Gunrunner

So, here's a talentless 16-year-old white middle-class kid behaving as if he were the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, singing crappy, syrupy r&b ballads targeted at 10-year-old girls, of course he's a complete failure, what did you expect ? "[German ?] I don't know what that means, we don't say that in America." He's a bloody canuck for god's sake ! *Think happy thoughts, repress urge to kill idiot, think happy thoughts*

SQUADRONLIST.INI goes to /PilotData And yes, your decals.ini seems right, it's the proper decal level.

No trouble, it does look better :) I just wasn't sure you knew.

One day US citizen should decide what they want their government to be, does it act proactively, it is condemned as the excesses of big government, does it try to be only the last resort, and it gets flamed as impotent, I love you guys, anyway... Florida is only the beginning, the real worry is that some of the oil would be/has been picked by the Gulf Stream and ends up slowly and silently spreading into the Atlantic.

Nice Just one thing though, to my knowledge the French F-84F kept Republic seats throughout their career, they changed the original ones for later 0 altitude versions in the late 50's, but they looked the same anyway.

There is a flaw in your logic. "Marksmanship got better" Sure, they do avoid injuring or killing civilians that way, but that doesn't change a thing for them. Let's say they shoot only one bullet, you have three possible outcomes : 1) They miss, in such a case they're not better, and they still committed a crime, involving a firearm, so their training was in vain, they still get a year in jail, worse, they might have injured/killed an innocent bystander instead. 2) They injure their target, with only one bullet, that's an improvement, but hey, they STILL get 3 years in jail, even though the target may be a criminal himself, trying to kill him is still a prosecutable crime. 3) They kill him; They definitely got better, and make substantial savings on ammo, yet, this is still a prosecutable crime, they still get 10 years in prison. Hence, there is no rational reason for them to lose 1 month improving their marksmanship. Unless of course these sentences are cumulative, in which case, once a bullet is fired, the least people injured/killed in addition to the target is 3 to 10 more years in prison than the baseline 11 (however, to anyone ready to spend a decade in jail, a few more decades is nothing, he already accepted the risk or is too dumb to assess it).

The necessary revisions are minor, you'll have a version for release before Sunday (probably before). If you are eager to release sooner though, the latest works with no major glitch (except the droptanks). The next revision will have : - Revised pylons panel lines. - Revised nose junction lines. - Corrected nose cone line for the new model. - Corrected skin for the 450 Droptank. And that should be all, the rest of the changes are too far advanced to be mixed with the current version without looking off and too far from completion to be ready for release.

Have you read a single word I wrote... Anyway, what would be interesting is to have fresh stats, 8 years later... and to have material to compare with other countries, with and without strict gun control, you'll soon realize that while it may be a factor, it might not be the principal one. In fact, tighter gun control only pops up when gun related violence is already on the rise, so if you enact gun control before such a trend either peaks or is controlled by law enforcement, it will continue and you may end up attributing it to gun control. To be frank, this post doesn't read at all as being written by an Australian warning Americans, but rather as an American NRA activist astroturfing. Do note the discussion below the post, pointing out that part of the figures and dates are factually erroneous. A good way to get a good idea of where the truth lies is to collect data and arguments from both sides, and search the most realistic middle-ground. Whenever possible try to get both absolute and relative figures, it's easy to claim an homicide increase of 300% and make it sound dramatic; It is if it represents a change from 100 to 300, but it might be from 1 to 3... Also bear in mind the sample size, going from 100 murders to 300 is a dramatic increase if your population is stable, but if in the same time it had been multiplied by 3, then the murder/capita ratio is unchanged, and if the sample has grown even more, you end up effectively with LESS violence than before. Never trust numbers if they are offered out of context, without an explanation of the relationship between events and the numbers, and always try to get raw data to make your own mind.

Uncleal, I addressed that already, it's a question of cultural rather than legal differences. Tight gun control works if and only if there isn't already a massive gun ownership in place AND/OR it's applied to relatively non-violent countries, hence the success in Europe, the failure in Australia and the complete mess it would be in the US. To make it work you first have to change mentalities, BUT if you have enough criminality, then you can't change mentalities before you eliminate the reasons for that mentality, so the conditions to bring strong gun control to countries with lax gun control are : 1) Reduce dramatically criminality, gun related or not. 2) Reduce illegal gun ownership. 3) Make it harder for criminals to acquire a gun illegally. 4) Then when your population is safe and the necessity for self-defense capability (whether real or imagined, as is the case for most US gun owners) is decreased, tighten legal gun control. So, can you see where the Australian experiment went wrong ? In the US however, some interpretations of your Constitution makes thing even harder as, to many of you, it guarantees the individual right to bear arms, which is incompatible with tighter gun control; either you tighten the rules for new owners only and won't solve your problem, or you proceed to disarm part of the (previously) legal owners, which to some would seem unconstitutional and a totalitarian slip. Another argument for the irrational part of the attachment of US citizen to their guns is that IIRC, the highest legal gun per capita ratio are often in the areas with the lowest estimated "illegal" gun per capita ratio, and inversely, meaning the people with the least reason to defend themselves are the best armed, while those with the most reason to do so are "defenseless". However, it also correlates with population and law enforcement density (being the surface/cop ratio rather than cop/civilian ratio), as the denser the population and law enforcement, the less declared guns you get. Once again, it makes sense in the US (and Australia) for more than self-defense against criminals as you do have more potentially dangerous wildlife than Europe or Japan, and it explains part of the correlation between gun ownership and population density regardless of actual criminality or law enforcement presence.

Funnily enough, we have two models, the US and Europe, with radically opposed cultural views on guns, and the most violent society, more prone to benefit by tighter gun control is the one favoring lax gun control (the "oh noes, I've got to have my gun to protect myself from the violence generated by everyone having a gun" logic) while the more civil and policed one with the strict gun control and lower crime rates is pushing toward even stricter gun control (the "Hey, we have no use for guns, they just would make accidents easier to happen, if only criminals and law enforcement have them, we're safe, right ?" logic). The thing is US society, gun control and gun violence have been in a vicious circle for so long that gun apologists are right, you probably no longer can apply strict gun control in the US without major risks and increased crime rates (for a time at least). On the other hand, in Europe, gun related violence is increasing steadily, organized crime from less "civilized" parts of Europe is pouring in Western Europe, bringing back violence and guns, and multiplying channels for "gangs" to get their hands on firearms, making them more violent and more equipped than ever before.

Uncleal, never have been proven, when was a last time a shooting spree in the US was foiled by civilians ? And again, the statistics are clearly in favor of the European model, even though cultural differences are the real explanation, gun control being a side effect rather than a primary cause.

Oh dear, not that old chestnut again, don't hijack a thread not meant for debate, if you want we can go over the arguments for/against gun control elsewhere, where it's more appropriate.

You're welcome, if you need them I can also give the French rank list (but we all have that) and a list of pilot having taken part in Operation 700 (only a dozen or so confirmed, only a handful with first names).

Or maybe Top Gun 2. Iceman and Maverick left the Navy, they are now a happy gay couple in a Californian suburb, they are trying to adopt a russian kid. Iceman is now a commercial pilot while Maverick is a bartender... oh wait, no, wrong movie...

Oooh, that 1 and a third more secret and sinister !

Yes, just chose another directory for the installation.

Nice one FC, do you expect us to believe you ? We KNOW you are part of the conspiracy, you are with the NWO to get rid of 93% of the world population and keep the rest as cattle for your alien reptile masters under the Pentagon and the greys in Area 51 ! Hey, wait, getting rid of 93% of the population, can I join in ? What's amazing is that those conspirationnists fail to apply Occam's Razor. Between two explanations : 1) This is a huge, international, complex conspiration spanning decades and somehow no-one blew the whistle and I'm one of the only people to realise what's going on. 2) This is perfectly normal and I just lack the basis in physics, chemistry and logic to understand it, so I'd better learn or shut up rather than blabber about things I know nothing about. Which is the simplest and most likely ? Yet, they invariably chose the first, go figure...

1) Yes, it is always like that, especially the first week, if you survive, you quickly love to learn the trees. My first mission usually ends up as a giant ten to one furball over the objective with 2 to 4 named soviet aces thrown in the mix and maybe a USAF one. 2) The campaign is winnable, in theory, but you have to work fairly hard to get a chance. 3) Yes, by default their use is a little harder I think, even though I haven't looked at the files it certainly felt so. 4) With the new method it only requires the additional step of making a copy of the .exe file for each new install, rather than the whole thing, saves up a lot a space. 5) Your wingman is meant to be less autonomous so he can be available to (badly) obey your orders, he can be quite deadly with enough rank and experience though.

No, that's (probably) related to you setting it in your decals.ini as a DecalLevel other than 2. Quick refresher : DecalLevel 0 is for Nation specific decals (or static decal) DecalLevel 1 is for Squadron specific decals DecalLevel 2 is for Plane specific decals

If we still have some time, I'll probably have a revision of the RF-84F skin between tomorrow and next week (depending on real life and how fast I solve/give up my decal weathering/noising tests), as I've got new photographic sources, finally . Scratch that, it's a complete number changes and scheme revision... Most of the photos are dated and planes without wing bands were shot after the operation, back in France, when the wing bands were already removed but not the fuselage ones yet. Likewise, the plane listed by most sources as 33-CO/52-7395 is actually 33-CQ/52-7335... and the list goes on, niarf Even the text of my new reference is wrong, giving numbers contradicted by the accompanying photo, I've never seen such a mess for post-WW2 operations. Once again, nothing beats photos precisely dated and localised. I would offer to scan photographic references (almost none in color unfortunately) for any one needing/missing them, but I won't have access to a scanner and a serious net connection next week, so eventual requests are today, eventual deliveries tomorrow. BTW Dave, I'm contemplating a stand-in Meteor FR.9 from the Meteor F.8 (will still lack the faired over guns ports and distinctive nose but better than nothing) to give the RAF recon assets, even though they historically were based on Malta, would that interest you ?

Can you find any trace of a problem in the logs/journals ? Is Aero running while you play ? If it does, disable Aero at game start (either manually or by changing the properties of the exe), it might be a crash when the game switches from one video mode to another, however it should give an error message, but I've had a similar silent crash with another game, it's worth a try.

CombatAce : come for the downloads, stay (or continuously come back) for the people. Dave, don't go soft on us like that, we might get scared.

Paul, from experience with the RF-84F, most model kits are dead wrong... In the case of the RF-84F most used the theoretical scheme of solid Yellow/Black/Yellow/Black/Yellow for both fuselage and wings when I found no photographic evidence for this scheme (the closest I got is for fuselage only, wings apparently "clean", on a plane I couldn't identify by number), especially for the planes depicted (they usually had a Yellow/Grey/White/Black/Yellow or Null/Black/Null/Black/Yellow scheme). In the end I did all three schemes, applied those backed up by photography or several sources to the right planes and randomly assigned a scheme to the other planes. The situation was complicated by the fact that depending on where (on Akrotiri or in France before shipping) and when the bands where applied the scheme was different (depending on available paint at the time). In the end only 3 of my planes have a paint scheme I'm sure is right, the rest is mostly extrapolation for verisimilitude. I have ordered a new source for Mousquetaire which should help clear things a bit (at least I hope so) but I still have no sure delay, I'll scan and post whatever we can use once I get my hands on it (if it's not too late). It's actually funny that the more sources you get on the topic, the more confusing and contradictory the informations are.