Badgerius

Oh great! Now I can play video games while riding my bike to work! Stay off the sidewalks!

Where the heck is New Yrok? Is it near New York?

I stand corrected. Pardon the interruption.

A note to indies. Unless I'm mistaken (someone jump in and correct me if I am) being affiliated with InterCorp counts as being a member of a fleet. The reason that the various divisions banded together was to gain fleet status and therefore access to the fleet servers.

What would happen if you tried variant 2, but used the shuttle to tow your CC back to base? Could you force a reactor restart by parking the CC right next to a station, boarding it, and docking with the station?

I tried this just before Christmas. A little bit of Black Ops for the holidays. I landed on Midae's second moon, with a SpaceStar Cruiser. I transferred all 7 of my marines into shuttle 1 and went there myself. Then we took off for Midae itself. I put the shuttle down on the nightside, in the pouring rain, about 50 klicks from my target, a raider missile base. I shut down the radar, and flew as low as I dared, with nothing but the altimeter and the occasional looming shadow to go by. At 15 klicks out, I landed, and deployed the troops. Then I got out myself, telling the shuttle to stay put. Then, using TacOps, I gave all the marines orders to take out a single structure on the base. A landing pad. I figured that the last thing I wanted was the raiders launching fighters against my shuttle. So, the troops set off at a full run, with me right behind them. It took about 20 minutes to get close enough to the base to see it. I switched on the nightvision and zoomed in. No enemies. It seems that the shuttle went unnoticed. Excellent. I used a quick burst from the jetpack to move back up to the troops, and we closed in on the base. Well, as we approached, it became apparent that all of the structures were floating about 30 feet in the air! My marines just stared at them, and couldn't figure out how to hit the landing pad. Fortunately, all of the SAM sites were on the ground, and I gave the marines SAD orders. Just then, then bad guys woke up, and we had marines everywhere. I spent several minutes killing a lot of marines, and then checked to see how my marines were doing. I was down to 1 marine! I gave the poor guy RTB orders, and he turned to flee. I moved to cover him, just in time to see him cut down by enemy fire. I popped one or two more enemy marines to vent my rage, and then checked to see if the enemy marines had targeted me. They had not. Instead, they had decided that my ride was a better target. They've targeted SC1 and were hustling on foot to take it out. I check my ammo, and decide that I can't stop them. I fire up the jet pack and hotfoot it back to the shuttle. I make it there, through the darkness and rain, and check the enemy marines. They were still 7 klicks away, and rather than risk the shuttle, and face a long, long walk to a point safe enough to risk an AI landing of my CC, I get in the shuttle, and take off. The missile base offers no resistance (and I resisted the urge to fly over the base), and made it home safely. All in all, it was an awesome experience. Trekking through the rain on an alien planet, the night firefight in an enemy base, and the run back to the shuttle, all heightened the immersion factor of the game. I love this game.

I've had this design in my head for a while now. If I could put it into BCM, it would be cool, but I designed it as if it was a real space cruiser, and had to deal with newtonian physics. As such, the turrets are designed to be able to hit targets at any angle, regardless of the orientation of the cruiser. She's not that big... say 200 meters long. cylindrical, with a hump midships for the bridge, and three engines aft arranged vertically. 3 main turret assemblies. Call them IOD turrets in the case of BCM. Each turret assembly consists of a ring or collar that covers the hull 360 degrees, and can rotate 360 in the "roll" plane. Imagine a hamster wheel stuck onto a pipe. The pipe is the ship and the hamster wheel goes over it like a collar, and turns. On the hamster wheel, 180 degrees from each other, go 2 "classical" turrets, like you'd find on a WWII battleship. This whole arrangement would be a single "turret assembly", and would allow the guns to be pointed in any direction. With this setup, even if the target was hiding behind the superstructure of the ship itself, half the guns could still fire. So, 2 turret assemblies forward of the bridge, one aft. Put a missile launcher on the nose, and put PTA guns on the bridge and engine assemblies, and you've got a true cruiser. Stats: slow: 500-600 speed not manouverable: on par with the stormcarrier. Weapons: 3 IOD turret assemblies. 4 IODs on each. Capable of 360 degree by 360 degree rotation. 4 pta turrets forward firing missiles. Shields: heavy, I'd wager. Craft: 1-2 shuttles for ferrying crew. Personnel: heavy on the Techs, for quick repairs, normal officer complement. Several (10-15) marines for repelling boarders.

Good call. I missed that completely. 'Fraid the quotes will have to go, but if you have suggestions for a wing motto, I want to hear them.

I like it. Keep working on it. Music (or just ambient sound) would add to it tremendously.

What skin/model do intruders use?

I've noticed the ground combat thing. I'll go down with a force of marines. Their marines will engage my marines, and I can walk right up to them and shoot them in the face without being engaged. I took out 7 marines at point blank from the front that way. I was actually trying to provoke them. Is it possible they don't see me as a threat? They no doubt consider engineers and medics to be non-threats, but I wonder how they feel about officers?

1: Your choice. You have to give the order to deploy them from the SC or OC to get them out, though. I believe that the deploy order completely empties the vehicle, so keep in mind if you're planning to dust-off with the shuttle, it won't have a pilot in it if you deploy. 2: They should. I've noticed they won't always. If you haven't "Prepped them for combat" in Tactical first, they'll go into "Hold" orders, since they don't have any ammo. 3: Individually you can order marines by clicking on them in TacOps. As a Group, the manual states that you can set waypoints for Transporter or SC/OC deployed teams, but I haven't figured out how yet. 4: Err... What? Same questions, same answers I guess. 5: Ground radar range is 250 klicks, on average. If they can see you, they may attack you. Ground units will take a while to get there, but you can expect heavy air resistance from enemy bases to arrive within minutes of you hitting an enemy base. In my opinion, hitting a ground base using marines from orbit is one of the most challenging things you can do in BCM. It's going to take practice, and your troops will die a lot. A good way to get your feet wet without too much risk is to nuke most of a base from orbit, and then follow up with troops. The remainder of a base after and OTS strike shouldn't be too difficult to take out, but you will take losses. If you've got fighters, have them patrol the air near the base. That should keep fighters from nearby bases from attacking your ground forces, but again, you're going to take losses. [ 12-20-2001: Message edited by: Badgerius ]

In light of the recent events regarding the future of this board, Prime Personnel Officer Williams has called for an all-hands Roll-call for Prime fleet. I know you just finished one for Gamma, but go to the General Communications area of the Prime fleet forum and report in again. Thank you muchly. BTW based on recent rollcall information, Gamma is once again the largest Wing in Prime. Good work!

More like: "And so the Gammulans broke the arms of the terrans, and the Terrans did then reciprocate using nuclear weapons, and as Gammulans settled down in their kerchiefs and caps for a long nuclear winter nap, there once again was peace."

Note: the accent imitated below is that of Disney's Goofey, and not that of any large southern US States associated with Yellow Roses and Bowie Knives... [RP] Awww...Shucks fellers. I ain't got time to spend what I's earning now. [/RP]