Agiel

This little excerpt from an article on the new 155mm "Excalibur" round for the M-109 self-propelled howitzers gave me a chuckle:

Fascinating bit of psychology, there. He says the moment the aircraft touched down, he "forgot" how to turn off the engines. Overcome with relief, I imagine, but it's interesting how, even after performing a complex task over and over again ... the one time a critical variable is introduced, meeting that challenge can temporarily erase whatever non-critical steps follow the event horizon. Anyway, well done, Captain. Anyone know what sort of decoration this calls for ... besides staying alive and not destroying the aircraft and ship. Well I think that aviator could tell that story to any woman he wanted in a bar and she'd undress for him right then and there. I'd say that's almost as good as a Congressional Medal of Honour

Maybe I'll actually find her attractive now that she doesn't remind me of Sarah Palin as much anymore with that haircut.

If the Inquisition in Dragon Age lived up to its namesake, would that make the PC like Herr Otto Flick of the Gestapo and Cassandra his Helga? Inquisitor: "Zhe Inquisition has vays of making zhem talk. Cassandra! Bring me my sharp Inquisition sword." Cassandra: "I find your piercing gaze and your commanding presence quite alluring. May I kiss you?" Inquisitor: "Certainly."

Damn was about to post this myself. Though a more detailed account:

So from the Steam sales I now have Divinity: Original Sin and Shadowrun Returns. Now Eagle Dynamics announced Digital Combat Simulator FW 190D-9 at sale price though I'm conflicted at the moment. On the one hand that was my favourite radial engine warfighter from the Second World War along with the F6F Hellcat and the F4U Corsair, on the other hand, there isn't really a good combat environment for it until the release of DCS: Europe WWII, and honestly having only P-51Ds and other "Butcher Birds" to tangle with over T'blisi may get old after a while.

Nice, I hope that the "You won't get the developer injected events" part does'nt mean you only get to fly around watching pretty systems but that you can still do some simple missions and such. On another note; Gah! Ninja'd this time! The version 0.0.0.0.01 footage in the media section looks rough and is far from indicative of the final product, but if it goes the Planetside 2 route then I have high hopes for it. Otherwise...coooome onnnnnn Harlequin class for the Eldar!

Honestly, if Putin is paying people to do that, he's being taken for a ride. Just go to UC Berkeley or Santa Cruz and you'll find kids who'll do that for free.

Any time. Just keep me updated if you have any questions you want answered about playing the game, platforms, and the like. It was pretty rough going for me trying to get the hang of it at first (though the fact that it was a bit buggy and crashy didn't help), but me being the persistent type I kept at it and it's a worthy addition to my games library. The last thing I want you to think is that you wasted the not so insignificant sum that you spent* on buying a Matrix joint that was either too buggy, had too steep a learning curve, or the presentation is too wooden for your tastes (as the company is clearly not on the same planet as most other game publishers when it comes to pricing). Don't be afraid to shoot a question on the forum which is packed to the brim with enthusiastic, knowledgeable people. *It is in fact possible to get a refund, as one user on the forum managed to do.

A fine arts lecturer at my uni once told me that "men spend nine months getting out of the womb, and the rest of their lives trying to get back in."

Me being a huge Harpoon, Dangerous Waters, and Falcon 4.0 fanatic as well as having classics like Red Storm Rising and the War that Never Was on my shelf, Command is my current wargaming poison. Though if you're starting out with it and do not have a beefy processor and an SSD, you may want to get those, turn off autosaving, and set range rings to "Selected Unit Only" nonetheless. That screen can get quite busy and make it very difficult to process the battespace, not to mention bring even fairly modern machines to their knees! For some tips, I'd also recommend watching Baloogan's streams of the game: https://www.youtube.com/user/baloogan And if you're having difficulty telling your Flankers from your Eagles, your Ticonderogas from your Kirovs, and SM-2MRs from your SA-10s, there is this handy database: http://www.harpoondatabases.com/Encyclopedia/Encyc_Index.aspx Other than that, it in ways plays like a cRPG. I mean, it has real-time pausing and die-rolls, except your Warriors with a +1 mace are F-16s and the die-rolls decide if your AN/ALE-50 decoy seduces that SAM instead of whether or not your char makes his mental saves.

Having just graduated from uni with a degree in Fine Arts, I find myself back in it reading the memoirs of Louise Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun http://www.gutenberg.org/files/31934/31934-h/31934-h.htm

I'm curious as to whether your retinue will ride on their own mounts or the AI followers have to follow the party leader by hoofing it on foot with rubber-banding AI, Bethesda-style.

Make a point of playing this one (even if it isn't necessarily much of a 4X if you were that hardcore of a purist). You won't regret it.

I'll never forget the time when my roommate's pet scorpion gave birth to dozens of tiny little scorpions and the momma had all of them riding on her back (not my image). "Go forth and multiply, my little death machines." You gotta figure that giant stinger tail hovering ominously over them is one hell of a behavioural aide: "Hey! quiet down back there, or else somebody gonna get a hurt real bad!"

For those who missed it and still retain some fondness for TF2, there's this:

Well part of the reason why the tank armies of the worlds stuck with the 120/125mm guns was because the increase in caliber size decreased the number of rounds a tank could carry. In my experience with Steel Beasts even with the 22 ready rounds available to the M1A1+ and the 18 for the Leo 2s you had to make every shot count, especially against a numerically superior foe (and in the case of the Central Front of the notional Cold War gone Hot, that the Warsaw Pact forces boasted superior numbers is a masterpiece of understatement). Though prototypes were developed for the Abrams CATTB and the Leopard 3 using the new 140mm gun, since the NATO forces had only just began fielding the 120mm in wide numbers it was decided it was better to improve the ammunition for these guns rather than seeking increased firepower through an increase in caliber. Another reason was that 140mm rounds would put more stress upon the human loader (for western tanks), and though the Soviets experimented with upguns for their own tanks it was determined that the cost and technical constraints were too great, as the new round meant newer and sturdier autoloaders, dramatically re-designed turrets to accommodate them, and even newer hulls and engines to retain the same mobility previous designs of tanks had.

I'm a big military nut and I generally don't get worked up about those things so long as I keep a proper perspective about these "mainstream" games. Hell, even in DCS which is about as hardcore of a military game as can get you'll see people flying A-10s and Russian Su-27s with Canadian and Greek liveries alongside Second World War vintage Focke Wulf 190s and (soon) Korean-era F-86 Sabres. I think the bigger issue I have is when some people claim to be informed about these matters based upon their experiences in Battlefield and CoD.

I don't know about you Keyrock, but I found the actual quest to lift the curse to be the coolest quest in the game. The atmosphere was outstanding and I don't recall having enormous amounts of trouble fighting the Draug. However, I believe the person who designed the first fight with Letho ought to be drawn and quartered with a spork. Every time I play TW2 I can't refuse the urge to kill the s*** out of Letho in the epilogue.

Which is why there's been development of canister rounds and the gradual replacement of current stocks of the M-830 HEAT rounds with the M-830A1 MPAT, which has a proximity fuse giving it an airburst capability (which can also be used against helicopters in a pinch). My US Army tanker contact has relayed to me that there is some reservation in the brass to have the entire prospective M1A3 fleet use a license-built version of the German Rheinmetall L/55 (the Abrams currently uses a variation of the Rheinmetall L/44 that is equipped ba all Leopard 2s up to the -A5 model), as a longer gun means it will be harder to manuever in tight streets. Nils "Ssnake" Hinrichsen of the Steel Beasts team had this to say about the tanks becoming obsolete, though as a former tanker for the Bundeswehr and treadhead, his viewpoint might be a bit biased: Also for those interested, the second FREMM frigate for the French Navy has been commissioned. The name: "Normandie". A video of its shakedown cruise:

The Soviet concept of the tank was closer to assault gun than tank destroyer as other armies (i.e. those who would be on the other side of Soviet tanks) considered them. This is reflected by the fact that Soviet tanks in the Cold War-era carried an even proportion of anti-personnel, HEAT, and kinetic-energy penetrator rounds where their counterparts in the same period who were guarding the North German Plain, the Fulda Gap, and the Danube Line generally carried 2/3 sabot and 1/3 HEAT or multi-purpose warheads.

My dad, an Angeleno through and through and hater of all things New York (his experience with the city was not totally unlike Homer Simpson's), could not contain his giddyness.