Walsingham

I'd have thought that unless you're seriously in the business of making new engines you should use someone else's. And by 'in the business' I mean - You've worked as part of a team who built one before - You've been part of a maintenance team for an engine, with access to source code. - You've got at least one flunky - I mean employee - to send out for doughnuts, and more like a whole heap of them. - You've got an epxerienced and ruthless project manager - You've got enough money for a few years of the above long before you even consider taking payment for it. Essentially Meta's point about housebuilding is very apt. Unless you have the above you will overrun on time and money, and the end result may be rubbish anyway. As the brothel-creeper say: inexperience is expensive.

I almost completely forgot about this thread. So profuse apologies to Alanschu and Azarkon for my not replying sooner. My interest is not from the game direction, but from the simulation direction. That is that the AI does not have to be fun to play against. But equally it doesn't have to be unbeatable. I'm interested in scripting - or more precisely acting as backup for the guy scripting - a 'human' combat AI. One avenue that particularly interests me is, in order to address some of those tactical questions you raised, Alan, is that of commanders. The questions you asked would be tackled by a corporal or sergeant, while bigger questions would be tackled by higher officers and NCOs.

Taught me everything I know about business. Any time I'm in a client's office I begin stuffing everything I can into a large rucksack in case it is needed later so as to save me going back for it. It's also fair to say that i never ever pass up the opportunity to kill kobolds for cheap XP.

there's a difference between downloading and installing drivers. you need to actually rerun the executable to reinstall the drivers. taks Could his card be overheating or come loose?

Yeah... well... I train squirrels to shoot back around here! You want to be careful doing that. Look at what happened with the ISI and the Talibs! You'll have squirrels turning up demanding you live like them in the trees, and stop dancing. And what's wrong with that? Maybe we could learn a thing or two. I don't know if I could manage shinning up those trees. I expect it would chafe my face.

Reports have been coming in for over a two weeks of a rift between the Sunni insurgency and the (nominally Sunni) Al Qaeda jihadis. Apparently mainstream nationalist Sunni factions are trying to get their factions into a cohesive bloc in order to more effectively bargain at the national level. Meanwhile the international jihadis have been doing what comes naturally and annoying the bejaysus out of their hosts - the regular Iraqis - trhough general arrogance and aggression. Last year this saw several towns cooperate with US authorities to turf out Al Qaeda members to the West of Baghdad. Recent operations suggest the same thing is now happening to the East. Predictaby there have been a number of attacks on nationalist Sunni insurgents which seem to have been carried out by Al Qaeda groups in a counter-productive attempt to cow them into submission. Al Qaeda in Iraq has a very simple strategy - to provoke a civil war of ethnic cleansing that the Coalition will be unable and unwilling to halt. As previously stated, this is beginning to irk the mainstream Sunnis who would quite like to be alive and in possession of more than a smoking pile of rubble when all's said and done. They really can't afford to fall out with their Sunni hosts, because in this 'nightmare' scenario they would suddenly be stranded in a very hostile land. In order to force a reconciliation, Al Qaeda has opted for a pretty bold faced operational campaign. They are putting pressure on the Shias to act in reprisal for a revolting sequence of bombings aimed at mosques and shrines, including the increasingly less priceless Al-Askari shrine (that was blown up about 18 months ago). Regrettably, the reprisals have begun, with at least three Sunni mosques targetted in the last few days. It may be instructive to consider the BBC's chart below, which shows how the last attack on the Al-Askari mosque precipitated serious unrest. I would suggest this illustrates yet again the utterly ruthless and singularly destructive nature of the threat from Al Qaeda, and the importance of making a distinction between nationalism and islamofascism in the insurgency.

Yeah... well... I train squirrels to shoot back around here! You want to be careful doing that. Look at what happened with the ISI and the Talibs! You'll have squirrels turning up demanding you live like them in the trees, and stop dancing.

Sounds like it should have worked. Of course it couldn't be done now. Fething animal rights. EDIT: Way back in the mists of time a 'certain' goblin-kicking dwarf entered a series of caves in search of loot and goblin skulls. Outnumbered he had a number of secret weapons. to whit: 1) Two 5 gallon barrels of lamp oil 2) a brace of chickens with falconry hoods attached 3) Tar 4) Dwarven cigarettes 5) rawhide thongs Suggestions on how these could be usefully employed on a postcard. Eddo ...no webcams.

I always give them a wide berth when I am out running. Filthy tree rats.

I'm sure I remember something about needing a shotgun to go with a rocking chair.

My dear boy, that's just to brighten up the place.

I'd have thought that against the front line that would be a case of coals to Newcastle.

*dragged along by virtue of their being his fingers*

Women are strange. They try to read far too much into everything. This is how they enjoy Catherine Cookson.

Like I say, I'm ashamed to report that it is considered downright fashionable to be bigoted about Americans over here. The only upside is that it gives me the opportunity to bushwhack unsuspecting socialites when they say that sort of thing around me.

Thought: what about a bomb that induces massive over-activity in the brain, that leaves te individual completely catatonic with exhaustion? A sort of Agent Orange for brains. Thinks: I bet this is how zombies work.

Stupid Far Cry. Lousy stupid last level.

I concur with my learned colleague, the scumsucking arch heretic.

Hmmmm...

I am utterly baffled by the notion that a target number (option b) is more sensible. It may well be what you are used to, but in purely mathematical terms the percentile approach is more straightforward, and is the approach used in every simulation I've ever seen. This is because: 1. Most scientific data can be used to construct a (0,1) probabilty of something happening. 2. A large number of computerised systems are capable of generating good pseudo-random (0,1) numbers. 3. You may want to use a probability distribution to sample from, like the poisson or normal distribution. In a completely made up doolalli gameworld like D&D there's no reason why points 1 and 3 would interest you. But in any remotely real world setting they might. Kaft, if you're talking about game design then you may want to include these points, because it can greatly simplify making your target tables and so on. Hence... *and with this Walsingham recedes into a tangle of anecdotes concerning risk analysis and, for some reason, baboons.*

Damn straight. Bollinger all the way.

How about a bomb that induces overpowering curiosity?

#2 If it 'does exactly what it says on the tin' then how come when it says 'open other end' it never is?

I've no idea how much it costs as a foreigner. But you'd be able to drink legally... And just think of all that lovely bigotry directed at you for being an American! Oh wait, no that's something that I'm deeply ashamed of. My sales technique needs work.

You mean 'commenting with arch feminine charm', surely?