Spuzzum

00:12 May 17, 3008 In Orbit of Lennen, Sirius UCV-Razorback, Officers' Quarters Colson woke up again, sweating. The same nightmare, where he was doomed to watch each of his crewmembers systematically shot in the back of the neck before he himself was done in. Even though that it wasn't likely to happen, it still scared the wits out of him. He gasped, rolled over, and sighed, putting his hand on his wristlaser, which lay without ammunition on his nighttable, for moral support. He glanced out the window before returning his gaze onto his uniform on the wall. Then, suddenly, he whipped his head around and stared out the window. "What the bloody HELL?!" he very nearly shouted. The planet was not Jupiter. Not big enough, no giant red spot, and worst of all... it was not Jupiter. "BRIDGE!" he screamed into the comm. "Gah!" came Louisi's surprised reply. "What the hell are you trying to do, give me a heart attack?!" "WHERE THE HELL ARE WE?!" shouted Colson. Louisi stammered. "Uh-- uh, you don't know?" Colson could feel Louisi's fear. That made him feel oddly good inside. He wasn't used to domineering people; in fact, he was rather timid, most of the time. Colson dropped his voice off dramatically, and calmly said, "No, I most certainly do not." "We're in orbit of Lennen, sir." "Under whose orders?" Louisi stayed silent. "I'm the commanding officer on this ship, so I'll ask again, who gave you the order?" Still silence. "Are you protecting someone?" Louisi paused, before saying, "...No." "Why the pause?" "Uh, because I wasn't expecting the, uh, question. Sir." Colson sighed. "That's the worst excuse I've heard in a long time, Roman." Louisi said, quietly, "Okay, I'll tell you who, as long as you don't punish either of us." Colson nodded, but knowing that Louisi couldn't see him, he included, "All right." "Rena." "Rena Janyss?" "How many other Rena's are there on this ship?" Colson had an inkling why she would do such a thing. He slid the datapad out from under the cushion, and turned it on. "-- [CONCLUSIVE EVIDENCE - POTENTIAL ILLEGAL ACTIVITY] -- Three Undesignated Command Vessels, two with IFF signatures and a third with a camouflaged signature, all without central Police identification entries, were spotted within the Jupiter, Sol region on the evening of May 12, 3008. A ship without a central identification in Terran space is either a xenological vessel, a criminal, or a raider. Also, all xenological ships are encouraged to register their ship in the Police databanks for better tracking and safety of all parties. With the proximity to the Sirius/Sol wormhole, there is no major surprise if they hadn't yet registered their ships, but the evidence is that the vessels contained human lifeforms. However, the equipment accessible to Raiders and Criminals, however extensive, is unlikely to include an IFF masking device and two top-condition Warmonger vessels. In such a condition, I am lead to believe that the vessels are GalCom craft, illegally contracting work outside of the bounds of the Terran Employment Law. With such a conclusion, I propose that the nearest Police vessel, the Razorback, should follow the possibly guilty parties to their destination, which seems to be located somewhere within Raider space along the Terran/Credian boundary (as it is unlikely that merely three vessels would attempt to assault the Insurgents at Sygan)." Colson shook his head. "Dammit, Rena, you're too caught up in your work." Louisi, over the still-open comm, said, "So you're not going to punish her?" Colson said, "I'll punish her." "But! But you said---" "I lied." Colson switched off the comm. If he was going to get this crew working together, he couldn't have people running around doing vigilante work for a 'potential illegal activity'! Colson put on his uniform, slid his pistol into its holster, and walked out of the room towards Rena's quarters, not in the least bit happy.

quote:Originally posted by Supreme Cmdr: I guess they must not have gone as far as Madride*. Wimps *You'd have to jump from Farstar to Trion to Hellseye to Sorax and then to Madride. Personally, I think my actions of remaining in Farstar to besiege the Insurgents is rather brave, especially taking into consideration how badly they kicked my arse when I was strafing their naval fleet.

[RP] 23:40 May 16, 3008 Jupiter, Sol UCV-Razorback, Officers' Quarters Rena lay on her bed and stared at the ceiling. She couldn't sleep. Too much was going on. She sighed and rolled over, glancing at the clock. '23:40,' she mouthed to herself. Suddenly, she had a tiny bit of inspiration. She sat up, slowly, and turned on the lights with one-quarter intensity. Walking over to her dresser, she pulled out the SCAT-1 pistol. Sliding the release out of position, she inspected the clip, before popping the ammunition back in and attaching the whole to her holster, which was still connected to the uniform which she hadn't yet changed out of. She sighed, and frowned at the same time, before she pulled the pistol out of the holster and replaced in its place. No, she thought, No need to be drastic. Rena was struck with some inspiration. She hit the communiqu├® to the bridge. "Bridge," came the familiar voice of Roman Louisi. "Hey, Roman, I need a favour," she said. She heard him slide around. He probably wasn't too comfortable with that little request. "Well?" she asked. He sounded slightly exasparated. "Rena, this would be the third favour you've asked for this week." She smiled to herself, but knew he couldn't see her, so she pretended to plead. "Please? For me?" "Gah, Rena, don't pull that!" he laughed. "What do you want?" "Since our commander is a little indisposed at the moment, I was wondering if you could find it in your caring, generous heart to jump into Lirius." He sounded suspicious. "Pirate hunting?" She remembered that only her and the commander had received her datapad. "No," she countered. "Just something worth investigating." "Rena, I swear, if you make me do any more favours, the CO will huck my ass out the airlock." She knew he was grinning. "Well?" she asked. No response. "Well?" she repeated. He sighed. "Okay, Rena, but tomorrow, you'll have to do me a favour." "Oh? What'd that be?" she asked, a little worried. "I haven't decided yet," he laughed. "Okay, thanks," she said. Jokingly, she added, "Pookie." Whatever was bothering her wasn't bothering her anymore, because after changing into her nightgown, she fell asleep almost instantly. ----- 23:40 May 16, 3008 Jupiter, Sol UCV-Razorback, Officers' Quarters Colson sat on the bed and breathed heavily, before waking with a start. What the heck? he thought to himself. I haven't ridden on a ship in two years, but I sure as hell know when the engines start up. He rolled over. A voice inside of him said, Nah, forget it. Louisi's probably doing Split-S'es to pass the time. Colson glanced at the clock. '23:40,' he muttered. For some reason, that number seemed very significant. He thought about it before drifting off to sleep again. [ 06-26-2001: Message edited by: Spuzzum ]

I'm still waiting for the thread to pass into midnight so Colson can wake up and get back onto the bridge! Meantime, I suppose I'll be roughing out a draft of a LONG post for when he wakes up. I wonder how Colson'll react when he flies straight out into the middle of a Terran vs. Gammulan firefight!

quote:Originally posted by Supreme Cmdr: oh you evil b*astard!! Latest surveys prove that Canadians are twice as likely to be sadistic than the average American gamer. Well, maybe not, but I'm sadistic too. (Anyone play Soldier of Fortune? Does anyone else aim particularly favourably for the crotch? )

quote:Originally posted by Supreme Cmdr: btw, if you downloaded the E1 demo, you can copy all the pilot soundfx over to the E2 demo folder! Look in the SOUNDFXPILOTS folder and copy all the files from there. Doh! I was thinking about why there were no pilot sounds just last night. I suppose I'll do that, then.

quote:Originally posted by $iLk: I'm back. Relieved to see my name cleared, and to see the "traveler" pack up and go home. I placed one (1) pic in Active Worlds in my office and it was not porn. See for yourself : http://www.geocities.com/troy_norden/misc56.jpg If it's any consolation, I didn't think it was you at all; from talking to you, I had the impression you were smarter than that. Which impression I'm still standing by. That picture in your office made me laugh, actually. But I do agree that the picture of "You and Her" is much better.

Ladies, eh? I'll have you know that the last time I checked, I was male! Seriously, though, I can code HTML that is W3C HTML 4.01 Compliant. So I should have no foreseeable problems. (I also use a high-level programming/scripting language called "DM", so I should have no foreseeable problems at all. ) GUI HTML? Gah, don't even mention the phrase. I despise those, have despised those, and always will despise those. It's not coding, its having to obey someone else's rules needlessly. (Dreamweaver, for example, practically disgusts me. ) (I told you I was a jack-of-all-trades, and I woin't kiddin'. ) Anyway, Baloogan, I'm not sure if you can rename items. If you could, I'm figuring that it wouldn't be of much use... (That is, why the heck would a vessel be carrying computer games from a thousand years in the past?! ) Leave it to lil' ol' Spuzzum to ignore a thread for several days even though he's completely active elsewhere on the forum.

Whoa... I transfered myself and five marines to a shuttle. Then I landed on a water body and switched my crew over to the away team, then deployed. Silent crash; it dropped me back to the desktop without any reported errors. I wanted to see those marines swim, dammit! (I'm guessing this feature was stripped? Or is it WIP? I didn't see anything in the version control.)

Did anyone try to do a FC strike on that Insurgent naval fleet? All four interceptors were blasted down REALLY fast, and then when I went in for revenge, my Battlecruiser was shredded to bits in the span of several seconds. Actually, I splash-landed because they iced my engine (or my reactor, I never pay attention to these things ). I then Alt+E,Y'ed out of there, but the CC was blown up and it took me along with it. Another memorable experience; I went to watch one of my favourite movies (Evil Dead II), and shut off the reactor to conserve radine. I suppose you can see where this is going... When I got back an hour and a half later, I found the crew unconscious on the floor, half of them dying from lack of oxygen. Whoops.

Can't disagree, but I doubt Nova's gonna make eight icons. I'm a Terran/Police and the eagle, however clich├®d, is fine for me (and I suspect, him too). In fact, a picture in my Police Station in AW (which I hope has been safe from the ravages of pornography) use the Terran logo as a backdrop. What I'm doing is just throwing a bone to the Droidan/Police guys in my "Fleet" on the Fleet DB. However little they show up on the boards. Anyway, Nova, if you want to, ask Tacops to let #4 through. It's a great logo!

Sigh... yes, aramike, I know that. But as far as I could tell the original aim was to make the icon a universal (that is, interspecies) icon that any member of any police caste, regardless of species, could use to indicate that they're Police. Not a member of a specific police force, mind you, just that they're a police officer. I'm casting my definite support for #4, of course, but if it were a interspecies police icon, and not more of a Terran icon, I'd be much more supportive of it.

Now that I've actually experienced scenario 3 to its fullest, I didn't find it all too difficult, actually. I was "shot down" four out of the five times (the fifth time, I had completely wiped out the base, and flew off for home). One of those four I wasn't killed, but my engine was destroyed (that's what I'm presuming, because I couldn't apply any more thrust to my engine, hit the ground, and couldn't take off). That trip, I ran around on the ground and set the turrets up for crossfire. But I noticed that yes, the turrets can't hit you... they shoot at your feet and the beams impact the ground long before they hit you. Might I suggest moving the TTD hardpoint up towards the torso, rather than the feet? Another of those times I was shot down, I was actually blown up by SALs and SAMs. The third and fourth, I crash-landed and wasn't fast enough on the Alt+E,Y sequence to get out before my craft went to the junkyard in the sky. Which I blame on my joystick, which drifts too much (it's not a calibration issue, but rather, the stick itself is loose on its gimbals). All of the times I played, almost all of the Insurgent base was decimated (those people never learn, do they? Don't repair it or it'll get blown up again! ). The Starlight STOs were also "removed" on three of my five trips. Scenario three is, by far, the most fun!

quote:Originally posted by Darkvenom: Cool! The stations are now much harder to destroy Heh, I didn't even try this time around... maybe I should give it a go in my shiny new Battlecruiser.

quote:I wasn't talking about waypoints. Where did you get this impression? Please read your excerpt and my response therein, and you'll see what am talking about. I was talking about your ability to get back in the HAG. Ah, found it. The / key. Funny, I used to know that from Episode One when going FP from the shuttle. Sorry. (The top of your excerpt contained the part about the friendly gunships not moving. Being the cad I am, I didn't read the rest. ) I know now that the shields don't get damaged, and the answer to number 3, but what about questions 2 and 4? Namely, how do I evac the crew, and how (if possible) do I quit when in FP mode. Or is the answer to #2, 'Don't crash your battlecruiser into the water, silly.'? As for the "trigger", that was A) a misunderstanding on how GBS-II works (well, a lack of understanding altogether ), and a possible explanation as to why the gunships weren't taking off. Still don't know why they weren't/aren't taking off, though.

Wait a minute... you probably set up the trigger for 1000 MSL, right? That would explain it if that's the case, because I only flew up to around 300 before I buzzed the friendly base and blasted everything.

My point was that if you have the bird, it won't be a universal police caste logo anymore. Yes, I liked #4 the best, and for a Terran/Police logo, it looks great. But for a Droidan/Police... well, that just doesn't fit at all. (When I said it was too flashy, I was referring to #2... just for everyone's future and present reference. )

Well, actually, SC, I did read the tutorial. The reason was that I didn't think it was MANDATORY to set a waypoint... I was going to follow the gunships instead of going through the hassle of setting one. Why don't they take off by themselves? [Edit] Oh, those questions. Just a simple pointer to the documentation it's in would help; you don't have to explain. [ 06-23-2001: Message edited by: Spuzzum ]

The demo's fun; at least, in the first scenario. I loved that reentry burn! Looked great. I didn't have the updated drivers at that time, so there was a MASSIVE fireball. Which was cool. (Q1: Does entering atmosphere damage your shields?) When I set my waypoint to come out near the carrier group, I was amazed by the clouds and the terrain. What frustrated me, though, is that the clouds must have dropped in elevation, or something, because I was flying at cloud height when suddenly I splashed into the water. Naturally, I didn't have any of my crew outside of the ship, and the poor souls sank like Tom, Dick, and Harry. (Q2: How do you give the order to evac the ship? The ship's status changed to evac when I splash-landed, but no one left.) Another problem I had was with Alderon's collision detection. I was trying to fly straight through the hole in the middle as I had always done in Episode One, but THUD! I hit nothingness. THUD! "Warning: Damage!" THUD! I was far (very far) from hitting the station. Maybe that has something to do with my jaggies bug? I found the second scenario to be impossibly hard; I could blow up one of the enemy vehicles, but then I'd get pounded to death by a laser turret. All within the span of about 10 to 15 seconds, all five tries. I set my laser to machine gun fire (20%), since that's a lot easier to handle, and I turned out even worse-off than I was before. And in the third, the friendly gunships didn't even move. I looked at them, shot at them, and even blew up a couple buildings... got the base on alert, because a heck of a lot of vehicles and stuff came out, but the gunships sat and stared. (Q3: How can you tell what your current target is in FP? I stepped out of my HAG, hit the comma key a few times, and, not pressing the period key, spent the longest time futzing with Alt+D, comma, Alt+D, comma, before I gave up.) I noticed I couldn't quit the game from FP mode, too... I had to close through the End Task dialog. The game didn't crash, mind you, but since I was stuck outside of my HAG, I couldn't access the Command Menu. (Q4: Is there a way to quit in FP?)

Well, don't know what to say. I sort of like the demo (I won't go on since this is a different thread), but for some odd reason Alderon has really strange graphical tearing; the seams between polys make gigantic stair-step jaggies. Not regular pixel jaggies, mind you, but big, huge, nasty, inch-wide jaggies (I'm running it at 1024x768x32, so they're definitely not pixel jaggies). I took a screenshot, and I uploaded it onto my webpage: http://spuzzum.byond.com/images/bcmbug.jpg. The section of the station on the right side of the screen is the problem. That happens everywhere else on the station, too, but the polys on the right are the most noticeable. It's a moving effect, mind you; when in motion, the jaggies zip across the seams of the station. If it didn't move, I could care less, but it's really an eyesore... Possibly my problem, I'll admit. But, I just downloaded the latest Det. drivers (12.41WHQL), and copied the new ones over the old ones (forgot to backup... oh well). The new drivers did nothing to cure that polygon edge problem, except they did make the particle contrails shrink rather than grow, as said in the VCF. (Yes, I read the VCF! Hallelujah! )

I'm not sure... personally, I say lose the bird altogether, since that's the major definitive symbol of the Terran race. That simple coat of arms, with ribbons above and below, ought to serve the purpose, methinks... (Right now, I think it looks WAY too flashy. )

::whips out a nightstick:: Okay, you've been warned.

quote:Originally posted by GREG MILLER: [rp] Hmm, looks like we now have bunnies and trolls! [/rp] [RP] "That's slander, and we have it recorded on the 3000AD discussion forum!" [/RP]

There's many "him"s... let's gag 'em all! Seriously, folks. Just sit, wait, be patient, and for God's sake eat your vegetables, dammit! [ 06-21-2001: Message edited by: Spuzzum ]

quote:Originally posted by pkzip: Perhaps we will hold a Rave soon and give those guys over at the Police Academy something to do. Heh, now it's a full-fledged station with an interrogation room. Ouch. Holding cells, a front desk, and small offices are on the way... but not tonight. I need rest. Damn flesh... if only I could transfer my consciousness to a machine. THEN I'd be good to go.