Urza

I was referring to the pilots, not me! I could be mistaken, but aren't they supposed to be going up?

I have no objection to racial profiling in any form. In fact, I'd encourage it. If it's been statisticly proven that blacks are more likely to commit crimes, for example, I'd want them to be more heavily monitored. $iLk's argument in the middle of the first page says it all.

I already posted my first impressions on the ISS boards, so I'll share them more publicly here. I made a list: All those new officer messages: "Marines engaging in combat on deck three" Cool! Why are my systems still damaged? I have to tell my flight engineers to do their job myself?! All right, what happened to the debris fields? Hmmm, auto land system: *beep* *bang* Weatherlight smashes into the ground, flips a few times, then falls into a lake. Famous last words: "Hey, that flux field is fluxing, that means it must be safe!" Intruders are acutally a threat. Wow, eight fighters! Only eight pilots? "Are we there yet?!" "I told you, this is a slow ship, I can't make it go any faster!" Is it really necessary to tell me I have 3 minutes of air left when I'm on the bridge of my ship? Wow, vagrant missiles are so cheap... I'm out of radine already? presses CTRL-E for auto-destruct: ship explodes What, no two minute countdown? So many options, so little time... Love the contrail FX. [ 11-29-2001: Message edited by: Urza ]

On another AI-related note, how exactly to dogfighting and bombing skills go up? I'm about 10 hours in, and those skills haven't budged, despite being on several missions and having 3+ CKs in several instances.

On several occasions, my ship (a Firestorm) was completely gutted (INT: 14) but 85% of the armor was still there! I've never seen an NPC ship with hull 16000 (star station quality) but INT 14. I thought armor was supposed to take the brunt of the damage while at high levels, while becoming less effective the worse it gets. As it stands, my CC can be disabled (but not gutted) at 99% armor. Is it really supposed to be this way? If so, what do all those armor upgrades get you? P.S. In most cases my ship was undamaged to start with.

Yes, I'm sure. Unfortunately, I've already remedied the situation, so I can't send you a save. But all my officers' HF were indeed above 100. I believe they went as high as 118. The meter was non-existant at that point, and the numerical text was white. While it was this high, the afflicted crewman lost 1HF and gained 1 FF every 5 mins or so. I suppose you can recreate the effect by getting rid of all your nutripacks and letting it sit for a few hours.

The whole weekend is fine with me.

The coming Saturday, or a different one?

Just about any evening is fine with me.

Uh oh, I'd better get some nutripacks, since everyone's HF is above 100. Whoever damaged my cargo bay is going to get it.

[rp] Commander Urza personal log Ship Status: Shields: 100% Hull: 100% Condition: Yellow The maiden cruise of my brand new Firestorm is complete! That successful mining op also gave me enough money to max out my upgrades. Assuming the computer is correct, I now have over 17500 hull points! This ship is better than I imagined. I'm planning an assualt on the Pixan station to test the mettle of me, my ship, and my crew. Unfortunately, some hostiles beamed over, killed five marines, and damaged a few non-essential systems. [/rp]

OK, I have them, where do I send them?

I thought the manual said on p56 that cks "subsequently increase their AI". Also, I ran a small calculation. Let's say an average officer starts with an AI of 20. Assuming an average increase rate of one point per two hours of being on-station, that means to reach AI 100, they'd have to be on-station for 160 hours. Yikes! Also, assuming the officer is on-station 90% of the time, he will hit 100 after 171 hours of play. I play BCM an average of 3 hours a day. That equates to 57 days, or roughly 8.14 weeks; a little less than two months. That's all assuming he doesn't get killed. If that happens, the whole clock starts over. Anyway, I still don't know what HF is (see above post; sorry if I'm prying) so anyone with a clue please share it with us. You can see it by looking at a crewman in detail on the CVD (should appear on the upper-left corner)

I agree. Not very professional of him.

OK, I'll make a list: All those new officer messages: "Marines engaging in combat on deck three" Cool! Why are my systems still damaged? I have to tell my flight engineers to do their job myself?! All right, what happened to the debris fields? Hmmm, auto land system: *beep* *bang* Weatherlight smashes into the ground, flips a few times, then falls into a lake. Famous last words: "Hey, that flux field is fluxing, that means it must be safe!" Intruders are acutally a threat. Wow, eight fighters! Only eight pilots? "Are we there yet?!" "I told you, this is a slow ship, I can't make it go any faster!" Is it really necessary to tell me I have 3 minutes of air left when I'm on the bridge of my ship? Wow, vagrant missiles are so cheap... I'm out of radine already? presses CTRL-E for auto-destruct: ship explodes What, no two minute countdown? So many options, so little time... That's all I can think of right now. And how do you convert those screenshots to JPGs? I can't even look at them!

I just unloaded 5 million on artifacts. So, what do you mean, "partally works"? My RE isn't smart enough to analyze anything, but when she is, does she just start analyzing things or do you have to tell her to? And I thought you didn't have to analyze upgrade artifacts. I just bought a TA shield, but it doesn't appear on the upgrade list, and my RE isn't giving me any feedback.

Not sure, but it can't be much, as it's not shown in tactical.

In a commander career, I beamed myself down to an enemy starbase area, along with some marines. The marines just kneeled there, even after I gave them orders. I ran around the base myself a little bit, and ran into an NPC platoon. Except I wasn't dead. They were just standing there. I'm not sure what is causing this, but I tired beaming down on several computers and several planets, and have yet to get shot at. As for my marines, I know their AI is low, but I think they're smart enough to shoot someone, or at least walk around.

That's not quite true. I cloned a pilot, and when he came back to the living, he still had his CMs and CKs. I don't know about his AI, since it never went up in the first place. On another note, the CVD shows vital stats of all your officers and pilots. When I queried myself, and looked at EP. Is there something behind the graphical representation of it? By that, I mean, I have approx. 6000 EPs. The meter extends about halfway. Wouldn't it make more sense to stack it so that it would fill up at your next promotion, at which time, it would empty again, tracking your progress to the promotion after that? Also, I noticed something called HF (I think) along with LF, FF, and AI. I'm not sure what it means, since it's not in the manual and not shown on the roster. Does anyone know about this?

Do you need to analyze artifacts that "just work" by sitting in the cargo bay?

If I install that patch, do I just install the offical one too when it comes out?

Uh, let's get back on topic. Is there any way for AI to go down? I'd hate it if that happened.

sigh of relief

I think time compression disappeared in 2.03. I'd like to see a full Battlecrusier Trivial Pursuit game. I wonder what the categories would be... Ship specifics Battlecrusier History Geography Weapons and Items Fleets and RPing SC, more than you wanted to know! hmmm...

Oops, does that include super carriers?