JediMaster

It is?? Mercs?? I guess they'll stick "Clancy" on any old thing nowadays...

I was referring to AA losses for the F-14, yes. I knew some had been lost to ADA over the years, but I didn't know how many. $30m per F-15? Do you mean refurb costs? Because there's no way to buy one for that price now! That was the price to make them YEARS ago.

It's very simple--the F-16C Blk 60 was redesignated the F-16E, and the 2-seat D was renamed the F. Plain and to the point. There aren't two separate planes with differing equipment, it's the same thing. Like the Su-27K became the Su-33, or the F-5G became the F-20.

I don't know how much acting he'd done lately, last thing I saw him in was the Planet of the Apes remake.

Ok, so you mean terrain following then? Getting the AP to do that is indeed pretty impressive. Masking is hiding yourself from enemy detection via terrain being between you and them. Several other sims do NOT feature this and will lock you up right through a mountain, although any missiles fired will tend to hit the mountain instead of you.

SRAMs are my favorite... "Reach out, reach out and nuke someone..."

It's a dirty job, but that guy on Discovery won't do a show about us!!

Actually, one of my first flight sims was VERY moddable. I am speaking of the classic SWOTL! You needed a hex editor to do it, of course, but once you DL'd one of those from a BBS (for free) you had all you needed. Granted adding more planes or altering plane shapes or whatever was more difficult, but I remember doing some great stuff. It was extremely easy to turn an Me-262 into the A1U4 (I think) model with the massive 57mm cannon with only 15 rounds or whatever. Ballistics changes were just a matter of changing the values. I also found where in-game text was and altered the wing/external fuel switching lines to make it say "wing on fire", "engine on fire", etc so when my friend played it he totally freaked out. We had people mailing out 3.5" disks to others to pass the mods around as 14.4/28.8 modems just weren't up to the task of DLing them!

I don't think the planes are a priority for them. I find it more interesting to be on the ground watching the planes attack the enemy, anyway. If I want to fly I have literally a dozen other sims for that!

How about Dune? It's being done. Er, re-done. A film and a miniseries weren't enough, so they're starting over. Also:

Never could get into street racing. I mean, I played Test Drive and NFS years back, which weren't on "tracks" per se, but I just tired of that style.

Ah, I have almost never flown in 2010! Usually 2005, but sometimes the earlier ones.

I don't know...besides the fact that there's no way US forces would be flying a Rafale, it's also just a prerendered intro and tells you nothing about the actual gameplay. It's being made by the guys that made Blazing Angels, so I expect something that will look 5x better but play 5x less realistic than one of TK's sims.

Which was the comic that was "silent", where no one spoke? It was all about Snake Eyes and him battling the other one in Cobra, dressed in white, whose name escapes me now... At the end of the comic Snake Eyes' outfit is torn and you can see he has the same tattoo on his arm...

Yes, the game has known issues with the AI being too good. There's changes you can make, though. There's a slider in the options if you choose "custom" for the AI's level. I think it goes from 0 to 1, and we've found .4 seems to be a good spot. Alternatively there's a .cfg file you can alter where you'll see their abilities broken down into 2-3 stats. The important one is precision, I think, as that affects how well they aim. You can also grab mods to help this stuff, although generally speaking they don't affect older missions in that case, just new ones made with the mod in use. At default settings, though, the AI is like fighting Jedi with guns...they see things before they happen, and know where you are as soon as you fire! Not just firing your gun, either. It's a more global thing, so setting off a satchel charge will let them see where you are as surely as if you'd fired an RPG with a big smoke trail, even though realistically that can't happen. It's like a "IF 'player' fires THEN 'AI' know location at time of fire" regardless of weapon used. Darkness and shrubs don't block their view either, again unless you use a mod to change that. That's the beauty of the game, more mods than you can shake a dead cat's stick at.

I don't recall ever seeing any planes that had no textures.

Thanks to watching the new BSG I can't help but feel that cockpit is too small.

Well, you mean "F-15 A-D in AA combat" of course, since F-15Es have been lost to AAA/SAMs. One major contributor is its tasking solely in the AA realm, as historically ground attack has been proven far more dangerous. The F-14 was never shot down under the USN, only Iran, so it's hard to know what would've happened if not for that little revolution over there.

That's because they never feel like they are. Usually the ones who say they are are the ones who shouldn't be.

I didn't even know it was going to be on.

Yep, I grew up seeing the cartoons every morning as I ate breakfast getting ready for school. I think they aired at 7 AM, right after I got up, and I left the house around 740-745 to go to the bus stop. The best were the GI Joe PSAs at the end of the show, as showcased in Family Guy when Chris was going to drink in the boys' bathroom. "Now we know." "And knowing is half the battle." "GI JOE!" Those Fenslerfilm spoofs of those PSAs are awesome, too. I never had any of the toys, though, I was a Star Wars guy. I had a friend who had all of them, though, so we could have GI Joe and the Rebels vs Cobra and the Empire.

LOMAC's main problem is the AIM-120's odd modeling combined with the AI's perfect beaming ability--they can break lock by flying 90 degrees off from you in seconds, they just "know" exactly where you are and never make a mistake. TK's sims don't have that.

So glad Baghdad Bob's b-day is recognized...although he'll tell you you didn't notice it.

I think the ad at the end is the funniest part!

Ok, that was a good one because it wasn't too far-fetched. Bravo!