JediMaster

The problem with so called "dual use" tech is almost EVERYTHING could be called "dual use." I mean, don't tell how the Chinese how to make crops produce more, they'll use that food to feed their ARMY. What about nuts and bolts and hammers? Launching satellites is a legit peaceful thing to do, but of course it's also related to ICBMs. Oh no. An engine is an engine, but they can stick it in a military vehicle! The main thing is if you DON'T sell them something, someone else will. The F-22 is only in this position right now because it's unique. No one else is building them, no one else has them. When another country starts making 5th gen fighters, it won't be so unique anymore.

Take a good rest!

TW games do not have an "in game" browser like many other games such as FPS and even RTS have. The only real one you can use is Hyperlobby. Without that, you will never see any games in the list in game. The exception is if you use it on a LAN or emulating one with something like Hamachi.

Oh, wise guy, eh?

Yeah, IIRC Greece is very secretive with its military units and restricts photography, planespotting, and all that.

No one is coming here for nation bashing, so no one should go there. A reminder. Israel buys mostly US because the US gives it money to buy weapons with...as long as they are US weapons. A very odd setup. That severely limits their ability to buy foreign equipment because there's little money for it. Besides, they prefer to develop their own stuff and stick it into our airframes. F-16s, F-15s, F-4s, Mirages, all of them have replacement radars, RWRs, and other avionics. They prefer keeping that stuff in-house so just in case there's a falling out with the US (they have a cultural mistrust of having to rely on anyone but themselves after decades of having allies turn their backs on them) they'll be able to upkeep their stuff for a significant amount of time. While the F-35 is being designed with the idea that different countries will be changing things around for their own industrial base's benefit, the F-22 was not. The cost to put different avionics in such a tightly integrated system would cancel out the cost benefits of added sales. The funny thing of course is all the aid Israel has given to Iran on the QT over the decades to keep their planes flying amongst other things. That's why Iranian F-14s are still flying and are still viable. Of course, Iran wasn't their main concern then. Now it's slowly becoming that.

I thought this was going to be pictures of Hannukah Harry on his sled...

Yeah, the pylons are an eyesore, but that's aerodynamics for you!

Heh, I'd forgotten all about this one. This plane should go with the other "what could have beens" like the AB-equipped Corsair II.

The people looking to get F-35s (or F-22s) don't want more F-16s. The problem with the F-35, though, is it's still so far out.

No, I won't buy the DVD either. I've got a ton of DVDs of stuff I'll watch again before I see that again. However, it was worth the time to see it once.

I don't do it that much anymore myself. However, there's still a decent group going over at SimHQ's motorsports forums.

"...while you will only be risking your lives, I will almost certainly be risking an Oscar nomination for best supporting actor..." A true great.

I thought the 9D was a USN version? I don't remember exactly.

The game does have time compression, but you should be able to clearly see if that's on or off.

You can't fault them for being a copycat project, certainly! A unique idea.

Yes, they changed the plot from "alien" to more "future human", but the difference there is slight. Really, the only BS moments I had were the CG F-16 (it just never looked right) and the very end with the space station. Sorry, that is NOT a secure facility! There are always Russian nationals on board and a regular parade of others from various countries. It's been years since I watched the original, but I'll do that again soon. I'll admit the ending wasn't as good as I would've liked, but the first 3 hours I thought were fine.

In Thief 2, when I went into the haunted library in that old castle...and a ghost suddenly appeared in front of me accompanied by the best spooky sounds I'd ever heard! I literally shouted and turned and ran out of the library! In Knights of the Old Republic, when you learn that after all that has transpired you are the former Dark Lord of the Sith Revan! In No One Lives Forever, when you overhear the guards' conversations for the first time and you can't stop laughing, or you engage in a firefight and for the first time see a guard turn and run for cover while shouting "Oh no, bullets!!" In Jedi Knight: Dark Forces 2, where after travelling down an aqueduct into a small town you find a secret passage behind a store that leads out to the largest panorama I've ever seen in an FPS, with a giant tower in the distance ringed by hangars with AT-STs on patrol that are so tiny due to the extreme distance you can barely see them! In WC3 when you find out the Kilrathi that's been fighting alongside you all this time was really a double agent!

That reminds me, how do they get them on those massive wings? I mean, I have enough trouble with the decals on my plastic models, getting the right amount of water and getting them straight with no wrinkles...how much water do you need for a B-52 wing???

I don't think I'd mind if he did fewer planes at higher fidelity. That said, it is a departure from his previous model. I don't see anything wrong with using old models to fill in the gaps, though. Just look at Falcon 4. That was a huge project with a massive budget and yet even there we had junky low-res/low-poly F-4Es flying around compared to how nice the F-16 looked. I don't care that much about ground targets because that's all they are--targets! The tanks and SAM/AAA as in WOI are plenty detailed enough for me, he doesn't need to spend more time on those. I think the 2 top priorities are the planes (and their cockpits, of course) and the terrain. THAT'S what you spend all your time looking at.

Remember that RB2 (how I'll always think of it, RB3D was just a big patch later that added 3DFx support) had a much larger budget and team than FE has had even today. I guarantee one programmer living in his car couldn't have made RB2!

On high levels this game looks light years better than OFP, so you pay for it in the performance. Gameplay wise, though, it's not much different.

I think many are willing to trade uber graphics for fidelity in their flight sims. Just look how many decade-old sims are still being flown! I think the last great sim-games (that fulfilled both sides wishes admirably) were Jane's F-15 and Longbow 2. They were as real as you wanted them to be (given PCs at the time) but they stayed fun and had a structure. Falcon, Flanker, LOMAC, Il-2--all are great sims, but not great games when compared to the previous 2. Others that were great in both ways were EF2000, F22ADF/TAW and the iMagic Hornet and Raptor sims. The JF series were great games, but never great sims, with the exception of JF3. That was the pinnacle of that series...what I think we need today. It was almost as realistic as LOMAC, but it had a great game structure that kept you playing, and it was also the only one of the series to get an expansion I think. I was very hopeful for that line until JF4 regressed and it started to become what Ace Combat is today. A sim cares about accuracy, button pushing. A game cares about fun, ease of use, and rewarding the player for doing well with noticeable benefits. To expect a game to look like Ace Combat while having the fidelity of Falcon isn't reasonable, but I'm willing to meet them halfway. The problem is there ARE no halfway choices. We get LOMAC, F4:AF, Il-2, and TW's sims. Many of these sims also failed at being games because they didn't offer enough to entertain the lite simmer. Sure you can flip on unlimited ammo and arcade physics in F4, but if you do you'll see the game is really shallow without that simulation aspect to it. It literally flops without it. It pales in comparison to Ace Combat. On the flipside, look how many games come out with lame realism that get "realism mods"! Once you've got the graphics and the game structure, all you need is some open architecture and people can increase the realism themselves (like the TW sims). However, look how much effort it's taken to improve F4's graphics to looking just 5 years old, let alone current.

Surface heating due to air friction doesn't become noticeable until you pass Mach 2.5 at high altitude. It's lower at low altitude, but air density prevents you from going that fast easily. Anyway, I think bursting into flames is probably the one thing he does NOT have to worry about!

You will need to do some light modding to your TW games to get them to work with Vista. It's in the Knowledge Base I believe, else it's in some threads.