Agiel

Colour me surprised with those pictures. Never thought Aiden would be the type at the head of a wholesome American nuclear family in a suburban two-story house with a nice hardwood floor. I can picture him having dinner - Aiden's Wife: "Honey, you're wearing that shady outfit. Are you dispensing vigilante justice again? You promised me you'd leave that and settle down." Aiden: *Distressed look on his face, voice cracks*...No." Aiden's Wife: "Awww... I knew I could trust you. *plants a kiss on Aiden's cheek* Muah."

Force Lightning all the way. Once you get to the second planet after Telos the Force point penalties for using a Dark Side power as a Light Side player (and vice versa) cease to matter. Though I guess that's my "munchkin" way of playing. However, there are some pure melee-related quests that may prove very difficult to finish if you are not invested at least somewhat in your Constitution and actual fighting stats.

Yeah, you mentioned this in the funny things thread a couple days ago. http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/66205-the-funny-things-thread/?p=1452080

Finished an 84 hour scenario (with some time compression, which comprised of about eight actual gameplay hours) of Command: Modern Air/Naval Operation depicting the opening stages of the Second Battle of the Atlantic in the War that Never Was in late 1990. The Soviets had invaded Iceland and based two fighter regiments and a regiment of Tu-16 Badger maritime bombers at Keflavik Air Station near the capital of Reykjavik. Taking advantage in a temporary breach disruption of SOSUS (Sound Surveillance System, fixed sonar arrays at the bottom of the ocean that serve as tripwires against Soviet subs), the Soviets attempt to sortie their fast attack and first-strike ballistic missile subs into the open Atlantic. Meanwhile, the forces of NATO are tasked with plugging the new holes in the GIUK (Greenland, Iceland, United Kingdom) gap and take the Soviet Union's decapitation strike capabilities out of play with their own submarines (the American Los Angeles class boats Providence, Houston, and Baltimore, as well as the British Trafalgar and the Norwegian Kobben with the assistance of P-3C Orions stationed at Stornoway Air Base in the UK. All the while the Carrier Battle Group around the Nimitz makes its way through the North Atlantic towards the Norwegian Sea to provide much needed naval and aviation support to the Norwegians holding against the Warsaw Pact forces at the Trondheim Bottleneck. At the end of three days the three Soviet Yankee-class ballistic missile subs are destroyed by a combination of submarines and the P-3 Orions and the aviation wing out of Keflavik have been nearly wiped out after vicious air battles over the Atlantic against American F-15s and British Tornadoes as well as F-14s launched from the Nimitz (including a huge furball between the Tu-16s and their Su-27 escorts and the F-14s scrambled to intercept them). In addition, the P-3s dropped enough sonobuoys between England and Iceland to enable the British Royal Marines to simply march to Iceland to liberate it from Soviet control (not serious). This battle was not without losses though, as the USS Providence was lost when it revealed its position when it fired upon and destroyed one of the Yankee-class subs, as well as a FFG-7 Oliver Hazard Perry-class frigate to some AS-6 Kingfish missiles when it was caught outside the protective umbrella of the guided missile cruiser Bunker Hill whilst hunting a Victor-class submarine. And in the ensuing air battle several P-3s, F-14s, and Tornadoes were lost. To make matters worse, several Soviet attack subs have managed to break out of the GIUK gap and disappear into the vast expanse of the open Atlantic to threaten NATO convoys. Next scenario involves the REFORGER convoys heading to Europe to deliver badly needed men and material to the Central Front. Several of the F-15s based out of Stornoway, so crucial to the air war over the Atlantic, have relocated to Rammstein Air Base in West Germany. Capitilising on this development, the Soviets have managed to replenish their aviation forces in Iceland and their most dangerous maritime bombers, the Tu-22M Backfires, have been fully deployed and are ready to strike at NATO forces and convoys traversing the North Atlantic...

You may have heard of the latest shooting in the US in Isla Vista near UC Santa Barbara where I'm graduating from pretty soon. Thankfully, I as well as most everyone I know were home for the Memorial Day weekend and the ones who were still there at about the time of the shooting are okay. Going to be a rough couple of days when we get back, and can't help but feel that my couch burning experience will be a somber afair.

@sorophx: Some news from Belsimtek, who helped Eagle Dynamics with the F-15C AFM, regarding additional updates to the Eagle: Second sentence from the bottom: http://www.belsimtek.com/news/217/

They say misery loves company; I'm running the online traffic school right now as we speak as well (for which the court must receive proof that I've passed by D-Day. Though apparently we Californians get it easy: you're free to skip to the next lesson whenever you feel like provided you manage to pass a three question quiz, and you need a C- grade on the final test to pass.

Supposedly implementation of the AIM-9X and JHMCS is in the works, with iterative updates leading to Ka-50/A-10C levels of fidelity complete with clickable pit, though this information was based upon a Google translate of a post on the Russian forum (if this post was by a developer or merely a rumour I cannot say). There was some discussion about this post, to which GGTharos, one of the forum mods and in-house Eagle Dynamics tester has said this information was not official in the slightest. I struggle to find this particular thread at the moment, leading me to believe this was deleted, so I wouldn't hold my breath for it. That said, development for the F/A-18C has all but been confirmed to be in the works as the official next module made by ED.

I see you picked up a TrackIR How's the new F-15C advanced flight model treating you?

The game also models submarine and aerial warfare, and the database goes all the way from the Korean War where F-86es and MiG-15s were duking it out all the way to to the near future with F-22s, F-35s, and J-20s (including some shelved programs like the YF-23 Black Widow and the proposed navalised, variable geometry Raptor, the F-24).

Can't beat a classic: Q: What is a civil war? A: A contradiction of terms.

delete

Such a thing is not without precedent. The conspiracy involving capitalists, I mean. It's a dubious claim that Roosevelt's New Deal did anything of the sort of running the American economy into the ground (at least any more so than the damage that was already done by the Great Depression).

It certainly a big step-up from the game's predecessor:

Harpoon fanatics may experience a spot of deja vu with this re-imagining of the classic Dawn Patrol scenarios: In the year 2016, the Russian Navy decides a show of force in the Arctic Circle is in order, deploying their new Gremyashchy class corvettes along with Nanuchka missile boats for FON operations in the Barents against the Norwegian stealth frigate, Fridtjof Nansen, that has been sortied against them. Little do they realise that pre-positioned Skjold-class stealth corvettes are also lying in wait amongst the hazardous rocks that are the hallmark of the Finnmark coast.

Maybe NSFW, as there is a spot of censoring that leaves little to the imagination. But hey, from what I hear continentals do get to see boobs on TV.

B-2, SR-71, and Su-27 brisket anyone?

Not necessarily funny, but nonetheless cool for my fellow speed freaks out there:

I believe there was a book in the game that required about 9 research points to read that would get you a point in another stat that took eight experience points to simply buy (though that's probably just me and my very poor memory).

Let's try this: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-27258303

Sweden fire turns cans of rotten fish into exploding missiles http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-2725830 The right defense contractor could work on this idea and make a weapon that would qualify Sweden as a superpower.

I have some unfortunate news for you: Combat becomes virtually the only solution as you bear down towards the end of the game. Though on the plus side if you roll your character right (and max out Celerity) combat becomes bearable. I now realise for many RPGs, the greatest champions of a particular game are generally the first to admit to its biggest flaws.

Well there was only really one DLC - but originally the DLC wasn't integrated into the game: it was a separate entry in your Steam games list and was executed independently of the rest of the game. The director's cut places it where it belongs in the main game. So frankly, you will be replaying the original campaign, because that's the only thing available to do. The other main change would be the boss fights, besides that there are some graphical tweaks (neither positive nor negative really, just baffling), new game plus, and some commentary, nothing consequential. As I had bought the Missing Link DLC, the Developer's Commentary was well worth the price of admission for the $5 I spent on it.

A quick tip: the key to the melee combat in Bloodlines is to button mash the directional keys with every attack. Troika's shaky attempt at "deep" action melee combat, you see.