Joel Schultz

Ditto for me on that VCF. I sure wish that some of those WIP issues second section from the bottom would get "retired" though. I'm sure SC's nailed some chunk of them and the way they just sit there makes me nervous...

Oh well, unreal, your pics are in the mail, but looks like SC may have beat me to it. Wazzup with that? Methinks "The Last Outpost" is the bar. Like the "Ten-Forward" in ST:TNG. The only thing missing from the schematics is the cloaking device. And the various fuel tanks. But regardless, they're cool.

I posted the same thing a while back, and someone (forget who, DREADA, I think) e-mailed me them. They were 4 images outlining deck layout. When I go home tonight I will try to hunt them. Up. Send me a private message with your e-mail and I'll try to get back to you later this evening. [EDIT] I see you're a first-time poster, so in case you don't know how to send a private message, here's a tip-of-the-day. See those icons to the right of the "posted <date>" right above my message? Click the second one from the left to send a PM. [ 06-11-2001: Message edited by: Joel Schultz ]

I have a Radeon tweaker "Raid On 5.1" I think. Do you remember what that setting was? Thanks in advance. Drat. I was so glad to be finally running retail drivers that could handle "Oni". Hm. I guess I'm in for another download. Wonder if it'll correct the Myst III tearing problem I've been having too... But regardless, I'll still report EP2 to them anyway if the retail doesn't work. Try to give them crazy Canucks a little extra time to get their driver act together before BCM goes gold [ 06-08-2001: Message edited by: Joel Schultz ]

quote: The fogging on ATI boards, breaks with every other driver release. This has been an on-going problem with the Radeon boards especially. So, expect some rendering oddities when on a planet or moon. There are issues with the terrain detail level texturing. Until ATI fix their drivers, there is nothing that can be done Try the /nd1 and /nd2 commandline options, which disable detail levels 1 and 2 If there's known issues with the demo, how come I have yet to see an entry for it here? ATI's known Radeon game issues Or is the answer "because EP2 isn't out yet"? (I'd like to point out that there are game demos on this list too, e.g. "Oni") Anyway, if there is an issue, you can bet I'll be writing up an incident report for ATI as soon as I see it myself. And I hope any other Radeon owners out there do too! Let's get ATI to notice us! Any technical advice on what to mention in the report would be appreciated. Otherwise, I'll just do the best I can... Thnx [ 06-08-2001: Message edited by: Joel Schultz ]

quote: I too would like to know about these races and about there background history, but I guess we have to wait untill BCM comes out? (assuming we get to know that stuff in BCM) Which was kinda the whole point of this thread: will we find out in BCM? Or will we find out in a later book or something?

quote: Make that 2. OK, maybe I should've said "at least one" Gam. Sorry about that I wasn't just talking Gams, though I think they're cool (well, I suppose they have to be since besides they're the cleanest-cut villians in the story; Earthcom/Galcom and Insurgency is definitely a murky gray). A few other races have some interesting stuff hinted at. Such as the Sla'ti (see Empirians & Vesperons). Who are these guys? Why do they pick on the Empirians. And what really transpired with that captured Terran convoy? Sounds like the Empirians have some possible intrigue permeating their government. What does "sister race" mean (e.g. Mandorian/Kandorian). How are these races related? What was the "break" between them, if any, or how did they meet and stuff like that? And the mystery surrounding the Droidian/Syrion stuff. The ancient legends of jumpgate building etc. But, yeah, I have to agree that Gammulans rock! When BCM comes out I definitely will have at least one game going with a Gammulan career...

Curiosity killed the cat. Fortunately for me, I'm not a cat so here goes... I am interested in what we can expect content-wise in the printed documentation (to be included in BCM and to be published at undisclosed future date, such as the technical reference manual SC hinted that someone was hired to do). Specifically, I am interested in the largely untouched cultural depth that the galaxy exhibits. Will that depth be finally filled out? I mean, look at the alien races' backrounds. That's pretty much all they are: super-brief backgrounds. The BC3K manual/appendixes only give vague hints at some of these for the other races with the exception of the Terrans, but even then leaves things kinda foggy. (Off topic: IMHO The Rise of the Insurgency set in the centuries before 3000AD would make a facsincating storyline, either as an RP or "official" in-depth history. Or even as a new BC title ). Will we at some point be getting deeper insights into the galaxy's races? Back-history, governmental, economic, sociological structure, religions. Cultural info on what their values are, what they see as virtues and vices. How they perceive the other races and their relationship to them? How the races tolerate (or don't tolerate) internal dissidents? Do they have a "family" structure or equivalent in their society? How does this family operate? How do they handle courtship/mate selection? How do they raise their children? What sort of artistic endeavors does the race engage in? What sort of recreation and entertainment? What sort of education do they receive? And health-care? In other words, rather than a "super-brief" like that is found in BC3K manual/appendix, will we finally get an in-depth background? Something more along the lines of several pages of text, perhaps like what I assume you could find in an RPG sourcebook (not an RPGer, but I assume that to maintain consistancy and harmony within a given RPG universe a sourcebook must spell out a lot of details like this that must be considered when generating and playing a character). Methinks I may have gone a tad too over-the-top in my questions...but at least I don't think I left anything major out. Besides, most of those questions were inspired by the not-quite-flamefests I read in the threads you guys start on political stuff, so you gotta take some of the blame too . I'm sure I'm not the only one interested in this answer, perusing the threads we already have one Gam commander, and I've seen some questions regarding social structure and the like. And BTW, I am aware that there's a recent "Alien social/military structures" thread around here. The long and short of it was "read the BC3K manual/appendix", but I've already stated why I feel these are insufficient to sate my curiosity. Though I might go hunt up those stories that were mentioned should I get a chance. TTFN

Dunno, their server is kinda scary Not sure whether to applaud a brilliant, innovative idea, or hide in fear...

quote: Got it fixed. I just had to screw in the spacers underneath the MB. Outlaw, I really hope that statement didn't imply the mobo was resting flat up against the metal case such that its backside was totally grounded everywhere by the case. If it was, you may have short-circuited the whole thing, which could lead to much larger problems...

"Bad boys, bad boys, whatcha gonna do? Whatcha gonna do when he comes for you..."

Hey, SC, just noticed the new logo on the home page, and thought it was so cool I went and posted about it! Then, I actually paused to look to see if someone else already did in case I was being redundant. Which led to deleting my post and re-posting here just to say: COOL! Nice work. And what's with the radical change to the Credian logo? Looks better anyway...

I think at this point it's safe to eliminate the BIOS boot order from the question. You reordered it and nothing changed. From what you say, your partition table is probably OK. Are you SURE you have the correct uncorrupted system files? Because non-system disk error almost always means the system files are not present or possibly corrupt. See Enderlin's and my previous posts on the SYS command. (IIRC, for DOS there are at least three important files: COMMAND.COM, and two hidden/system files MSDOS.SYS and IO.SYS that should be located in C:) If things still don't work, have you tried this? FDISK /MBR In the extremely rare event you wonk up your sector 0 of the HD (the master boot record), this will rewrite it with the startup code that looks for the system files to boot from. This somehow happened to me once, but the symptom on my machine simply scrolled "0101010101..." endlessly on the screen at boot time. [ 05-16-2001: Message edited by: Joel Schultz ]

About that BIOS entry: you want to hold in or pound those keys up until you know they failed (i.e. the "insert disk message" comes up). But I wonder...could your system files have gotten knocked off of C: ? What about this (um, can someone can back me up on this and confirm that Parias' radioactive garden gnomes aren't whispering disinformation in my ear? Thanks...) I assume your floppy drive is A: below. 1. Boot off of a floppy. 2. Somewhere on your C:, you should have file called sys.com. Find it. 3. Execute this command: SYS A: C: 4. Try to boot again. What this is supposed to do: copy the system boot files off of the boot floppy and install them to the hard drive. If this solves the problem, then your problem was because your HD lost its system boot files. If it fails to solve the problem, we have something else going wrong here...

The BIOS doesn't care about the OS. When you start your PC, one of the very first messages you should get BEFORE the OS begins to load up is like "Press ESC (or F1 or DEL) to go to BIOS setup". Do that, and you'll be in a screen that allows you to configure your mobo setup. Boot sequencing (floppy, CD, HD, network) should be available somewhere. Consult your mobo manual, it'll have the details on what's going on. Or download the mobo manual from its manufacturer. Or just jump around the main BIOS menus till you find it... CAUTION: unless you know what you're doing, tinkering with the BIOS has the potential to screw up your machine. I accidentally had my 850MHz Athlon overclocked to 1.3GHz for a minute or two, but caught the mistake before the CPU could fry...

So far so good... Upgraded to a 300W PSU. Notice that the CPU fan audibly remains at a higher RPM during the boot process, am still noticing a slight audible slowdown, though. Also haven't reconnected one HD still (that old Linux 2.5G I never used). Lawnmower-engine noise from the fan persists, but since it goes away after a minute I guess I have to live with that... Updated drivers for Sound & Video to latest released versions; no more betas on those guys. Thus far things seem to have stabilized. If this keeps up another week, will probably try to reconnect the HD. Thanks to all for their help.

OMG is THAT what "elite speaking" is? If there's one thing that really drives me nuts on message boards its that! I HATE it and will kill it! I shall banish it from the Internet! Yes, that may be an impossible, unattainable wish but I've been to Zombo.com fool, so cower before our might!!! BWAH-HAHAHAHaHaHahaaaaaa... Uh... ahem. Seriously I dislike it because it takes me forever to decode; if it ain't readable it ain't worth reading. Out of curiosity, is there a translation on "l33t" and "w00t"? Heh. The other thing that drives me crazy about message boards *cough*Voodoo Extreme*cough* is off-topic posts. Like starting a discussion about things one dislikes about message boards or why one hates elite speaking in the middle of something else.

Emmett.hendrick: I responded with a PM...

Ooo goody! Another techie discussion! About ST photorps and phasers: According to the ST:TNG Technical Reference manual, phasers travel at c and are therefore useless at warp (with one very narrow exception: there's a good chance at hitting a target in warp when firing dead ahead at a ship approaching dead on); phaser effective range is limitted to 300000km too (1 second and higher travel times give targets too much time to evade). Photorps launched sublight travel sublight, though they can accelerate some but not past c. Launched in warp, they have a warp sustainer coil that keeps them moving at about warp 9. About ST ship caps. HEY! Who forgot to put in the Death Star?! If we assume we got a completed DS II on our hands without the silly exhaust port vulnerability, that'd probably kick some booty! But then maybe this qualifies as a station, but if it does it sure moves around a lot... Robotech: Awesome series! Have all the eps on video and CDROM RealMedia format, plus all 21 books! (BTW, did I mention I'm a Robotech fan? ) Agree 100% that SDF-1 main gun (when operable ) would do some serious damage to anything in its way. Then you got its Daedalus Maneuver, where it literally punches an arm into a ship's hull and then disgorges a zillion missiles inside the poor ship. Fat lotta good armor/shields will do you there. Though I'm not too sure if it could do this on a ship with raised shields; it'd probably have to wear them down first. And besides the pin-point shield system, it also later had a general shield system that had an unfortunate tendancy to overload under heavy fire and then cause a catastrophic explosion 50 miles in diameter. Which means that if BCs concentrated enough fire on it and then got way out of the way, they could probably strip it of shields. SDF-1's main weakness would be its poor shielding, but it's still physically huge and defended by an large number of fighters. It's hull armor is also self-repairing to a degree... And let's not forget the Robotech Master's motherships either; from what I recall the Army of the Southern Cross was just barely able to hold their own against them mainly because the motherships were running critically low on their Protoculture fuel reserves. Operating at full capacity, a mothership had its powerful guns, the "snowflake" shield array that managed to turn aside all incoming fire and so on... Early victories against them were more luck than effective combat. And the Zentraedi: well, those ships may be more or less comparable to a BC but without shields, but then again they have 4 million capital ships not to mention the ships' Battlepod fighters, so sheer numbers may give them an edge if nothing else does. The Invid AFAIK never had any capital ships, just the clamshell carriers which weren't too heavily armed.

I've seen posts from one "Ron Wallin" (aka "Akira" according to the sig) who is literally under #1 -- he's #0 according to UBB! Dunno who's #1...

Ah, now things are starting to come together and make sense; I'm getting a better picture of how Joe Gamer's fit into the Grand Scheme of Things ™ w.r.t. fleets here... Since the server DBs are persistant, you naturally have to be registered as something; that goes without saying. Therefore, to use an "official" server I would of course have to set up a persistant profile. Is that profile completely at my whim or do aspects of it require pre-approval (e.g. selection of Fleet, asset selection, home base selection if applicable, and so on)? (BTW, I hope I'm not in dangerous waters with these questions in this forum; I didn't consider them "newbie" since they had nothing really to do with the available incarnations of the BC game(s) and they have everything to do with Fleet relationships to the upcoming games, which I thought is probably quite a bit beyond the newbie level. If I am wrong, I will take responsibility for the gaffe and request the thread be moved...) Given your other comments, since it doesn't seem to be stepping on anyones toes and since I don't intend to really RP (RP never was my cup of tea), I think I'll continue to use the GCV in my sig and have Alan Mach be a so-called "default" Prime Fleet'er, though I'll keep the sig format different (simpler) than the fleet "official" format to prevent confusion (that and I don't claim any fleet affiliations in it). Objections? Perhaps one day if I do venture into an official MP server, I'll get around to making a decision and "officalize" things. Though with Alan's back history (Of couse he has one! I hate flat characters, anyway) who's to say he won't be an Indie at that point?

OK, the responses here while helpful don't quite answer my question. Of course, since I didn't quite know how to ask it initially I must take a large chunk of the blame , but after reading everything here, I finally know how to ask it. What happens to Joe Gamer who wanders into a MP game and decides to play as Terran/Galcom or Terran/Insurgent but who isn't part of a fleet? Does he get to play under that designation in BCM? In GCO? Cos' Joe Gamer's me all over for MP; I love SP but only once in a while venture into MP. Thanks for your responses. BTW, on a separate issue, do I understand correctly that Mercs are unsalaried? That "letter of marque" thingy sounded like a very appealing alternative but if I'm not going to be paid a salary, forget that idea... [ 05-02-2001: Message edited by: Joel Schultz ]

OK, for GCO I concede that the "fleet" concept makes more sense than in BCM. But this is because GCO will necessarily blur the line between the RP threads and the game by bringing the RP world (and hence its rules) into the game. All the same, I don't see how that's enforceable, unless you know something I don't. Or will GCO players be required to have fleet affiliation to be Galcom etc when they register?

Perhaps my problem here is that the definition of "fleet" isn't clear whether I am talking the GAME or RP. Of course, I'm not exactly which sense I meant it in either, so please let me muddle a bit... AFAIK there are no fleets in the game itself... In BC3K, you launch from GHq under a "Free Flight" profile and are free to do what you will. BCM will also have a "Roam" profile, which I assume will ultimately be more-or-less identical to "Free Flight" in BC3K. "Fleets" as a concept only seem to exist in RP, and on these message boards. I don't profess to be certain but if BCM follows in BC3K's footsteps then your avatar will not part of a "fleet" structure in BCM either under "Roam" profile, although I don't know about the ACMs obviously. "Fleet" exists as a structural organization/contract between the human players and their avatars, not as an in-game "feature", again, insofar as I am aware. Hence, my original question and musings. Since there is no "fleet" affiliation mandated by the game itself, I don't see why there can not be non-fleet GCV/ICV/etc vessels. Mandating fleet affiliation for the game would certainly put a damper on the game, for me at least... On the other hand, those who want to participate fully in the RP threads ought to follow due form and conventions, which then would mandate joining a fleet to permit use the appropriate designator; full participation in an RP thread would give implicit acceptance to those rules governing use of fleet designators within the RP context. As of yet, I don't recall seeing any non-fleet members getting yelled for using GCV/ICV/etc in their signatures' ship designators who also did NOT involve themselves fully in the RP threads. Whereas those who did misuse designators and who DID fully involve themselves in the RP world (and hence involve themselves with fleets) do get yelled at. So it seems then that there is room for non-fleet members to use various designators. Otherwise, every newbie's going to get slapped down the minute they put a non-UCV designator in their sig. (Just to be clear, I am not questioning the designator policy itself; that's internal fleet business to which I am indifferent. I am inquiring as to its scope.) Maybe in returning to my original question, I should rephrase it this way for clarity: what role do aligned non-fleet roamers play in the game? And drat it all, that question doesn't quite sound right either; I'm getting a nagging feeling it's a stupid question of the "standby at the airlock" variety and has an obvious answer, but better phrasing eludes me for now . Oh well. I believe you've answered that question for the RP context: "aligned non-fleet roamers don't exist". [ 05-02-2001: Message edited by: Joel Schultz ]