SDirickson

Is this the WWII Strategy game we've all been looking forward to from Maddox and 1C? Seems somehow less than I hoped, expected.

Thanks folks. Not much of a birthday for me, having to report back to school and all. But, now all I have to do is finish the rest of knob year. I just got a couple CD's, a few books and my parents and I went to a nice little Sicilian restaraunt we know of. I spent my last day and a half of leave lounging around with my parents. Being an only child, we're pretty close, and its just as hard on me leaving as it is on them.

Well, hopefully, when the sim is released, we might see a fully 3D AND clickable pit like in Jane's F/A-18E. But, I bet the programming is a bitch, especially when you have to do it for multiple aircraft.

So my friend and I were going to go to the local shooting range with two of my father's handguns, something I have done frequently. My friend had never fired a handgun before, so he was looking forward to it. Being the careful sort I am, I had unloaded the mags, placed the guns and mags seperately in a carrying case, and we both made off ammo-less, figuring we'd pick up some cheap FMJ rounds at the range. Well, we got there, I got a box of .45 and a box of S&W .40 and carried em to the counter, only to be completely shot down because I wasn't 21. So, it is perfectly legal for an 18 year old to shoot whatever he wants at the range, perfectly legal to buy rifle and shotgun ammo, more than perfectly legal to purchase a hunting license, yet he cannot buy cheap target ammo at a controlled range. Not even in Texas. What crap, Bill of Rights be damned. That s**t ain't right.

lol, yeah, crap. For some reason I was thinking the whole Bill of Rights was part of the first ammendmant. Kinda made a fool of myself there.

Yeah, yeah, I'm just bitching. It aggrevates me though that owning a gun is one of our first ammendmant rights and we aren't allowed to exercise it as an adult. Well, as much of an adult as you can be at 18. To me, if you can pass the background check, you shouldn't have any problem owning any sort of weapon. If the checks aren't thorough enough to safely sell handguns, then its the check that should be changed not the age to buy. Besides, anyone that needs a weapon to commit a crime is gonna find a way to get one, regardless of the laws. But, to be honest, I don't particularly care. Amny of the laws are f***ed up, but there is nothing I can do to change em yet. And because I'm not, nor can I change anything, I'm just gonna stop bitching, cuz that don't help niether.

I can buy a rifle or a shotgun at 18, ammo too. No handguns though till 21. It seems to me, the background check they perform on folks when they buy a firearm should be just as accurate for 21 year olds as 18 year olds.

Well, my problem isn't so much at the Citadel, but with the great state of Texas. It's a state law that prohibits those under 21 from purchasing handgun ammo, anywhere in the state, be it a range, Academy, wherever. But I know exactly what you're talking about, people's worries and concerns over seeing any type of weapon in the open. I was in JROTC, and we always had people look at us funny, even when we were just practicing rifle drill on the parking lot outside the school. Unfortunately, people associate the weapons themselves with danger, not the people who carry them.

Holy crap man. I've been waiting for a decent A-6 for years. It was always my dream to see an A-6 sim the likes of Falcon 4.0 or Jane's F/A-18.

lol, all I can say is, any tattoo of a profile on one of my cheeks will end up looking like Alfred Hitchcock.

I played the demo a while back and was pretty impressed with the terrain and foliage, so when I had a $50 gift card to Best Buy to blow, this was one of the items. Just wondering if anyone here plays it or knows any worthwile mods or patches.

You know, you could be right, PC. Todd, you got a birthmark the shape of John Foster Dulles on your right butt cheek? Cuz I know I don't.

I have to say, even on my old PC I got stellar fps with Raven Shield. Graphics maxed and everything. Now, I run it at 1280 x 1024 with 4xFSAA and 8xAA. Its unbelievable. As for a sequal to Ghost Recon. So long as it is at least as good as RS and they maybe even revamp the recoil system to be something a bit more realistic, like say in DOD, then I'll be a happy camper.

Happy B-Day to you too, man.

lol, Jan 11th huh? Same here bro. Except, my present is gonna be reporting back to the Citadel.

GR2? What is this?

Hehe, me too, por favor.

Books, Robert Plant's latest album, a CRKT knife and.... a TrackIR II. And, with my birthday almost exactly two weeks away, who knows what else?

How about for those of us with Radeon graphics cards and two CRT's hooked up. Using Hydravision, you can have two monitors with an extended desktop on one card. Any possibility on this working as well? I'd like to mount the second screen above the first for above the cockpit views, or as an instrument panel view.

lol, umm, I just realized you were talking about LO-MAC there, PC. You're right, on my pop's PC Lock On don't run too well either.

You've got about the same system I'm runnig here at home, on my dad's PC. Only thing different is he is running XP. Here are my specs: 1.4 mhz Athlon 768 PC-2100 DDR-RAM Radeon 8500 64mgb SB Live! X-Gamer Cat 3.10 drivers for the Radeon I set Il-2 config to the Radeon 8500 settings, and in game I run 1024x768x32 with medium settings except full object textures and lighting. I'm normally running numerous things in the background, including AIM and TrackIR and I still get around 30fps. It drops a bit around cities and stuff, but its definately playable. Wish I could help more, but I promise you, it should run great on a Win98 system with those specs. There shouldn't be any problem. And at the settings I use, it still looks fabulous.

I just got one for X-mas, much to my surprise. Once I got over the initial disorientation caused by not keeping my head steady, I got used to it real fast. Definately worth buying, even for non-combat sims.

Alright, sounds good. It'll probably have to wait until I get back to school though. I'm having to make do with my father's PC right now, not quite up to the specs of my Alienware.

I can't wait to do CAS in the Pucara or CAP in the Harrier. Also, if the modders take hold of the sim, or if an addon gets released, I can't wait to see CAS with AV-8B's or GR.7's, landing dry on a beachhead and getting rearmed just to fly out. Imagine, one single mission involving 3 takeoff's and landings with less than 5 minutes spent getting to the attack point from the beach.

One of the questions on my Naval Science final had to do with the basic characteristics of active and passive sonar. It was something like; Passive sonar has which properties: A. Stealthy B. Longer Range than Active C. (Blatantly Wrong) D. (Blatantly Wrong) Now, I got a bit confused here. I even went down and asked my instructor about it. He should have known, after all, he's a HH-60B pilot and does ASW work for a living. He told me, and I quote, "There is one obviously correct answer." I knew A was correct, because passive sonar doesn't send any sound waves into the water, it's basically just listening. But then, I thought passive had a longer range as well. Ignoring the whole thermal layer, and sound waves bouncing along it and all the other quirks of sound when travelling through water, I thought active could only work to a certain distance, before the sound lacked the energy to bounce back. Passive, however, could detect an active burst from twice as far away as the pinging sub. I think I put down A, just because I didn't feel like arguing any more, but shouldn't both answer choices have been correct?