JediMaster

Judgment Day cannot be avoided, only postponed!

What kind of mpg does it get?

Solid rocket motors smoke when ignited, it's just that generally they burn out long before impact. Should you be close enough that the motor hasn't burned out (which with an IRM is probably impossible, I think they only burn a couple of seconds), the missile will still be trailing when it hits you.

So you might see smoke from a Sidewinder or Archer or such because you're in WVR when they fire at you, but you'll not see it from the BVR ones unless the guy is firing right at minimum range at you.

Did I mention I hate the Sparrow's minimum engagement range? I wish it was shorter! All too often I'm out of AIM-9s but still have 7s left. It's like "too close for my missiles, still too far for guns...ARGH!!!"

Do you believe in users?

Most of the old stuff was destroyed between 1991 and 2003 I think.

I just read the preview of iRacing's "big racing sim" on SimHQ. Sorry, not for me, and my guess is not for most people.

Everything is money, money for very little return. Ok, so maybe it's the most accurate representation of such-and-such track ever, and maybe it's the most accurate handling representation of such-and-such car ever.

No AI at all?

No control over what track is being raced online?

Pay for monthly online access (with no AI, there's nothing to do if you don't!)

Pay for every extra track (like $30?)

Pay for every extra car (like $20?)

Graphics not quite as good as any of the modern racing sims, let alone better?

They claim it's designed for professional racers to use as practice for real races. Um, ok, fine, just how many professional racers are there out there? Eliminate drag racers and motorcycle racers. How many of them want to practice racing on a PC instead of their own car?

Did they notice that drivers like Dale Jr were using NR 2003 for extra practice help and get delusions of grandeur, thinking there was a big market for this?

They did this with a flight sim once, called Back to Baghdad. Best F-16 sim ever, if all you care about is the plane's systems and handling. Gameplay was poor, graphics for terrain was poor, cost $100 (over 10 years ago). Totally tanked.

Games like Aces High and Warbirds and such did well enough with the subscription model, but they didn't nickel and dime you for every plane or terrain map you flew.

Alternatively, for $40 you can get rfactor, with AI, free MP, and literally hundreds of cars and tracks to race. Not to the same level of fidelity, but pretty good nonetheless.

I could think of half a dozen different ways for them to price this, all of which would have lower revenue per customer but would guarantee more customers. You almost get the impression they think people will line up for this no matter the cost because it's so accurate. Maybe they didn't notice the current economic situation...

Heh, I was the first to get 2000 posts at SimHQ, years ago. Of course, I'm now a distant 2nd place there. I think the #1 guy has like 6000 more posts than me!

I think it needs to be looked at from the other direction--how many nice, cool people are corrupt? None! How can they be? Maybe they act like they're nice, cool people, but they obviously aren't.

The corrupt are a subset of the jerks. All corrupt people are jerks, but not all the jerks are corrupt. There are plenty of honest, hardworking jerks that have made this country as great as it is today, you just don't want to know them.

Here in "hot" Florida it's only just over 90. It's also been unseasonably dry with humidity under 30 percent most of the time, so you don't even notice it.

Wonder how many hurricanes we'll see this year. My guess--none.

I've got the movie and the game. I clearly remember seeing it when I was 9 in the theaters. I remember kids going around calling each other "programs" for weeks afterwards. Everyone loved Bit, too. "No no no no no no no!!!"

While it was nice they got the 2 main stars other than Jeff Bridges to do the voices for the game, it wasn't the same without David Warner as the bad guy.

The main thing is Tron was the first of its kind. We've had things like the Matrix and the 13th floor and Lawnmower Man and Virtuosity and stuff come later, but Tron was the one that introduced the idea of people living inside computers. It also had that unique visual style and the soundtrack was fresh for the time. By the end of the 80s, we were all sick of that kind of synthesized "music", but again it was new for Tron.

That said, I also liked E.T. and The Last Starfighter quite a bit. Always thought Robert Preston should've sang in that movie, too. However, even when I was young I saw Battle Beyond the Stars for what it was--a cheap way to try and cash in on the Star Wars craze. Only Sybil Danning's outfit made it worth watching.

They showed them using that tactic on that last episode of Dogfights on the history channel...doing a cobra to break lock. The problem is that does NOTHING to defeat an IR missile. If you're close enough that a cobra will get the other guy off your six and in front of you, a radar lock isn't what you need to break. If they're still BVR, you can only sit there for a few seconds before you resume moving and then you have no energy, a closer enemy, and maybe now they're close enough to engage WVR. Doesn't compute.

What about when some time ago russian planes overflew a US carrier from the Pacific fleet, with no reaction or whatsoever?

Define "no reaction." No planes sent to intercept does not equal no reaction. Just because it's not the reaction you were expecting doesn't mean there wasn't any. The commander could have made a conscious decision NOT to do anything like that.

An Su-33 wouldn't compete with an F-22 or F-15, it would compete with the F-35C and F/A-18E/F. If you want an F-15/22 competitor, you go with a 30/35/37/47/53/64/96/974x10^57 or whatever Sukhoi is going to call it today. ("Sukhoi, we don't believe in letters, we believe in numbers!")

Anyway, I said no for the first question because a total redesign like that to make it work for the USN would cost so much more than just making more Super Bugs.

As for the 2nd question, well, the answer is yes, because it WOULD improve relations. However, it is a bad idea in almost every other respect, so it won't ever happen.

Here's a question that's never been answered--the F-22 and F-35 are supposed to be so stealthy as to be almost impossible to detect by other airplanes. They also have AESA radars that are supposed to be very good at detecting stealthy cruise missiles. So, can an F-22 see another F-22 on its radar before any other plane could?

There's some pics around here from Ascension Island that look like that, from the NOTU shots taken off the cost here.

So...is this going to be a full-assed model then??

Heh, you do know I've got like the 2nd highest number of posts on SimHQ, right?

When the DoD started blocking SimHQ my visits dropped off so I don't post so much anymore, but I still visit a couple of times a week.

This is more of a tech question, but does anyone know if there are enough animation slots for an F-35B to convert to the hover? What with all the doors and swiveling parts, I would think we could run into some trouble with that one. Doesn't apply to the A or C of course.

Well, Ubisoft hosts the official forums for it, but I don't know how much (or little) there is written there about it.

Is it an AGP model? If you have that aperture setting too high I believe it takes RAM away.

Also, 32-bit Windows has issues when you put more than 2GB of RAM in as far as addressing and it's also related to how much RAM your video card has.

64-bit Windows do not suffer that limitation, and in fact it's one of the main reasons for its development.

In short, unless you go to XP 64 or Vista 64 you may never see it all.

I miss the old days of SimHQ racing from late 06. That was when everyone was casual about it and no one took it seriously.

When they started taking themselves too seriously is when I left.

If a gamepad wasn't viable, there wouldn't be any FPS games on consoles, because no one would be able to play them.

With the release of the first Halo the writing was on the wall for us PC FPS'ers that have been playing with m+kb (or if you go back far enough, kb only! No mouse support in Wolf 3D and I never used it in Doom).

I never understood the demonizing of the troops during Vietnam...when most of them were drafted and didn't choose to be there in the first place! Were these people expecting draftees to refuse to serve in the hundreds of thousands and go to jail instead? Did choosing to serve instead of going to jail make them an automatic criminal??

At least people know you don't blame the hand for the choices the brain makes now. Not to say there aren't soldiers out there who have stepped out of line, that's a fact of life that's been around for millennia, but I think the US has the smallest number percentage wise now of any previous time in its history. It used to be that things could be easily covered up and no one would know, but not anymore.

That's because they're not REALLY communist, at least insofar as the book definitions went. They're totalitarian with a heavy socialist underpinning, but they're not communist. The major point of communism of course is that the workers want things to be communist, hence no purges would be necessary.

I know they were license producing the J-11, so I guess the problem is they kept building them after the end of the agreement without making the necessary payments to Sukhoi?

Either he's standing on a box, or that guy in back is REALLY tall.

Guam is hot. Guam is wet. Electronics don't care for either.

However, I see this problem all the time...knowledge that becomes "common" to some people but isn't properly communicated. Those at the bottom will likely tell those at the top and assume it's then redelievered to everyone else. Those at the top assume that in addition to being told themselves, the info was also distributed amongst those on the bottom. Bottom line, everyone thinks the other guy is getting the word out so no one does.

The E-2 has more tail fins than a classic car convention for a reason.