Joel Schultz

What role do "aligned" commanders (i.e. Galcom/Insurgent/Gammulan Military/Any other race's military) play who are not part of a fleet? I guess this gets into a fleet's purpose. (Putting on "thoughtful" hat now). To my mind, a fleet's purpose is to provide Command the ability to concentrate and deploy massive firepower and resources for long-term strategy. It also serves as a (large) ready-reaction strike force that can be deployed quickly to a trouble spot for a strong counterstrike. Individual fleet assets may not always stick close together and may be dispersed in smaller groups or individually for various mission profiles. While this could increase reaction time (the fleet is more likely to be where needed), this necessarily weakens available firepower at any one spot, and increases reaction time for the rest of the fleet since they have to take time to travel and regroup. So, my guess is that aligned, non-fleet commanders serve as the patrol/recon/jack-of-all-trades arm of the military. Watching the borders and space lanes, the first on the scene at any sign of trouble, and likely the first to run for reinforcements (he who fights and runs away comes back with his buddies another day). And thus take some of the burden off fleets' spreading themselves too thin. Guestimated mission profiles for said non-fleet assets would be: frontier patrol/recon, trade route patrol, assisting police, system protection in absense of a home fleet, escort, reserves (backup) for the main fleets, military courier, trade/exploration, etc. More or less the orders you receive in a "roam" a.k.a. "free flight" profile. Make sense? Or am I rambling? And of course, aligned non-fleet roamers would also serve as more targets for the opposition (ha! beat you to that one ) [ 05-01-2001: Message edited by: Joel Schultz ]

OK, experimenting with color keywords (thanks for the tip, SC) black gray grey white red orange yellow green blue purple violet pink lightgreen bluegreen lightblue magenta turquoise gold brown silver vermillion indigo scarlet tan yellowgreen amber salmon jade teal Brings back memories, this does. Ah, Crayola... [ 04-30-2001: Message edited by: Joel Schultz ]

If a scientist or diplomat isn't likely to get shot at, they'd make the perfect recon unit wouldn't they, assuming the side they're spying on doesn't know their affiliations, wouldn't they? It could possibly be a nice lucrative deal, particularly since some organizations may be stingy with the grant money . Besides, aren't good diplomats supposed to poke around a little behind the lines?

quote: Hint: It contains the answers to life's greatest secrets. 42?

About color: HTML TAG: <FONT color="#rrggbb">...</FONT> Example: <FONT color="#FFFF00">Yellow</FONT> Yellow Where rr=red component (00-FF), gg=green component (00-FF) and bb=blue component (00-FF). Values are in hexadecimal (base 16), you count from 0-9 then A-F (10-15) before beginning the next "column". E.g. 00..09, 0A..0F, 10..19, 1A..1F, 20..29, 2A..2F, etc. So your values range from 0 to 255 in decimal... [ 04-30-2001: Message edited by: Joel Schultz ]

Tac, If you are interested in hardware guides and comparisons, try the following sites: Tom's Hardware Sharky Extreme Tom's site I know has some mobo roundups you may want to look at, I think the Iwill is in there but the newer Asus wasn't when I last went shopping (at the time there were only 3 mobos that supported DDR RAM!). As for monitor, dunno, have been using the same one for the past 4 years and haven't been shopping since. RAM is RAM AFAIK, though I've heard the generic stuff can be scary. Brand name is better, "Micron" is the only name that pops up in my mind, but that's cos I can't think of any other brands... Reading through your specs, there are several dead giveaways that this will be some custom-built job from some business that custom builds. If you're handy with a screwdriver, can follow diagrams and instructions carefully (this is a BC forum, we (should) all be expert manual readers by now ) and have steady hands why not build it yourself? Save money and have more control. All components are still under their individual mfg warranties. The only "nasty" part (and most time-consuming) is setting up your OS and installing software; the only thing you don't get is a service contract. [ 04-26-2001: Message edited by: Joel Schultz ]

And my nagging suspicion was indeed that 235W PSU. It worked well on my old Pentium II 450 mobo, so I didn't suspect it at first, but after reading some of the other threads around here I actually thought to look at it... Looks like I'll have to order a new one soon. Anyone have recommendations on a particular brand, or are they all pretty much the same? [ 04-26-2001: Message edited by: Joel Schultz ]

OK, I think I'll be next in line to tap the vast realm of PC maintenance expertise here... Machine specs are: Mobo: Asus ATV133 Chipset: VIA KT133A (w/ driver patch from VIA required for my ATI video card) CPU: AMD T-bird Athlon 850MHz Fan: Global Win something or other RAM: 256 MB 133MHz SDRAM Video: ATI Radeon 32MB DDR, running Beta driver released in January (needed it to play "Oni", will be updating to recently released version soon) Sound: Turtle Beach Santa Cruz, running Beta driver (had stability issues with box driver) Joystick: MS Sidewinder Pro (USB config) Gamepad: Gravis Xterminator (gameport config) Monitor: 17" CTX don't-remember-model OS: Win98 HD: 3 hard disks: 2.5 GB unknown vendor, 10GB Maxtor, 30 GB Maxtor CDROM: Creative Labs 52X Modem: External US Robotics 56K fax/modem on COM2 Chassis fan: present, runs off of same fat power leads my HD and CDROM use. PSU: 235 watt OK, this is my current machine config resulting from an upgrade two months ago. My problems are as follows: When I booted my machine from a cold startup, it would go through the initial BIOS PCI bus detection phase. All systems would start up. It would then go to my Windows startup splash screen. Animation flickers for several seconds as usual. Screen would revert to text to show Santa Cruz driver initialization & other stuff in my autoexec.bat. Screen blacks out. 1 second pause, a beep, and the computer begins boot process all the way from the beginning again. This time, I get Win98's menu complaining about it failing to start up correctly last time with the 30 second timer for booting into safe mode. I cancel that and tell it to do a normal start. It would then go to my Windows startup splash screen. Animation flickers for several seconds as usual. Screen would revert to text to show Santa Cruz driver initialization & other stuff in my autoexec.bat. Screen switches to my Win98 logon prompt - which it should have done in the first place. Subsequent reboots do not usually exhibit this behavior. I recently unplugged my 2.5 GB HD from both power and bus, leaving it physically in place for a lack of a better place to put it (it held a Linux setup I rarely used, and an unrelated upgrade woe made the HD inaccessible for the time being anyway, so no loss). The misbehavor seemed to occur less often afterwords, but still occurs nonetheless. I have a strong suspicion as to the cause of this behavior. But I will withhold this suspicion so as not to "taint" the possible responses. And if the responses agree with my secret suspicion, I'll know I'm not crazy... In an unrelated (and less important) issue, what would cause a CPU fan to sound like an electric lawn mower? I think I've ruled out wires poking into it (including the fan wiring itself). The only thing I can think of is that the fan is off balance (it's a big fan/heat sink sticking out of a vertically mounted mobo). Sounds nasty during boot, but quiets to near-whisper after about a minute and a half.

Shingen, What you refer to is a particularly interesting aspect of quantum physics. On that scale, particles can behave as waves. They can literally go from A to B without going in between. It may have something to do with the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. Quantum effects however only seem to operate on an atomic level or smaller, not on the macroscopic world of our crusiers, so don't necessarily look there for an explanation of hyperspace. In fact, reconciling the differences between quantum physics (which works on the very small end of the size spectrum) and general relativity (which works on the large end) is one of the major open questions in cosmology right now. Speaking of which, has anyone read up on Zero-Point Field hypothesis? Although still tentative at this point, it's yielded some interesting results like unifying gravity and electromagnitism and offering a DERIVATION of F=ma (force = mass X acceleration - a larger force is required to accelerate a more massive object) from electromagetic equations by Maxwell. This is interesting because F=ma is treated as a "postulate" or "given-without-proof" in physics, much like mathematics treats as given-without-proof that 1=1. By offering a derivation of it, it implies that inertia (the reason for the "m" in F=ma) is something matter/energy acquires from its interaction with a zero-point field -- the field resists accelerations within it, offering more resistance to larger quantities of matter/energy -- and that it can be controlled. Why do I bring this up? Well, if we ASSUME ZPF is true (and why not; this is sci-fi) it means that a) gravity could be controllable through electromagnetic means and the same goes for inertia. Hence, we have a basis for being able to produce/control gravity without lugging around a lot of mass and also a way for our inertial dampeners to nullify the effects of ship accelerations within the ship structure.

Shingen, What you refer to is a particularly interesting aspect of quantum physics. On that scale, particles can behave as waves. They can literally go from A to B without going in between. It may have something to do with the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. Quantum effects however only seem to operate on an atomic level or smaller, though, not on the macroscopic world of our crusiers, so don't necessarily look there for an explanation of hyperspace. In fact, reconciling the differences expected by quantum physics and general relativity is one of the major open questions in cosmology right now. Speaking of which, has anyone read up on Zero-Point Field hypothesis? Although still tentative at this point, it's yielded some interesting results like unifying gravity and electromagnitism and offering a DERIVATION of F=ma (force = mass X acceleration) from electromagetic equations by Maxwell. This is interesting because F=ma is treated as a "postulate" or "given-without-proof" in physics, much like mathematics treats as given-without-proof that 1=1. By offering a derivation, it implies that inertia is something matter/energy acquires from its interaction with a zero-point field -- the field resists accelerations within it, offering more resistance to larger quantities of matter/energy -- and that it can be controlled. Why do I bring this up? Well, if we ASSUME ZPF is true (and why not; this is sci-fi) it means that a) gravity could be controllable through electromagnetic means and the same goes for inertia. Hence, we have a basis for being able to produce/control gravity without lugging around a lot of mass and also a way for our inertial dampeners to nullify the effects of ship accelerations within the ship structure.

Shingen, What you refer to is a particularly interesting aspect of quantum physics. On that scale, particles can behave as waves. They can literally go from A to B without going in between. It may have something to do with the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. Quantum effects however only seem to operate on an atomic level or smaller, though, not on the macroscopic world of our crusiers, so don't necessarily look there for an explanation of hyperspace. In fact, reconciling the differences expected by quantum physics and general relativity is one of the major open questions in cosmology right now. Speaking of which, has anyone read up on Zero-Point Field hypothesis? Although still tentative at this point, it's yielded some interesting results like unifying gravity and electromagnitism and offering a DERIVATION of F=ma (force = mass X acceleration) from electromagetic equations by Maxwell. This is interesting because F=ma is treated as a "postulate" or "given-without-proof" in physics, much like mathematics treats as given-without-proof that 1=1. By offering a derivation, it implies that inertia is something matter/energy acquires from its interaction with a zero-point field -- the field resists accelerations within it, offering more resistance to larger quantities of matter/energy -- and that it can be controlled. Why do I bring this up? Well, if we ASSUME ZPF is true (and why not; this is sci-fi) it means that a) gravity could be controllable through electromagnetic means and the same goes for inertia. Hence, we have a basis for being able to produce/control gravity without lugging around a lot of mass and also a way for our inertial dampeners to nullify the effects of ship accelerations within the ship structure.

Hm. I think at we have to have some way of warping spacetime through gravity without lugging around a huge mass. I mean, think of how many items need to have some sort of "warped space" field: shields, tractor beams, hyperdrive, VTOL jets (assuming they're "antigravity"), force fields... Kind of hard to say what it is. Relativity holds that gravity is a warping of spacetime, but scientists still theorize about graviton wave/particles being the quantum that I guess transmits this force or causes the warping. So what if in 3000AD we finally have a gravity amplification device that, in principle like a laser if not in exact operation, can amplify weak graviton emissions (weak gravitation fields)? Perhaps also like lasers, the gravity amplifiers aren't too incredibly efficient, so it'd explain why we use so much Radine to generate the massive effect required for hyperspace. Like lasers, the graviton emissions could easily be directed (hey, if we can figure out how to amp them then we've probably already conquered the containment/reflection/refraction of them). For lower powers, these directed emissions could be employed for tasks like antigrav (VTOL), tractoring, shield confinement fields, etc. Short and simple: what is the "Guardian" field I keep reading about? Didn't see it in manual, but from descriptions I assume it is like the ST "inertial dampening system" that prevents our crew from turning into chunky salsa during maneuvers? Inertia is the reason why there's an "m" in "F=ma" (force = mass X acceleration). AFAIK, science today still has no strong theories about what inertia is or where it comes from. At best it's described as a property of mass that is proportional to the mass, but that doesn't explain why larger masses have larger inertia and how it resists changes in motion. That being the case, and if the Guardian field really is the inertial dampers, any theories on how the Guardian device works would be pure speculation. [ 04-23-2001: Message edited by: Joel Schultz ]

Heh, agreed; I refuse to touch with a 10 meter pole the social implications of cloning. Having the tech IMO opens a major can'o'worms on all fronts, but SC put it in (ostensibly for gameplay reasons), so we gotta live with it as best we can without gazing too deeply at it. Huh, maybe, unless someone else has a good idea regarding the security reasons behind not cloning Commanders, this is a topic best left alone.

quote: Cmdr Nova That means there shouldn't be any security risk of even a commander getting cloned Cloning discussion, excerpts below (DeSylva may remember this ). quote: Supreme Commander Your alter ego can't be cloned for security reasons. I'm taking the above quote to indicate there's a security risk involved in cloning commanders. Maybe I interpreted it wrong? [ 04-20-2001: Message edited by: Joel Schultz ]

As per my Modus Operandi, I will introduce a new topic with a bit of creative writing... [RP] Cmdr. Mach strode into Dr. Elise Keller's office in Medibay. "Dr. Keller, we have a problem. I've been reviewing the ship records in preparation for our moving out, and notice there's no cloning data on Chief Engineer St. Cloud." Elise put down the crew medical report summary she was working on and pulled up Brendan's records. A few moments passed as she scanned them while Alan waited. "Galcom HQ ordered Brendan's cloning records deleted when he was first assigned to this ship seven years ago." She looked up at Alan. "Apparently, someone must be worried about his former ties to Galcom Academy or the Experimental Propulsion Division at Galcom Advanced Starship Design Labs being a security risk." Alan frowned. "So what happens if he gets badly injured or killed?" "Badly injured? So long as some original, reasonably undamaged tissue of the injury, like a limb or organ, can be found, I can clone it. It will take much longer than usual though, since the tissue won't be a pure, pristine sample like the cloning module was designed to work with. If he gets killed...I'm sorry, but that's that." Alan contemplated that. Chief Engineers' health was always at risk. Engineering could be a dangerous place during combat. There were all sorts of hazards from damaged equipment. Not to mention it was an attractive target for sabotage by armed intruders. Elise went back to her report. As Alan turned to leave Medibay, he made a mental note to have his combat officer allocate additional Marines to search duty for intruder suppression. Now they got two uncloneables to watch over during an intruder alert; that'll cut into our reserves. For one, it explained why the Cavanagh's record indicated a weakness with regard to intruder control. It was that record which had inspired the raider attack during the training session St. Cloud was teaching, thinking the cruiser was easy pickings ripe for capture. Little did they realize that Galcom always kept its assets manned by cadets well-guarded. Although the raiders got lucky when they killed the former Commander (and inadvertently opening the door for Alan to receive his first command), they did not count on the crack force of Earthcom and Galcom Marines who were running their own joint refresher course on the ship at the time. With the conclusion of the training mission, those Marines had all returned to their original assignments, else Alan would've felt better about the situation. Heaven help us if we get caught shorthanded during a ground assault. [/RP] Here's a new non-hyperdrive related question to chew on. According to SC, for gaming reasons we can't clone the commander, but for "story" lines the reason is security. (Where am I digging that up? A forum search I did awhile back on cloning; the discussion took place back when Jon Ballinger was still around). No one starts out a commander; I assume you work your way up through the ranks and at some point were clonable as "crew". Why the transition? What cloning hazard do commanders pose? Come to think of it, there was only 1 RP thread that dealt extensively with cloning at all. The rest don't really touch it, probably because of the possibilty of crazy cloning scenarios getting out of hand (Gallion (Galcom) vs. Gallion (Insurgent)! The War of 100 Rattlers! ). Anyway, only the SC knows, but my guess is perhaps they don't want an intruder to storm Medibay and steal the cloning info, escape and clone the commander elsewhere for interrogation. Commanders may be privy to more fleet secrets than their officers, and these secrets must be kept safe. Any thoughts about this? SC says cloning commanders are a security risk. Why? [ 04-20-2001: Message edited by: Joel Schultz ]

quote: Okay. I've been thinking about it, and in examining the issue of a hyperdrive, we have to consider it from two angles - both the mode of it's operation, and the logistics of such a device. YE GODS! Ye've done it, DeSylva -- you've wrenched us out of hyperspace physics theory back into the game & its operation! I'm personally through with the sci-fi hyperdrive spacetimewarpdimensionality theory business. I know I've personally beaten that horse to death several times over during the course of page 2, so I'm going to shut up about it now. Besides, we don't know what _shadow_'s up to... DeSylva, you said you contacted _shadow_? Did he say if he's been following this any? Just wondering if all we've been doing is blowing hot air or if it actually might get used. That'd be cool, wouldn't it? I like the operations standpoint you brought up. My question is, though, why anti-neutron gravity would cancel out gravity -are we assuming they somehow produce antigravitons which have the same effect as gravitons but annihilate them instead? And too, how do we cope with lugging around neutrons enough to fake a black-hole? Remember, gravity may cancel out but inertia doesn't. I'd propose that we have some sort of amplification device that allows us to cart around a resoanable mass and then amplify the gravitation effect it has. Lind of like a laser amplifies weak light into a concentrated beam, only this would amplify gravitons. Alternatively, physicists still don't know what inertia is beyond the fact that matter possesses it and that it's related to mass. Given we have inertial dampening already (correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't that what the "Guardian" field is that I've read about in the RP threads is?) we could simply be employing a local inertia reduction device on our neutron/anti-neutron cache so it seems less massive. I can just imagine a name for this drive: the Gravity Donut Hyperdrive! Mmmm...donuts... quote: NOTE: The URL above isn't working right- If the page is still up, click on the above link and remove the comma that seems to be appearing at the end of it when it opens Helpful advice: check your URL tags - the page you link (declared within the initial URL tag) to is different from the text that shows in the forum (between the URL begin/end tags). quote: If there are anmy moderators who have, for any reason, taken exception to this thread, feel free to email me at [email protected] and I'll gladly discuss this situation. OTOH, if it's just a forum glitch (which I hope it is) then could someone restore the thread, otherwise we'll continue in this new thread of Joel's. Agreed, but if you (moderators) did kill the last thread and it's not too much trouble, please also post the reason here (or privately message us) before closing down this thread. That way we all learn why we're being sent to the airlock and know better next time... Just in case, I think I'll get a head start and join DeSylva standing over by the airlock. We get to suit up first, right? [ 04-20-2001: Message edited by: Joel Schultz ]

Redguard. Though that was sorta cross-genre.

Just wondering. DeSylva, are you still working on theories for the other techs you listed? Or has that been nixed due to the strategy guide coming out? And in case it's been permanently retired, for whatever reason, Sunanta, I'm awarding you 5 stars for being my foil in the discussion there And 5 stars to anyone else who contributed that I can remember. It was a lively discussion while it lasted! [ 04-19-2001: Message edited by: Joel Schultz ]

2) I would add something like jump gates also serving as relay stations and also involve directed comm signals sent towards wormholes linking regions. IMHO, it takes a ton more power to send any kind of omni-directional signal (like in a long-range broadcast) than a directed one to a relay station. You'd get a power savings and also longer transmission ranges between relay points. 3) Going to comment on this over in Engineering 101... 6) Sounds like a cross between Timothy Zahn's Star Wars stories & Sixth Day with Arnold Schwarzeneggar. Sounds good to me. 7) Am going to be revisiting Engineering 101 before commenting further. 8) Uh, Engineering 101 had a couple interesting posts as to why plasma transfer was difficult. But I'll drop that for now. My question is this: if we are shooting IONs (e.g. charged particles) -- are they all the same charge and if so, what do we do with the leftovers? Maybe we alternate positively/negatively charged shots to prevent excessive ion build-up. 10) Treknology claims tractor beams are localized distortions in space-time that "freeze" the object in place, and that by manipulating the distortions it can be moved. Star Wars technology has tractor beams being highly focused gravity generators that pull in an object using gravitational fields. Either way, it would explain why we have to lower shields since consensus seems to be that they involve some sort of "containment" field -- the two would have a disruptive effect on each other. I'd favor a combination of the two -- some sort of gravity projector combined with force-fields that help keep the target within the gravitational cone. 13) The reactor is smack dab next to the engines. Given that, the inefficiencies of using plasma directly would likely not come into play over such a short distance. I don't think the plasma alone could move the ship's mass. I think it'd either have to be run through an accelerator somehow. Since plasma is ionized gas, that shouldn't be too hard. But we still end up having to deal with the ship needing to get rid of the leftover charge not accelerated. Maybe portside/starboard vents accelerate atomic nuclei, and a central vent accelerates the electrons? Thus we get rid of all charged particles, and the heaviest particles are leaving on the outermost thrust "lanes" of the ship where they'd have the largest punch to get some maneuverability? 15) I don't like having p-plasma being directed to a breach -- it would have to occur very quickly. You have "breach detected, adjust p-plasma projectors to reinforce breach, project more p-plasma" which seems to be too slow, IMO. I'd say that the p-plasma is continually being added because the containment fields leak. The fields are fairly complex -- they follow the form of the hull. I'd not be surprised if the "seams" of joining shield planes weren't "air-tight" and leaked p-plasma over time. After a breach, neighboring p-plasma could spread out to fill it in -- diminishing overall shield strength (it's thinning out), and new p-plasma could then be brought in to bring it up to usual density. 17) I think armor is somehow atomically or quantumly reinforced (e.g. "Sun Crusher" from Star Wars" or the "spinnerets" that employed strong-nuclear force enhancement for densifying cables from the Timothy Zahn novel, "Spinneret"). Somehow, we've gotten the titanium packed in a tighter lattice than what is normally possible, thus increasing its density and resilience. Also, we do seem to have an SIF field for the ship. If it were projected through the armor too that would help it to survive a beating. Different grades of armor may respond more strongly to the SIF than others. 18) Maybe that's what marines do instead of playing cards Nah, I think we got replicator-like units for making food and little robots or nano-bots that clean the floor and other unpleasant places like the head (though I'm also sure the crew knows how to use a plunger even in 3000AD, too ). I'm sure the crew would be responsible for keeping their quarters clean or up to standards. As for the mess hall/galley, I suppose how this functions depends on what a Nutripak is. I view them as a general wad of nutritive stuff that can be synthesized by food processors into stuff that looks and tastes like normal food but isn't necessarily the real thing. I also think the galley would contain a small kitchenette for those crewers who would enjoy cooking as a form of relaxation, like my Tactical Officer. Once a week he likes to put together a gourmet meal for the officers of the Cavanagh. 19) I might be inclined to disagree on this point -- if your data tab stores all that info, why not just use the retinal scan, DNA print etc directly? I mean, for the data tab to work as you described you'd have to provide the data tab -- and then something like a retinal scan -- to verify the data tab was for you? The only thing the data tab would be good for would be like a "personal document" card, containing things like medical info and the like.

I've noticed in the first Ep 1 demo mission I get boarded at one point, and more keep beaming in from somewhere, but not sure where they're coming from. Cloaked ship maybe? I've been killed once already by the invaders because all my marines were either dead or in Medibay from dealing with the last batch that beamed in. 10 marines ain't a whole lot when you end up in a tiff with 10+ intruders with more on the way. Of course, I probably would've fared better had I actually been paying attention to the game at the time... I kind of agree about intruders. That first, they are a necessary and interesting (and sometimes even amusing ) part of the game. And that second, they are also annoying the way they are used right now. I too wish shields played some role in that -- e.g. if your shields are above X% they block enemy transporters. That, and their ability to transport from all the way on the other side of a sector bugs me to no end. Having a range limit would make things interesting -- at the least it'd force you (or them!) to have the guts to go within the range of the defending ship/station's guns if a boarding party was to be employed. Plus the defender would get a chance to return the favor. Of course, a smart commander would probably cloak to get in transporter range undetected... -------- EDIT -------- Whoops! Methinks this has already been addressed! Hunting through some previous posts here I come across this: quote: Supreme Commander, 03-20-2001The Beta testers had requested some relaxing of the boarding rules and I have made a note of a few things that I'd like to do. Expect some relaxation of the boarding rules, shortly. Also, I have, in my todo list, the ability to have you board other command crafts and stations with your own troops using shuttles or transporter. In fact, the new Perscan was designed to do just that and currently supports it. As you would be able to use it to track your troops on the target ship, as you would in your own ship. This will give you the ability to know when to get them the hell outta there when things get hot. Unfortunately, this feature is way down on my wishlist and probably won't make it into the first game release, but will DEFINITELY appear in a patch - since I'm notorious for doing stuff like that (adding new stuff, along with bug fixes, in patches). Once the first person, terrain and multiplayer are 100% finished, this is the first wishlist (my wishlist, damnit ) item that I plan on addressing. So, it looks like I'll be playing "wait-and-see" some more... [ 04-13-2001: Message edited by: Joel Schultz ]

I must agree with Pioneer's assessment: quote: Based on how many posters have 5 stars I would say that the rating system has a somewhat dubious value Too many have five stars, including me Aside from Rm's thoughts regarding their meaning, there's still no "official" guidelines from the SC, or even moderators, as to what they truly mean and how to use them. And until there are, they'll likely be used, misused and/or abused. Methinks this feature has opened a Pandora's Box for the time being. IMHO the system should be disabled until such time as there are official guidelines on how to use it - at which time it'd probably also make sense to reset the ratings too... But that's my $0.02. [ 04-10-2001: Message edited by: Joel Schultz ]

quote: Preumably, the stars represent how popular a commander (and said commander's input) is with other commanders Ahhhhhh..... I see the light. Well, Rm, I think I like that piece o' input so I be off do do something about it

Since you guys seem to be discussing the stars rating, I'll cross-post my question here from my likes and dislikes over in Forums Upgraded. quote: [i dislike the] Rating system first and foremost. While it's useful on more public boards for separating the posters with multi-celled brains from those with single- or no-celled brains , I think we hold a higher standard for our members than that. I do not understand the purpose it serves here. What is it measuring? What exactly are we competing for? Maybe I just don't get it... Just wondering. I hope no one is offended by my remarks above; no offense is intended - it's just my current opinion regarding the star ratings. I'm totally mystified as to what it means. What am I missing here? What exactly is the rating system measuring? I really don't have a clue as to what information it's conveying and am really confused! I mean, most everyone I've seen so far has five stars, along with a few four star guys as well. What does that one star difference really mean? Help!

Oooooooo... (Slaps back of head to restart brain) Thoughts on new format. --== Likes ==-- 1) Like the new look - new icons n'at give it a fresh look and feel. 2) Easier to do cool stuff. Now you don't have to think like a web-monkey to get UBB code correct. How many times do you see people botch the code like getting slashes wrong on quote blocks or sticking them in the wrong place? This'll be a big help to newbies (and even oldies too ) 3) I like the placement of the summarization of who you are (at bottom of post). Dunno why, the old way just seemed more - crowded? 4) Applause for the "Read This First" - covers all the bases a newbie should be aware of before posting. 5) Finally! I just tried it and could successfully delete my own post! Don't have to bother moderators anymore... 6) You no longer have to type in your user name and password if you've already logged on. 7) Private messaging. Could be useful. --== Not likes ==-- 1) Rating system first and foremost. While it's useful on more public boards for separating the posters with multi-celled brains from those with single- or no-celled brains , I think we hold a higher standard for our members than that. I do not understand the purpose it serves here. What is it measuring? What exactly are we competing for? Maybe I just don't get it... Just wondering. 2) I miss the giant smiley palette of 30 or so smileys. I want my exploding smiley head! Bring it back! 3) I also miss the spell check button on the main post board. [ 04-09-2001: Message edited by: Joel Schultz ]

Having links to all pages from top-level on a thread cool too.