yaya & one of Zlatan or Dzeko. If Vidal is not at Inter, it's because Spalletti deemed him 'not essential' to his project. If Nainggolan is there, it's because Spalletti clearly explained & convinced the management the reasons why he was indispensable. If Ausilio is the thoroughbred racehorse, Spalletti is the jockey on top of him. Simply put, not a single blade of grass in Appiano Gentile is where Spalletti doesn't want it to be.
Whether he ends up leading this club to eventual trophies (by way of consistent performances & results) or just ends up becoming the Ranieri to a Jose Mourinho type coach who takes the club to that next level is unimportant. Just the fact that he's the first coach since Jose Mourinho who's starting a second consecutive season at the club tells you how important his role is. He brings continuity & stability the club hasn't seen since Mourinho himself.

2. Transfers

In

Player	Position	Age	Moving from	Fees
Radja Nainggolan	MF	30	Roma	€38m
Matteo Politano	FW	24	Sassuolo	€5m loan (€20m option)
Stefan De Vrij	DF	26	Lazio	Free
Kwadwo Asamoah	DF	29	Juventus	Free
Lautaro Martinez	FW	20	Racing Club	€23m
Federico Dimarco	DF	20	Sion	€7m buy back
Samuele Mulattieri	DF	17	Spezia	Undisclosed
Šime Vrsaljko	DF	26	Atletico Madrid	€6.5m loan (€17.5m option)
Keita Balde	FW	23	Monaco	€5m loan (€34m option)

Out

Player	Position	Age	Moving to	Fees
Geoffrey Kondogbia	MF	25	Valencia	€25m
Davide Santon	DF	27	Roma	€9.5m
Nicolo Zaniolo	MF	18	Roma	€4.5m
Federico Valietti	DF	19	Genoa	€5m (buy back clause)
Davide Bettella	MF	18	Atalanta	€5m (buy back clause)
Jens Odgaard	FW	19	Sassuolo	€5m (buy back clause)
Dodo)	DF	26	Sampdoria	€5.5m
Yuto Nagatomo	DF	31	Galatasaray)	€2.5m
Eder)	FW	31	Jiangsu Suning	€5.5m
Jonathan Biabiany	MF	30	Parma	€1.5m
Federico Dimarco	DF	20	Parma	Loan
Alessandro Bastoni	DF	19	Parma	Loan
Xian Emmers	MF	18	Cremonese	Loan
Lisandro Lopez)	DF	28	Benfica	Loan return
Joao Cancelo	DF	24	Valencia	Loan return
Rafinha)	MF	25	Barcelona	Loan return

Which players are you expecting to have breakout seasons?

Lautaro:

• Given enough playtime, which shouldn't be that hard with 3 competitions, I expect he'll have a strong season. He has been doing fantastically in the preseason and I could potentially see him as a starting partner with Icardi. (by u/Cerozz)
• This kid reminds me of Luis Suarez. One can even call him a cross between Tevez, Aguero & Suarez. He's technically sound, physically strong, high work-rate and good movement. He's even a solid finished off either foot. Inter have a real gem on their hands, and if they can develop him right (not use him as a AM, Trequartista, winger, but develop him mostly as a forward), he might end up surpassing Icardi & becoming one of the best forwards in World Football. Icardi's best season, in terms of assists, was when he played with Palacio as a partner. Since then, his assists have dried up simply because there's no-one to lay the ball off to. I expect that to change this season and see him getting 8+ assists. Simply put, with Lautaro's arrival, Icardi should be both worried & happy. It'll mean the clubs dependency on him will be reduced, but it'll also mean he'll have much more of a chance to move for much higher wages. If you think it's outlandish to think this, just watch Lautaro's growth this season. (by u/vik1980)
• I am really hyped about Lautaro: his addition to the squad is exactly what we needed, last year we lacked a good back up for Icardi, which meant that Mauro had to play even when he was not 100% fit and moreover, it forced us to have basically one tactic (or slight variations of it with only 1 forward). Having Lautaro in the team increases the depth and could create a good partnership in attack. I am also hoping that Skriniar will confirm himself as one of the best CBs in the world, even in this case I think Spalletti will try to adopt the 3 atb system more often. (by u/mangowhymango)

Dalbert:

• He had a bad first year, overshadowed by the more technically gifted Cancelo. He was rumoured as flop and a few teams were interested in buying him after this decent preseason. Spalletti is forging him as he forged Cancelo, just on the left side instead of the right one. (by u/head_in_the_clouds69)
• Also, I still haven't given up on Dalbert. If he stays, I still say he'll end up surprising Inter supporters. (by u/vik1980)

Who was the best buy so far?

Asamoah:

• The left side has been plagued for years (the Dalbert experiment continues). We miraculously sold Santon and Nagatomo, and were able to snatch up Asamoah on a free. So far in preseason, Kwadwo, who was a rotation player at Juventus, has shown quality and experience. Though he may not be a flashy player, he is technically gifted and can adapt to play LB, LM and LW, works hard in training and genuinely appreciates being at the club. (by u/zodiac55)
• Another great signing. If he stays healthy he'll be a great option on the left side. He's a good veteran to have.

Lautaro:

• Lautaro will win the balon d'or in the next seven years. I fucking said it! His positioning and the way he reads the game is already on a high level. If he keeps putting in the work I think he can be one of the best players we've seen in a real long time. I'd rather not go for Rafinha and give those minutes to Lautaro. (by u/internazionale)
• Lautaro is showing in pre-season that he deserves a place. I really hope he can play alongside Icardi (whether beside or behind) in the team. He is a talent and needs to play. I'm so excited for his future alongside Icardi.

Vrsalkjo:

• I can't say much about him. I didn't watch the World Cup so I don't know much about him other than I heard he did good. That is a bit scary as Atletico fans don't seem to high on him and we all know players can perform well at the World Cup, earning a big transfer, and then flop. So I hope he does good. (by u/soulagony)

Nainggolan:

• Not much needs to be said here. He's one of the best midfielders in Serie A and the World. He will soon decline with his age and play style, but he will give us a few good years and good value.

De Vrij:

• Him alongside of Skriniar can form one of the best defences in the league. They are both relatively young and incredibly talented. I have high hopes for de Vrij.

Politano:

• Good replacement for Candreva. I'm not exactly against Candreva like a lot of people are, but if Inter are to make the next step they need to improve in quality. Politano will provide that. He's not a superstar, but he's a great pickup to provide us depth by pushing Candreva further down the order.

3. The Future

Inter's future as a well-oiled machine:

• Most of the current squad is in different age group batches. There's the 24-26-year-old group (Icardi, Politano, De Vrij, Brozovic, Vrsaljko etc.) who can keep the club rolling for the next 5-7 years, the 30+ group (D'Ambrosio, Miranda, Handanovic, Nainggolan, Perisic, Asamoah etc.) who'll add veteran leadership to this team, and the 20-23 yo's (Karamoh, Skriniar, Lautaro, maybe Keita) who'll take the club forward. Currently, the only position that'll need to get looked at in the short future is Handanovic, and being that he's a goalkeeper, that's not a pressing need at all.

Is there anything to worry about?

• One thing I'm worried about is what'll happen in the next transfer window for Inter. They'd taken Cancelo & Rafinha on loan with option to buy, but didn't, even when they played great & were integral to getting International back to Champions League football. Next season, we'll have to buy Politano, Sime, Keita and probably another midfielder (Modric, Paredes, Barella etc.). That's a lot of money committed to going out for players who'll already be here. It means that we'll only be able to pay off these transfers, but not strengthen further, unless we have an exceedingly deep run in the Champions League. While this squad won't require too much more spending, it'll still need some tune-ups, and committing an outlaw of 90-100m to retaining current players will mean FFP will be watching us like a hawk before we try to bring anyone new in. (by u/vik1980)

Predicted XI (4-2-3-1):

Handanovic;
Vrsaljko, De Vrij, Skriniar, Asamoah;
Vecino, Brozovic;
Politano, Nainggolan, Perisic;
Icardi(c)
Bench: Padelli, Ranocchia, Miranda, D’Ambrosio, Dalbert, Gagliardini, Borja Valero, Candreva, Karamoh, Lautaro Martinez, Emmers, Salcedo, Keita.

Wrap Up

Shout outs: Mauro Icardi carried the team with his 29 goals, often being ice cold in crucial moments. Candreva hasn’t scored a single one; Karamoh, Eder and Rafinha and Brozovic had a total of 10 between them. The only one managing to slightly keep up was Perisic with 11 goals (+11 assists). Behaved like a true captain this transfer window, calling up, welcoming and offering to help them settle down in Milano. Also seems to have a friend + mentor role for Lautaro Martinez, which makes him seem like a veteran amongst the others, although being only 25 years old. Icardi is the kind of player of stays silent and works hard on himself and always wants to win. He might disappear in matches but in the blink of eye reappears where he needs to with a clinical finish. Mauro’s not very technical but is extremely good in the air despite being “only” (compared to Dzeko’s 1.93m) and very clinical, needs few chances to score. He presses extremely well and seemingly without exhaustion, which I just noticed in the recent friendlies where he was on the bench and the replacements barely put any threat on the back line of the opposing team.
He is our 8th top scorer in history with 107 goals in 182 appearances and I can easily see him become number 1 if he stays for the next 4+ years. Top scorer is Giuseppe Meazza with 195 goals in 303 apps).
Summary: 'Houston, we have a project.' We sold deadwood, we kept our key players, added great functional signings and also promising talent. Aim is to create havoc in CL, considering we’ll probably get the group of death as we are in pot 4. Object is to have a good showing. Round of 8 would be good, if we aren’t drawn against a Top 5 team then quarterfinal would be absolutely awesome for this team with little experience in such a competition. In the league the aim is not to challenge Juve for the scudetto, but to firmly establish ourselves within the top 4. Will be tough considering Lazio and Milan’s good mercato and the Roma’s and Napoli’s consistency in being top 3 in recent years. However, I think Napoli might be a little weaker than last year and Roma approximately the same, has lost experience but gained a lot of unpredictability and young talent, that, if nurtured right, can give them good results.
Why like them: We're impartial to colour, race, nationality or creed. If you're a good football player and have grit to be there, there's a place for you in the team. As long as you follow the same guidelines in showing support, there's a place for you between the fans. Highest fan attendance in Italy, good tifos.
Why dislike them: You are a fan of a team in Pot 1-3 of the Champions League draw. Inter, through poor and non-existent European experience of the past, will likely be in a group of death scenario and should not be taken lightly. Apart that, there's no reason. Unless you support a rival Italian club, you can't not love the founding principles of this club.
If the team was a cartoon character, who would it would be: Popeye, before AND after he's had his spinach showing both sides of la PAZZA INTER.

By members of FCInterMilan (special shoutouts to u/vik1980 and u/head_in_the_clouds69)