jnewl

I've purchased many dozens of things online, including a fair number of downloadable games. I have never had a problem. I wish I could say the same for my physical purchases. As long as the site you're buying from is secure--and pretty much all of them are these days--you have very little to worry about. It's infinitely easier for someone to steal your credit card info by looking over your shoulder in the store than it is for them to hack it from a secure site online. However, if you don't have a firewall and don't know how to keep your info from being stored in a cookie, don't do it. Your chances of being hit are still low, but I don't want to be the guy who told you to go ahead if you do get ripped.

I'm happy to hear future games will be offered as online downloads. I'm very comfortable with that delivery method and, like others here, actually prefer it. Bring it on!

It's not buried. It's right there in front of your face. What you need to do is quit being intimidated by the supposedly insurmountable learning curve and play the damned game. What you need to know to get started isn't that difficult.

Aha. Thank You.

Last night I saw a ship identified as "MUL/RAI" but I don't see a race listed anywhere (looked in manual, appendices, version control file, and revised manual file) that begins with the letters "Mul." What the heck is that? Also, just for record: both the version control file and the revised manual file for BCMG state that the new save game key combo is "Alt-S." Obviously, this is wrong, as Alt-S is the command to bring up the Tacops computer. The save game command is "Ctl-S."

quote:Originally posted by Supreme Cmdr: quote:Originally posted by mudpuppy: Is this right? Should I be hearing the missiles like that?Yes, because they are not subject to the same Db cueing. In UC this has been removed so that missiles no longer make a sound when they self-destruct. Gotcha. Thankee much for the reply.

Ok, I read in the FAQ for BCMG that sounds from sources more than 75km away should be inaudible, but I am always able to hear missiles exploding in my current sector, no matter what the distance. They always sound like they're right outside my ship, even when they're hundreds of thousands of km away. I thought this was just the way the game was designed, but after reading the FAQ I realized it's ONLY missiles exploding that I can hear; I don't seem to hear ships when they explode far away, for example. Is this right? Should I be hearing the missiles like that? I have an Audigy Gamer with current drivers, but BCMG has always sounded this way since I got it back in April (or whenever), even with the previous driver set.

quote:Originally posted by Supreme Cmdr: Try this please activate Tacops and press numeric 5 key for a top-down view. Make sure you have the grid enabled (it is by default) set four waypoints as follows. #1 on the top-left most corner of the grid #2 on the top-right most corner of the grid, #3 and #4 on the other two corners. The orders for 1-3 should be Proceed To Next and #4 should be Repeat Actions Return to the bridge and (1) give the CC the Resume Waypoints order (2) engage the A/P Return to Tacops top-down view and note the ranges from the CC to the waypoints Tell me what happens. Ok. Followed your instructions to the letter, but the same thing happened. The autopilot flew toward WP1, but only at normal speed. I was not able to figure out how to see the ranges from the CC to the waypoints in Tacops. All that showed were what appeared to be the ranges to the edge of the grid in the due North, East, and South directions (no West for some reason). Those ranges were as follows: N: 2116464 E: 2121296 S: 2118886 I could see the ranges from the CC to the waypoints in the NID, however. These were given as: WP1: 1501475 WP2: 1489240 WP3: 1495366 WP4: 1505606

Wow! Not only do I have to deal with those rotten Gammulans, freakin' Al Qaeda is loose out here, too? (It's seriously cool to find out that this is a feature and not a bug, though. I love games with unpredictable bits like that.)

Ok, up 'til now, I've been towing disabled enemy craft with my CC, but last night I decided to tow an enemy fighter with a shuttle. So I send out the shuttle and it hooks up with the fighter properly. Then I order it to deliver the fighter to GalCom HQ. All goes fine at first. The shuttle HJ's to GCHQ as it should. However, just as it emerges from Hyperspace, BLAMMO! The shuttle and its towed fighter explode in a spectacular display of interstellar fireworks. My question: did they get fried by GCHQ or the nearby ODS, and if so, why? When I tow stuff there with my CC, I don't get attacked like that. (Or, if it wasn't GCHQ, what the heck was it? A cloaked ship maybe?)

quote:Originally posted by dennymala: Are you sure that your hyperdrive engine is charged...? I've done this before and it works properly if the waypoint if far enough to hyperdrive to it. Pretty sure I checked everything, but I'm a known dumbass so I'll check again UPDATE: Nope. Hyperdrive is fully charged. I set three WP's, all waaaay out there, but Mr. Autopilot just pointed toward WP1 and chugged along at normal engine speed. (Tried Shift-9 manually and that didn't work, either. You don't even get the "Unable to engage" message, since you can't target the waypoints. You just get...nothing.) [ 12-28-2003, 12:25 PM: Message edited by: mudpuppy ]

quote:Originally posted by Supreme Cmdr: Trading was just something I threw in because it was always the staple of space sims (except for the WC series of course).I liked what you said before: that you put in trading so we'd be able to buy gas (cue image of Starcarrier sitting dead in space with commander outside kicking the hull...) quote:Space sims are dead. Pure and simple. If I ever do another one, it won't be for another 4-8 years at the most. Even the sequel (or add-on) to UC, will probably see no new addition to the space sim aspects - except probably the ability to construct bases on planets and in space. The trick, in my opinion, is to incorporate a new and interesting gameplay model into a space sim. That will bring the customers running back. For instance, what I think would be cool would be to make a completely diplomacy-driven game, as opposed to, say, the trading-driven game that seems to be everyone's been-there-done-that model of choice. (And when I say a diplomacy-driven game, I'm talking about a deep and convincing diplomacy/relationships model; not the superficial pap that usually passes for diplomacy in games.) Anyway, I hope you're not saying that BCO is dead? Did I miss that announcement?

If you have the money, get BCMG now and UC later. BCMG is the last "pure" BC game and it's quite good. UC has had its focus adjusted a bit, which doesn't mean it's going to be a bad game, but only that it's had its focus adjusted a bit. (Unfortunately, I can't comment much on UC since I haven't catalogued the changes in depth like some people have; for me, it's a must-buy no matter what gets done to it--short of some major catastrophe.) Anyway, if the proprieter of this fine establishment is a bit biased, he's nevertheless right for all that. BCMG is a superior game to X2, except in the areas of trade and empire-building (which BCMG was never really designed for). Particularly if immersion is important to you (as it is to me) you'll want to go with BCMG. I currently have four discs sitting on top of my computer: BCMG, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, X2: The Threat, and Lord of the Rings: Return of the King. All of the latter three have received extremely high marks from both gamers and critics, and all are indeed fine games. The fact is, however, that the game I want to fire up every time I sit down is: BCMG. As for BCMG's graphics: I actually prefer its look to that of the fancier games. There comes a point where so many atmospheric effects and gee-whiz graphical tricks simply become too much, and games like X2 have reached that point, imo. They leave no room for the imagination to breathe. BCMG strikes a good balance in that regard, I think (although round planets would be nice ).

np. I understand it's not a feature of BCM/G, so I wasn't suggesting it was bugged. I think it would be great if it somehow magically showed up in UC, though

I don't think it works. Here's what I did: I made a "Proceed to next" waypoint in TacOps (also tried "Search and destroy") and stuck it 6700000km away from my position. Then I went back to the bridge and pressed "X" to cancel all current targets. (I also tried selecting the waypoint without having any targets selected in the CVD first.) Then I tried both "A" and "Shift-A" to see if I could make the autopilot fly to the waypoint. Sure enough, it does fly to the waypoint, but it won't engage the Hyperdrive, no matter how far away the waypoint is. Is that a sufficient test? I tried to find a "Resume Waypoint" command in the manual and command card per your post, but couldn't find one. I concluded that you must have just meant the AI procedure that occurs when you engage the autopilot with existing waypoints and hit "X". Sorry if I'm being dense.

quote:Originally posted by Supreme Cmdr: quote:Originally posted by mudpuppy: It's not so much that I care about being in a specific place in space, but rather that sometimes I'd just like to be off the beaten path. 2D plotting ought to fill the bill for that. np. In fact, you're not going to believe it, I was going to change that to 3D plotting (so that you could adjust the Z asis, but somehow slipped my mind because its not even in my design list for BCG. I have now added it for a future patch revision. Awesome. But could you also make it so we can HJ to waypoints within our current system? I don't seem to be able to do that right now. Without being able to target and HJ to such WPs, it's kind of pointless to be able to set them, since it takes far too long to fly to them manually. P.S. Hope you have a great Christmas.

quote:Originally posted by Supreme Cmdr: Have you tried, uhm, I dunno, using a waypoint? Thanks! Knew there must be a way. I'll give it a try. It's not so much that I care about being in a specific place in space, but rather that sometimes I'd just like to be off the beaten path. 2D plotting ought to fill the bill for that.

For all the vast universe supposedly at our fingertips in BCMG, the fact seems to be that we're effectively limited to the areas immediately surrounding the various game objects: planets, stations, etc. There doesn't seem to be a way to, say, hyperjump halfway to a planet and hang out there, or to pick some random point in space and jump there. You always have to jump to an object. (You can, of course, manually fly anywhere you want, but who has two weeks to spend doing that?) So my question: is there a way to do these things and I'm just not seeing it?

quote: a scene where you see down Frodos shirt at the end...What were you doing looking down Frodo's shirt? I don't know about you, Scrivener...

quote:Originally posted by Grizzle: Got it, played it and the only thing I got out of it was a desire to play BCMG!!!!(which I did ) Sure, it looks great but it doesn't give me that immersive feeling like BCMG does. Me too. I was never into space games before, so I don't know about the original Elite and all that, but compared to all the newer stuff I'm seeing like X2 and Freelancer, I'll take BCMG anytime. As for the looks, BCMG looks just fine to me--better and less "busy," even. One thing I do like is X2's visible cockpit. Notice I didn't say "cockpit view," since I don't really give a rat's patootie about being able to look around the cockpit. I just like having it drawn on the screen so I can feel like I'm in a spacecraft rather than watching a TV screen. That's one thing I regret BCMG not having.

Thanks very much for going to all the trouble, guys. That was really nice of you. So I guess we'll have to find somebody else to host us, unless Splad can figure out what's going on with his setup. Anyone have a beefy machine that they want to dedicate to a worthy cause?

SC is saying that if we can verify that it's a real problem and not something being caused by us, his tech support team will look into it. But to verify that it's a real problem, we need to do some things first. The very first thing, as I said, is to make sure you and those who are trying to connect to you (like me) are running the same software. So, before you do anything else, please download the newest patch from the Download area, install it, and then verify that it installed properly by looking at the version number on the opening screen of BCMG. After you do that, we can try having you set up your server again and we'll try connecting to you (or I'll set one up and you can try connecting to it, or whatever).

Jesus. Yes, that was it. Thanks, Spindoktor. I'm a moron.

I'm in a Roam campaign using the standard universe. In my current game, I was previously able to select a system in the Navitron by left-clicking on it. It's just that it has stopped working for some reason. Moreover, if I start a new Roam game in this same universe, the Navitron works properly. Thus, it's not a matter of my being in the wrong universe or game type or of my not knowing how to use it. There's something else going on.