Bullethead

As I've said before, publishers and retailers both have special places in Hell awaiting them, for destroying the PC game industry. Problem is, only by going with publishers can indy devs get products to market, because otherwise they'll never sell enough copies to get retail shelf space. And if they go without the publisher and self-publish, they cut their margin to the bone and perhaps beyond going with DVDs, or alienate their customers who have knee-jerk reactions to DRMs on download-only products. So devs are screwed either way.

Same with Shogun 2 Total War, I'm afraid........

Provided you conveniently forget the existence of disco.......

Well, it depends on your plane. If you're in a Brisfit, 2-seat Strutter, or that single Roland fighter squadron, only fly in the pilot's seat and pretend you're in a fighter. Because the observer's body blocks your rear view, let him worry about that direction and you just concentrate on what's in front. If you're in a Fee fighter squadron, see the "Survival in the Air" guide on that plane. NEVER fly the Fee in a bomber squadron, and I don't recommend it as a fighter unless you hack it so your lot thinks they're "fighter_bomber" pilots and not "level_bomber" pilots. For anything else, we're talking bomber/recon flying. As a bomber/recon creman, you have the choice of being a full- or part-time pilot. Part-time pilot means mostly observer, but you still have to take off, land, and drop bombs from the pilot's seat. In between these 3 operations, it's pretty much the same whichever seat you're in. The exceptions are the Quirk and single-seat Strutter, which have no rear guns, so you can't do anything from the observer's seat anyway. The difference here is that the Quirk has such pathetic performance that you should play by bomber/recon rules of engagement, whereas in the single-seat Strutter you can play fighter pilot after a fashion, provided you're man enough. Bomber/recon rules of engagement are simple. As long as your flight stays in formation, it's relatively safe. All you have to worry about is bad luck with Archie (mostly not worth worrying about) and the initial rush of interceptors (VERY MUCH worth worrying about). AI fighter flights, even if it's MvR and his posse, are only a threat to 2-seater formations on their 1st pass. Once they make that pass, they just hang out behind you slightly out of gun range and follow you around until they get bored. Periodically, one of them might fake a diving side attack but that's just to lure you to break your formation. He'll never attack and won't come into your range, so just ignore such thing. The main problem is when they get bored. See, as long as they're following you, other enemy fighters will ignore you, but once they break off, you're subject to another initial attack by somebody else, which is where you take your main damage. Note that I said "as long as you're in formation". ANY significant deviation from formation is enough to incite a feeding frenzy. IOW, the best approach is to fly along straight and level and hope you don't get hit too hard in the initial pass. If you turn more than to just sidestep a burst from above, your wingmen won't follow with any alacrity, so you'll suddenly be odd man out and thus the target for the whole enemy flight. Time to start a new career, unless you're in one of those 2-seaters that has half-way decent performance as a fighter and you're man enough to handle the odds as your flight sails off into the distance. A corollary to the above is the bad luck of having an enemy flight follow you all the way home. At this point, it's inshallah, because your flight WILL break up for landing whether you want them to or not. Best thing in this case is to be the flight leader. Tha'ts because as long as you keep on straight and level, your wingmen will be the ones to break formation and have the sharks after them while you travel on to an alternate field many miles away. Problem with being flight leader is, riding in the rear gunner seat is pretty boring. Most of the initial rush attacks will hit folks behind you and afterwards the enemy will be out of range of your trailing wingmen so you have no hope of hitting them from the front of the formation. But even if you choose to lead by rank, it's still pretty frustrating because you can't elevate your guns more than about 45^ in most cases, so can't shoot at diving fighters on their 1st pass anyway. So, IMHO, if you want to fly a 2-seater career that's truly different from a scout career, I recommend flying a DFW (which can fly higher and faster than most contemporary enemy fighters, plus has a great bomb sight), or a Fee (which is still a scout but requires a totally different style). Otherwise, you're simply a hostage to fortune.

I don't have a problem with it, but I'm more used to Camels so know what to expect :).

I did and I can't fly it. The inability to see the horizon above about 1000m makes me nauseous, especailly with TIR. And even if I have a bucket handy to puke in and so stick out a sortie, there's utter lack of visibility of the ground when it's time for landing. My very few Roiland pilots have all died in landing accidents. Now there's a ride worthy of true champions of the air. If you think you're a great pilot, see what you can do in a Fee in Bloody April. I recommend 20 Squadon, my usual haunt then. Tell them Sgt. Bullethead said "hi" :).

If you say so. But I think Shakespeare's Henry V said it best: The adrenaline from surviving while being the decided underdog makes tamer times seem as small beer.

For the video, see here: As to the composer's name, the funniest part is that they have to say "of Ulm" to distinguish him from others fo the same name from other places

I have 4 QC-only test pilots, 1 for each nationality, to get the feel of new planes. They never die. Besides them, I usually have about 1 American, 1 French, and 2-3 each German and Brit pilots in different squadrons who fly DiD. When these guys die off, I make a new crop of them. Thus, I average 6-10 active pilots. I mostly fly for the King in early 1917 and for the Kaiser in mid-late 1918. I rarely fly at other times and places, but I like the N.28 and occasionally have to fly a French career. Problem is, in the US/French areas, there's not a lot of variety (as in a severe shortage of 2-seaters) so I mostly fly in Flanders. I hope P4 addresses this issue. I almost always do scouts (the Fee is a SCOUT!!!!). However, I do the odd 2-seater career, either as an RFC gunner or as a Schlasta pilot. I suppose doing a DH5 careerr during Passchendaele counts as a 2-seater career, even though it's just you in the pig. I only fly campaigns. As mentioned above, my QC time is entirely restricted to wringing out new planes prior to doing a campaign in one.

In Lousy Anna, that's known as the "Lug Nut Factor". He who has the most lug nuts can go ahead :).

Wow. I have trouble picturing that. In my experience, insane driving goes along with anger and violence. I'll have to go to China someday :). Of the places I've been, I rank Saudis as the worst drivers--I shudder to think what it would be like if they let women drive there, too . The roads are dead straight and perfectly flat for hundreds of miles, and you can easily drive in the hard-packed sand to either side in most places. Despite this, the Saudis have a huge number of wrecks, mostly quite violent due to the high speeds. And they just bulldoze the wreckage off to the side and leave it there, so every quarter mile or so along the road you see a mangled vehicle or 2. Most of them look like they weren't cut open with the Jaws of Life, so I assume the bodies are still in them..... Or least that's how it was 20 years ago, last time I was there.

Yup, but there's a difference between being played or at least known by and rather liked by everyday people and being played only by art poseurs in attempts to impress other art poseurs. If you asked everyday people to write a list of classical composers for whom they can hum at least a few bars of at least 2 tunes, most folks would probably produce, after some thought, a list of 4-6 names. Some folks might go to 6-8 names. There'd be a lot of overlap between lists, so I figure you'd end up with no more than a dozen names in total. That, IMHO, is the list of the true greats, whose music has stood the test of time and whose names are thus widely known even by people who aren't into classical music. If you broadened your search to include composers for whom the people known only part of 1 tune, you might end up with a total of about 20 names. The additions would be the better crop of "1-hit wonders", who had 1 kiss from the muse but never got a 2nd date. Their music is well-known but their names are remembered only with difficulty. For example, everybody knows the last movement of the "William Tell Overture". In fact, they probably are quite familiar with many other movements of that tune due to them being used as soundtracks for so many things, but probably don't realize they're from the same tune, having never heard it all played through. And they probably don't associate the name Rossini with any of it; they think of the Lone Ranger, or perhaps the threesome scene from "A Clockwork Orange". So regardless of whatelse he did (some of which was quite good), Rossini today is a "1-hit wonder". Beyond that, you get into the territory of those who truly like and are into classical music. No harm in that. I'm just saying that such folks know and like a much wider range of composers than the average person. But even they pretty much agree on a relatively small subset of everybody who wrote music back in the day. Outside this latter list, you have the territory of poseurs, who unfortunately decide on what your local orchestra will play, and thus skip over the really good stuff as "too common". That's what I was saying. But I think Monty Python said it best: "Beethoven, Mozart, Chopin, Liszt, Brahms, Panties...I'm sorry...Schumann, Schubert, Mendelssohn and Bach. Names that will live for ever. But there is one composer whose name is never included with the greats. Why is it that the world never remembered the name of Johann Gambolputty de von Ausfern-schplenden-schlitter-crasscrenbon-fried-digger-dingle-dangle- dongle-dungle-burstein von Knacker-thrasher-apple-banger-horowitz-ticolensic-grander-knotty-spelltinkle-grandlich-grumblemeyer-spelterwasser-kurstlich-himbleeisen-bahnwagen-gutenabend-bitte-ein-nürnburger-bratwustle-gerspurten-mitz-weimache-luber-hundsfut-gumberaber-shönedanker-kalbsfleisch-mittler-aucher von Hautkopft of Ulm?" And I collect bawdy drinking songs from all ages :).

Monty Python's "Decomposing Composers"

You did read the "Survival in the Air" article on the D.VII, right?

I dunno. True, there were a few truly great ones back in the day, who have lasting popularity. I enjoy listening to them. But those old guys were the pop stars of their day. As with their analogs in our time, most of the old guys were 1-hit wonders or even less, because all or most of their music really sucked. Problem is, nobody burned all their music back when they had the chance so it lingers on into our time. And so some folks these days think they can affect a cultured air by dredging up some completely horrible work by some utterly unknown, no-talent classical composer on the theory that because it's old, it must be good. I suppose in a couple centuries, everybody will still know a few Rolling Stones songs just as we all know some Beethoven and Mozart, but the self-styled "cultural elite" will be digging up today's throw-away crap and pretending to be superior.

The good thing about this road is that it's fairly busy so if you do go over the edge,odds are somebody will see it happen call for help. At least once/if they themselves successfully negotiate however far it is to the nearest land line or cell tower (say several hours on average) . This is in rather stark contrast to where I live. Our topography, while spectactular by Lousy Anna standards (which is pretty much flat), is miniscule compared to these cliffs. However, you're not much more likely to walk away from a drop of 30-50 feet than from off this road. We've got beaucoup such drops and at most of them, the car would be totally swallowed by the jungle and never seen again. Thus, if nobody sees it happen (which is rather likely even on our major highways), you'll die down there eventually. About once a year, somebody stumbles across a missing vehicle and driver along the side of one of our main roads. The most recent was a motorcyclist who'd been missing for 1.5 years. He was only found because they were widening the highway from 2 to 5 lanes and he was down in a hollow on the outside of a curve where the new lanes were going to be built. The sad part is, he was only about 50m away from the gas station / convenience store on the edge of town. I hope he was killed outright..... Gawd knows how many such things await discovery along our back roads.

Yup, that was real. And it was the most popular job aboard the zep because the guy stationed in the "cloud car", as they called it, could smoke.

I'm sorry, but there's no way Roger Miller can't make this list. My #1 song for all occasions: http://vodpod.com/watch/218567-roger-miller-dang-me-early-1970s

My favorite :

If you're flying the D.VII, then things are Very Bad for Germany. Good as that bird is, you'll be wishing she was a lot better. She can do some things better, at certain speeds, than the enemy fighters, but all enemy fighters can do at least 1 thing better or at least as well as the D.VII. The D.VII is easy to fly, but is in a tough environement, so averages out to being quite challenging. Heilige Flamme, glüh', Glüh' und erlösche nie Fürs Vaterland! Wir alle stehen dann Mutig für einen Mann, Kämpfen und bluten gern Für Thron und Reich!

I have a liking for these:

The Zeppelin scenes.... The skipper calls down the voice pipe: "Bosun, I'm sorry, but we're out of ballast. Please call all the riggers to the bombbay and make them jump out. Thanks." As if a half-dozen people made the difference. And then of course the Zep got shot down anyway. "Hell's Angels" was IMHO one of the worst movies ever made (apart from the air-to-air footage). I saw a History Channel show about Hughes a while back and it dates his weirdness to the making of that movie. He tried to do a stunt that all his stunt pilots refused to do, crashed as predicted, and suffered a head injury that gave him is obsessive-compulsive problems from then on. The earliest manifestation of this was his personal editing of the movie over months and months, to create the mess it is. Hughes went on to suffer further crashes and only got worse over time. The amazing thing is that he lived so long. And yes, Mr. House in FONV is based on HH.

As a game developer, I can think of 1 huge example of German censorship. You cannot sell a WW2 game in Germany, and by extension anywhere else in the EU, if the German units have swastikas on them. The swastika is simply not allowed. Period. End of story. Instead, you have to use something else or nothing at all. And because ever game developer wants to sell his product in Europe, EVERYBODY has to follow Germany's rule on this, even in the US where swastikas are allowed. IOW, Germany has censored the entire gaming industry. That's why most games have German WW2 units having unrealistic iron crosses where they should have swastikas. I'm not a Nazi. I'm just saying that Germany has censorship and it has global reach.

I love the Fallout games. I can easily see myself living in the Fallout world . You'll certainly enjoy this. Fallout 3 has a different flavor than the other titles in the franchise, because 1) it's set on the East Coast and 2) it was written by a different group of developers. The previous FO titles and the current New Vegas game were all done by the same writers and together lay out a long storyline of the West Coast recovering from the nuclear war, with each game like a generation later in time than the previous. The other games are mostly set in large wilderness areas with scattered points of civilization, which by New Vegas is fairly well-established. FO3 is set in 1 huge, ruined city. The other games have a more light-hearted feel but FO3 is definitely extremely twisted. In FONV, for example, you can walk all day without seeing anything out of one of the "Saw" movies, but in FO3 such sights are around nearly every corner. I like FO3 better than FONV in most respects. My main gripe with FO3 is that you can't join the Enclave , but that's OK because you can pretend to

That's quite true. Most people these days can't survive without their local grocery store. No modern city can support itself--it relies entirely on imports from all over the world. Right now, humanity is good at moving goods from supply to demand, but when it becomes too expensive to ship goods, cities will starve. So, when civilization crashes, we'll have a few billion surplus people starving and whose only survival option will be brigandage. That will make things quite exciting unitl they starve or run out of ammo, leaving just those who can fend for themselves and live in (and can defend) a place where they can do so. I was reading recently that achieving the fusion reaction itself is no longer the problem. The problem now is being able to get the energy out of the reactor in useful form. We just don't currently have the materials that can stand up to prolonged exposure to the sun's core. I'm hoping nanotech will help there.