dirt12

Hurray! Now if only we can find in his back pocket the 1,000,000 liters of nerve agent, VX and serine gas along with the 38,000 liters of Botulinum and 30,000 liters of Bacillus Anthracis we said he had. It would also be nice to locate some uranium from Niger too. Then we might actually be able to justify a preemptive war. ( although, there was that remote controlled airplane held together with rubber bands... that looked scarry!) Oh, by the way, has anyone see Osama?

Right, thatÔÇÖs good enough for me. Wont I also lose them on the missiles and fighters when I do that though? Kind of all or nothing. Anyway, no big wup. Rock on!

Just watched the new footage. Looks great! The exhaust streams look a little odd though. They look great on the missiles and even the fighters but seem a little unnatural on the capitol ships. Mostly because they appear to stick out the back like a 2km long popsicle stick and donÔÇÖt reflect any change in ship heading. Maybe if they werenÔÇÖt quite so long. Just my two galcredits. Cheers and keep up the good work SC

"Look, if someone copies(Pirates) a game one of the only things that can be viewed as an "upside" is that they will never have a manual. unless they were to photocopy the manual. Which would be an evil thing to do but no-the-less possibe and thus "never" is a gross overstatment " Don't be dense..." I figure my density is fairly close to that of seawater (~1020 kg/m^3)and I plan on keeping it that way.

Yea, that's about the expected response. Figured no harm done to try though.

IÔÇÖm guessing I know the answer to this already but I thought it was worth throwing out there. IÔÇÖve read that the game manual for UC is already completed. I donÔÇÖt know if there is any truth to that or not. If true, could it be accessed on-line or in pdf in advance so us newbieÔÇÖs can start reading through it before the game arrives. Maybe that way you wouldnÔÇÖt have to deal with as many dumb questions in the first weeks of the game release. cheers

Ok, this is my first real post so take it easy on me. IÔÇÖve been anxiously awaiting the arrival of UC for some time now and have been prepping for it in the simulator (i.e. the E2 demo). I havenÔÇÖt played BC since its first installment many years ago. I was so jaded by the experience (letÔÇÖs not relive that here) that I couldnÔÇÖt work up the courage to drop hard cash on the subsequent sequels to the game (in hind site it looks like I may have missed a lot especially with BCMG). But the new screen shots, movies and general discussions of UC have called me back like a siren. IÔÇÖm hooked and really excited about the upcoming release. One thing, however, that troubled me originally about the game was this lack of Newtonian physics. I couldnÔÇÖt reconcile the notion that I was flying this 2 km long starship and could stop on a galcredit. I know from reading the thread here that a great many of you including the SC himself (click of heals and salute!) disagree with me on this. I felt that a game like BC would be the perfect game for Newtonian physics and that it would really add to the strategy of combat. In other games that have employed a reasonable physics engines (i.e. IDW and EOC), the combat was too fast pace to really use it to its full potential. But the pace of BC would be perfect for it. At last itÔÇÖs not to be and thatÔÇÖs cool too. I just had to find a way to rationalize this in my head so that I can prepare for a truly immersive experience when the game finally hits my door step (no rush, take your time SC. Enjoy a cold brew and continue with the bug squash). What follows is a speculative (if not plausible) explanation for it. Perhaps this will help others resolve it in their own heads. For the rest of you who donÔÇÖt particularly care one way or another (itÔÇÖs just a game right, I keep telling myself) then you can just leave your head well enough alone. The idea revolves around technology based on generating artificial flux fields. Imagine if you will that rather than using conventional engines that rely on that antiquated 20th century concept of reaction kinetics you instead generate a controlled flux field in the immediate vicinity of the craft. A containment field that just encompasses the ship itself that is unstable and collapses after only a few milliseconds. The field imparts a minor fold in space-time along the longitudinal axis of the ship displacing it only a fraction of a centimeter from its original position in space-time. ÔÇ£What good is that,ÔÇØ you ask? Well, itÔÇÖs not much good if you only do it once, but if you can generate the field many thousand times a second the ship would appear to move. The advantage is that ship wouldnÔÇÖt be subjected to any of those pesky inertia effect because ÔÇ£itÔÇØ wouldnÔÇÖt really be moving in the traditional since. Instead, space-time itself would be moving around it. The faster you can regenerate the flux containment field the ÔÇ£fasterÔÇØ the ship would appear to be moving. This is also why there is a max speed because the max ÔÇ£velocityÔÇØ depends on how fast the engines can regenerate the field. Better engines regenerate the field faster. I also have theories for how such a technology could be implemented to make transporters and cloak work but I wonÔÇÖt boor you with that. This post is outrageously long as it is. Just some thought food for you all cheers

FYI I just checked with Amazon.com and they have reduced the pre-order price by 10%. I haven't tried it yet because it's not worth risking over a measly $4 US but I've thought about dropping my order from them and replacing it. hmm..how cheap am I?