Bullethead

Welcome aboard, FDA! New guys buys the drinks! I'll have a triple absinthe with cartridge-worth of gunpowder dissolved in it. Anyway, as HD said, no telling how the WOFF campaign will be, except for a few vague hints. For instance, it's been said that 2-seater squadrons are more specialized for a certain mission type instead of doing them all at random like now. But that's about all the devs have let slip. I HOPE it now allows for squadron transfers, and that pilots will live long enough to remove all such issues from the realm of mootnsss :)

Continued hopes for the best.

Yup, that's true :)

But, if you put your tinfoil hat in the microwave and set it on high for a long time, the interference it creates will backfeed into the spy satellites and short them out. NOTE: Only do this with a microwave you never want to use again because it will be destroyed in the process. Also, position the microwave outside at the end of a very long extension cord, in a position where it's at least 20 feet from anything flammable. Also, power the extension cord from a generator, not your house. And position yourself far away from both the generator and the microwave :)

Old trains were quite fast when they had the room to build up speed and didn't have to stop at every little village station. Before WW1, they were already going over 200km/h. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_speed_record_for_rail_vehicles

I'm currently reading a new book called Home Before the Leaves Fall, by Ian Senior, ISBN 978-1-84908-843-5. Despite being published by Osprey, it's a big hardcover running about 400 pages. Anyway, as you can probable guess from the title, this is another look at the events of August-September 1914. You could see it as a replacement for the venerable The Guns of August by Barbara Tuchman, with more recent research and improvements, plus finer detail. And it's a very good read. The book begins with a description of the evolution of the opposing war plans. In this discussion, Senior gives passing notices to the now-discredited revisionist work of Terence Zuber, who in 1999 said there'd never been a "Schlieffen Plan". After this, the primary focus is on the events of the German right and French left wings once the Germans had gotten through Belgium. The narrative thus really picks up in the 3rd week of August, from which it becomes a day-by-day account through mid-September in the immediate aftermath of the Marne. The battles of Charleroi and Guise are covered in good detail with lots of maps. The last 3rd of the book is a thorough tactical treatment of the Battle of the Marne, which was actually 2 separate battles (the Ourcq and the Petit Morin) fought about 50 miles apart, something I hadn't known until now. The narratives, besides the big-picture decision-making and movements of units, are liberally interspersed with many extracts from the memoirs of participants in the front lines, which are quite informative. All in all, I think this is a very good book. Check it out.

OK, Olham, from now on, consider this thread a SPOILER ALERT!!!! Essentially, Senior says that the version of the Schlieffen plan championed as infallable by the post-war "woulda-coulda-shoulda" crowd, who crucified Moltke the Younger, wasn't a complete plan. This was the 1910 (IIRC) version, the last for which Schlieffen was responsible and what Moltke the Younger inherited. First off, this version of the plan contemplated only a 1-front war against France alone. Second, it had essentially zero thought put into the logistical problems imposed by a very strong German right wing moving at the highest possible speed at the greatest possible distance from sources of supply. Senior makes a very good argument that this version of the plan was completely unworkable and that, had the war not started when it did, with crops either still in the field or just harvested but not yet moved to market, the right wing would have starved to death. So, Moltke based his strategy on the the last 2-front war plan, which IIRC was 1906. This meant fewer Germans on the Western Front to start with. Also, Moltke was much more concerned with the right wing's logistics than Schlieffen had been, and decided not to put more troops there than he thought he could supply, which as it turned out was still too many. Finally, the Germans had great difficulties with their chosen method of communications, which was voice telephone. This made them fall back on radio, which they weren't equipped to do. The bottom line was that German HQ lost touch with what was happening at the front. Part of this could be blamed on Moltke not moving the operational HQ ahead of the Imperial HQ, but a lot was due to the reliance on telephone instead of the long-established and easier-to-maintain telegraph, and the insufficient means of radio to fill the gap. The bottom line is, Senior says the Schlieffen Plan was unworkable due to 1) a 2-front war, 2) the logistics of the right wing, and 3) the inadequacy of German communications between armies and HQ, and between adjacent armies. Combine these failings with the normal amount of Clauswitzian frictions, plus the expected amount of army commanders with troublesome personallities and rivalries, and you have the recipe for defeat, given an enemy with resolve in the face of intial disaster. And that's what Joffre turned out to be, although nobody on either side expected much out of him beforehand.

There's also a 3rd option. About 1/6 or so of the Workshops screen, in the upper left area, is devoted to user-defined weather parameters. So, if like neither "Historical" nor WM's default AI, you can set up your own AI. This allows you to set basic parameters, how often a front comes through and messes up the norm, how long the front lasts, and how bad things get during it.

Don't they? I've been to most of these places and find them distinguishable by their local beers and languages but not in their weather ;).

LOL!!! Where I live, we alternate between draught and flood. At the end of a flood, I usually say "AAAA-IIIIIII!!! What is this horribly bright thing in the sky? I feel myself burning. I must return to my coffin!" During the ensuing draught, there are occasional light sprinkles of rain, during which I tell local children to come out and witness this strange prodigy from the heavens, which must be an omen of impending catastrophe. And finally, during the monsoon season, on those few days when the sun comes out, I remark that "You know, the Indians had legends of such a bright disc in the sky, but I'd always thought they'd been smoking the peace pipe too much. Who'd have thought such a thing really existed?" Most of my neighbors consider me a bit odd, but it's not for the above :)

Well, I finally finished this book. I hope those whom I inspired to get it have enjoyed it as much as I have. I had all sorts of things delay me in finishing it, but none of them were the fault of the book. And in fact I'm rather glad these delays happened because, by coincidence, they eventually got me in synch with the calendar, so that often I read of events on the same calendar day of 2012 that they happened in 1914. Thus, I kept thinking, "Damn, 98 years ago this very day, this stuff was happening!" and this, in turn, made me relucant to read more than that single day's chapter even when I had the rare opportunity. Despite my 4+ decades of what passes for literacy in this degenerate day and age, I had never before had this experience with a history book. It gave it a sort of RPG flavor. Anyway, my opinion of the book has only improved during the relatively long period (compared with most of my brainfodder) I've had to digest it. It's both a ripping yarn in its daily narrative parts and an intelligent, logical, and convincing argument in its analytical parts. Personally, I have never been satisfied with any explanation previously available in the US of the German failure in 1914 because all this side of the Pond have smacked of propaganda for 1 nation or even 1 faction within 1 nation. This book seems, OTOH and from my American POV, to be a fair treatment of the real whos, whats and whys of the matter. Given that I'm resurrecting a long-dead thread here, I figure it's now safe to discuss the particulars of the book's thesis without spoiling it for anybody. But just to make sure the range is clear, I'm asking here and now if there's anybody who'd rather not discuss this just yet. Speak now or forever hold your peace.

Damn, that totally sucks. As you say, you never know. Horrible things can just reach out and zap you with no warning, whether it's a horse or the guy in the oncoming vehicle texting. I'm glad to hear that the outlook is as favorable as can be expected, all things considered. Good luck!

Thanks for the tip!

Remember that scene in "Pulp Fiction" where they jumpstarted an ODing Uma Thurman? Well, for the 1st time in my career last night, I saw something very similar happen. It was about 2330 last night and we got called to a trailer park were there was a big redneck party in progress. The call said a guy had passed out and wasn't breathing and when we walked in the door, we found him breathing just a bit but not enough to keep from turning slightly blue. Turns out he'd had a lot of beer and then chewed up a methadone patch. So the paramedic shot him up with this stuff called Narcan. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naloxone Within a few seconds, the guy groaned and we pulled him into a sitting position, whereupon he spectactularly puked his guts out. Fortunately, the paramedic warned me this was going to happen so we had him aimed away from us when the fountain started. Then the guy was wide awake but disoriented. When he asked what happened and why he was covered in puke, I said, "Dude, we just 'Pulp Fictioned' you." It was one of the most amazing things I've ever seen. When I got there, I thought I was within 10 seconds of doing CPR. But 10 minutes later, the guy had changed his own clothes and walked to the ambulance under his own power. Not even my local voodoo practitioners can raise the dead that well :). All in all, it was a very busy night. Before this resurrection, we had a grieving relation go down in the middle of a funeral service but we managed to keep the body count there at just the one. Then we had a car fire and finished up in the wee hours with a large party-turned-riot with several casualties to patch up. And then I had to get up at 0600 this morning to brief the guys taking over the watch. Needless to say, I'm a bit tired right now, so I expect I'll nod off on the sofa while watching football this afternoon :).

Thanks for the tip. I use the Pro Clip thing, not reflectors, but I'm sure the same distance principle applies. Stil, it's a bit further than arm's length between my head and the camera as it is now.

I'll have to give this a spin. My last sortie, I had a weird TIR malfunction where it was like my neck had been replaced by a 10' long bungee cord. Maybe a new profile will keep this from happening again.

I don't know whether to be worried or to congratulate the bastard for getting away it it for so long :). When my puir auld grey-haired mither was a stewardess on DC3s, one time they had a seeing-eye dog as cargo. There being no good way to store the dog in the baggage compartment on that plane, the crew had it in the cockpit with them, and the dog got aboard before any of the passengers so they didn't know it was there. When the plane landed, the pilot was 1st off the plane, walking the dog down the aisle from cockpit to the door at the rear past all the passengers. The dog had his full harness rig on and the pilot had put on dark glasses. Quite a few passengers got upset :).

I have no convictions at all in this matter. As folks say in Lousy Anna, I don't have a dog in this fight, so I don't care about the outcome. I'm just trying to be impartial where the OP was convinced the guys were totally innocent. I was just saying that being a game developer ostensibly doing research for a new title doesn't prove you're not a spy. For instance, a few years ago, some crack-whore pop culture starlet du jour (whose forgettable name I've long since forgotten) got busted for shoplifting something she could have bought by the ton with her money. She tried to get out of it by claiming she was researching her role in some up-coming film....

That's only my most recent rant against scrambles. I've started and participated in entire threads decrying them. But it never hurts to bring the subject up again, what with WOFF's topmasts showing over the horizon. As to building labels, in Paris only the landmark buildings have them. All the thousands and thousands of nondescript flats, shops, offices, and bridges have none. So, if like me you're unfamiliar with the city, don't have a map, but still want to see all the sights, you can turn on labels and fly from landmark to landmark. I should mention that if you go in search of Paris and are navigating by the in-game map, ignore where that map draws the rivers. The red dot labeled "Paris" is where the town is, and the rivers run through and around it as they should. However, the blue rivers on the in-game map are drawn about 20 miles to the south of where they are on the actual terrain surface. With N.153, judging by where the in-game map shows the rivers, the airfield should be in the southern suburbs of the city with the distinctive Seine bends just NW of the airfield. But such is not the case. There are some sizeable towns and some small creeks near the field, but Paris, the Seine, and the distinctive river bends are well to the north, where the red dot on the in-game map is. So, level off at about 1000' and fly for the red dot. Eventually, the entire horizon ahead will be city buildings and, looming out of the haze in the far distance, the dim outline of the Eiffel Tower. You can see it from miles and miles away. As you cross over the edge of the built-up area, turn on labels and now you can see all the sights. But enough of the past. Olham, that 12 vs 3 battle might sound easy but as you say, it's amazing nobody collided. That's the sort of fight I let the young hounds enjoy while I circle around above in case more enemies arrive on high.

Every spy has a good cover. Reminds me of the Cambridge Five.... Look, I can't say myself whether or not these guys are really spies. All I can say is that being game developers does not automatically give them a free pass, nor does any other profession. How much does anybody here really know about these people? Here's the thing.... I doubt anybody would have bothered them if they hadn't already been on the watch list of the Greek (and probably other) intelligence services. As you say, all sorts of people take photos on that island, so why single these 2 out? And while they had an ostensible reason for being there and taking pictures, that's exactly what a cover is supposed to provide. So, rather than immediately taking the Greek security forces as bumbling buffoons arresting harmless game designers for no good reason, I'm inclined to give the security forces the benefit of the doubt. Let's see what happens at the trial, shall we?

Having read more than I care to of languages I don't grok and English translations of them that are even worse, I can't say I blame the Greek authorities here. There's a long tradition of seemingly harmless intellectual types being spies. What better cover for some nefarious intent than to say you're working on a fictional video game? I'm with JFM. How do we know these guys weren't spies?

Ah, la belle fée verte, elle m'aime tres beaucoup. Et ça c'est bon ça! (Pardonez-vous ma 'tit peu de maudite patois d'Acadie) But the labels said it was the Opera House. Where else would you expect to find the Green Fairy? On a sad note, I must pay my last respects to 2LT Belesarius Bullethead of No. 45 Squadron, KIA 23 October 1916. 11 missions, 14 hours, 3 out of 3 confirmed kills. This pic is of his last triumph. He was killed the next morning when I foolishly accepted a scramble mission. I mean, it was 1916, so how hard could it be?

Well, the only sign of life I saw in the whole city was a train passing through, but it made enough noise to be heard over my own engine. I think the building with the green domes on the roof is the absinthe factory :).

"See Paris and die." My new squadron, N.153, just formed near Paris and will be there for a few more days forming up before moving to the front. Because we're too far behind the lines to do real missions on a Nupe's short legs (even though they order us to anyway), I'm just leaving formation and enjoying the sights of the City of Lights. BTW, you can REALLY load up on absinthe there :).

ITI, that's simply stunning! It looks all that engine needs is fuel and it would crank right up ;). On the subject of low-poly models, should you ever be so inclinded, the main trick seems to be to fake as much small 3D detail as possible on the textures, so you can use fewer and simpler polys on the model. I mean, there's an irreducible minimum of polies you need to make the overall shape of the plane look right, so you want to add as little to that as possible. Also keep in mind that the only parts of the plane that will ever get close scrutiny in the game are the cockpit and immediately surrounding areas. Everything else will be seen from a distance, usually while moving at fairly high speed across the observer's field of view, so can be fairly minimalist. So, on the airplane itself, why build in wing ribs when you can fake them quite well on the skin? Same goes for entire radiator surfaces, small vent louvres, turnbuckles on the rigging, various details of control surface hinges, etc. On an engine, cooling fins, nuts and bolts, slight changes in part diameter and shape, etc., are also done with the textures. Hell, with a rotary engine in the operating mode, you can reduce the entire engine to a disc with a blurred texture of the whole engine painted on it.