JediMaster

Another thing is this isn't the 1940s anymore, where on being attacked a country can gear up for war production or buy what they need in 6 months. These weapons systems take decades to develop and introduce into service even when funding is not an issue, and that's almost never true anymore. All it takes is one of Brazil's neighbors getting crazy ideas into its head, perhaps due to a military coup, and it's looking at a very serious need to defend itself. While the US is lucky enough to have only 2 other countries on land borders, neither of which has been an adversary in over 150 years (although we did fight in Cuba less than 50 yrs ago), few other countries share that luxury. Brazil needs to buy today what it will use in a future conflict in 2030 that we can't even conceive of today. Maybe it will be defending against an agressor in the west, maybe it will be part of a multinational force like WWII in a battle overseas, you just don't know. It's a problem when the people distrust the military, of course.

While this certainly gives Dassault that nebulous "momentum" going into the MMRCA competition, I think politics will play a larger role in the outcome than any other factor. After all, many such competitions have been won by inferior, more expensive products over the years no matter who's buying or selling...because of politics.

Sure you can compete with China. Don't you do their tech support like you do ours? Just tell them all the wrong stuff and they'll trash their networks. "Just unplug your machine while it's booting for a full reset." The Chinese gov't has an innate weakness in that they believe in their own superiority, any evidence to the contrary being dismissed or covered up. They'll never admit they were wrong, even if it means condemning their country to serious hardship. Exploit that!

EXCEPT...the 163 isn't a prop plane. I've no idea how rocket propulsion works in the game though. Was it just done as a jet with a tiny fuel load and high thrust?

The YF-22 was an ugly bird, no doubt about it. The F-22A fortunately has vastly improved those lines! The YF-23 though did have the edge even over that.

Having just read the article in S:A&S mag about that FB-23 concept that Northrop found for sale on ebay, I've got the bug to fly this one again and can't wait to put it in my SF2 load!

Online is just like playing offline except for the lag factor you may have to deal with and the fact that difficulty settings are enforced by the server. So if there's an option you want one way and they set it another, you're stuck, no overrides, regardless of whether you think they have it set too hard or too easy. The separate shortcuts for SP and MP is a little unusual for a flight sim (although I've seen it for years in FPS games), and the settings are all configured in the SP side (the only setting alterable in MP is your name and network connect speed I think, everything else like if you want to remap a command is only done on the SP side) so be sure you have your setup as you like it in SP before you go into MP the first time. Otherwise you'll have to disconnect, exit and start the SP side to change it before you go back into MP and reconnect.

LOL = laugh out loud, and it is badly overused. In some cases, the person USING the "lol" might be called stupid, actually.

And thank you for not typing "could of", that really irritates me.

My wife of 11 years and my daughter, who just turned 1 a week ago. Everything else qualifies as "diversions" or "entertainment", but they don't really make me happy. Music, TV, games, books, whatever, I enjoy it as it comes but I don't live for it.

I was unaware Madden could discuss anything without a telestrator.

Those sunglasses part of the uniform?

No matter what you might think, it 100% has to be better than AvP Requiem!

Those are strakes, not the same as canards. Canards implies a flying surface, whether or not it's movable or (like the Viggen) has movable surfaces on it. A strake is a glorified wing fence stuck somewhere else and is far more common. The F-16, Su-27, and many others have strakes. In this case, the strakes are just placed where the canards were.

Anyone have a G940 yet other than our reviewer? I'm looking for a consensus. Specifically, my Cougar at 4 yrs old (along with my 15+ yr old RCS) is getting long in the tooth and I don't really want to buy another one just to go thru this again in a few years OR pay extra to mod it. My 2 choices right now are both $300--the G940, or the CH HOTAS setup (at $100 for each piece). The G940 has FFB, split throttle, Hall sensors, and is receiving great published reviews. The CH setup is time-proven (to the extent I wish I'd bought it 4 years ago instead of the Cougar when my FLCS/TQS setup had to be replaced), does NOT have FFB (since FFB can be a pro and a con depending on circumstances), and is enjoyed by thousands of simmers. I'm just fed up with my Cougar's center play and spiking and throttle rotary issues and I'd like to replace it with one or the other sooner rather than later.

I really dislike programming. My Cougar's files all consist with either ones I've DL'd and slightly altered for my use or converted FLCS/TQS profiles I used before. Actually, half the commands on my profiles are rarely used. I use the ones that are needed for fighting usually. Things like gear, comms, and fancy avionics commands I usually just do on the keyboard because it's easier to remember them most of the time! I just want to have an idea which way I should go because I've basically been disappointed with the Cougar almost from the first month I had it and this will have to last me at least another several years!

They did a great bit about it on the Daily Show last night, with Stewart claiming it was going to be his signature sign-off like Cronkite's "And that's the way it is." "Good night, and keep %^ing that chicken!"

That desk wasn't designed to hide wires, that's why you have so much trouble with them. There are other styles that make it almost impossible to see them. When I got my latest desk the wife was very insistent on finding one that would maximize wire-hiding!

How different can it be from L4D?

I don't have time for a sim that's not fun, bottom line. To those who say "being a true sim IS the fun"...hooray for you. Don't be surprised almost no one else feels that way, though.

Actually, it's not just that disagreeing makes you a racist, it now apparently implies a whole rainbow of negative connotations. You can't tell someone they're wrong anymore without it being instantly considered a personal attack on everything that person stands for, believes in, and is a part of! Tell a Dem they're wrong and you're a racist, you're a fascist, you're stuck in the last century, blah blah blah. Tell a Rep they're wrong and you're a communist, you're against family values, you're against America, blah blah blah. Tell some shmo they're wrong and you're calling them a liar, an idiot, AND insulting whatever religion/politics they support! We've reached the point where you have to agree 100% with one side or the other or you're dismissed as a member of the other side! They don't want you on their side if you only agree 80%, oh no, you have to agree with it all.

Just because some of the people that disagree aren't racist doesn't mean you can claim none of them are. I've heard quite a few statements thrown about under the guise of politics that are definitely racist, and I'm not talking about big public figures, I mean just regular people at work and around town. Now, would this opposition still exist if Hillary had been elected? Of course it would, and then I'm sure in addition to the legitimate policy differences there would be underlying sexism as well. The Democratic primary race was full of veiled sexist comments thrown at her and veiled racist ones thrown at him on the public stage, and on the street the comments were blatant. So you can maybe rattle off the name of 100 people who are NOT racist, but you can't state there aren't ANY. Carter as usual has done little to help, but he's not 100% wrong either. He's just exaggerating. It's like there are 10 criminals in an administration and one side claims there are none and the other claims they're ALL criminals. Neither side is right, but are just both wrong in a different way! Oh, I'll bet we wouldn't have seen any of these seniors saying "we're scared of Hillary!" if she had been elected. They would've called her a socialist and maybe even a "pinko commie", but you know they wouldn't claim fear. Remember, they don't just say "I'm scared of what Obama is trying to change", they say they're scared OF him and say he's trying to destroy the country. To quote David Bowie, I'm afraid of Americans, because of their unflagging capacity to lie to even themselves about their motivations. I NEVER heard people make so many comments about how the President was going to be killed before he had the chance to run for reelection before!

Maybe, but what about that weather??

Actually, I was going to say it gets LESS interesting. I'm beginning to wonder if these "crazed denizens" as you call them are operating out of a sense of blind faith. They pinned their hopes on this title, they paid good money for it, it HAS to end up better than it is right now, doesn't it? So HOW DARE YOU try and cast aspersions on it! If you do, and people listen, they won't get enough sales! Not enough sales = lack of development time to turn the thing into what they had hoped it would be. So it's in their own best interest to suppress any negative feedback on the game and drum up as many sales as possible so that the investment they already made will be justified!

Old equipment is bad for multiple reasons, including decreased safety, increased maintenance costs/resources, and the political appearance of it. The US has planes far older than that, of course (B-52s!), but we don't ONLY have planes that age, we have many that are newer as well, although I believe the average age is around 20 yrs old. While those RAF birds are indeed capable of taking on the local air force without much effort, their antishipping/AG capabilities are far more limited due to the Typhoon being designed as air superiority/interceptor and not multirole. Fortunately precision munitions means any plane that can carry them can become a capable and even formidable ground pounder, but you need to put in the time and resources to make that happen and the Typhoon's progress there has been slow. That's why Harriers and Tornados are still being used for the ground roles while the air roles are being supplanted by the Typhoons.