Ben Zwycky

Yeah, I'd be happier without it as well.

Shohashi is the Offline missions umpire for this season. When saving your game, please use your username and the mission name in the saved game profile and as the zip file name, it makes things easier to keep track of. e.g. my submission for this mission (Combat Mission 1) had the filename: Ben Zwycky CM1 (archive name Ben_Zwycky_CM1.zip) for the next mission (Special Mission 1), the filename would be: Ben Zwycky SM1 (archive name Ben_Zwycky_SM1.zip) Please report any problems or questions in this thread.

nope, it was Strategic Commander back in BC3k v 2.01 (I still have the old pdf manual files from that), it's just the unfortunate name match that throws you.

Did you read the rank requirement in the manual section I pointed you to? (*hint- it's not Fleet Commander *)

try reading the manual section on Fleet Command and Control (section 12.1)

The first Offline mission has been uploaded! Combat Mission 1. This is a specifically marked version of the first mission in the AWA ACM Commander campaign, you must use this saved game (we will be able to tell) and play through until the end of the first mission. Save your game before the second mission starts and submit it before the submission deadline, which is 7pm GMT on Wednesday 21st March use the normal procedure for submitting a saved game (zip up the appropriate files and upload them to a filespace available to you and PM or email the link (or if you have no space available to you, then email them directly), to the Offline mission umpire). The identity of the Offline mission umpire will be announced at the weekend. The victory condition for this mission is whoever has the most EP.

Then take up the challenge of taking part in Fleet Action Offline Missions, competing against players from around the world in downloadable missions that will test all your SP skills, and contributre towards your alliance's domination of the galaxy. If you want to really pit your wits against other players and make a significant contribution to the war, then sign up for full MP participation. In either case, you'll neeed to sign up to a fleet action team in this thread Let the carnage commence!

Excellent. To maximise the player pool available for each match and make the map situation more interesting, each team will have two fleets at its disposal, players can take part in any MP match involving one of their two fleets. The Galcom team will be using CIOPS and Wraith as its two fleets, CIOPS will start in Centris and Wraith in Lyrius. I will be acting as Team leader, and Case as Vice-leader. Insurgents, I need to know who is going to lead your team, the names of your two fleets and where you want those fleets to start. I will need to know your starting locations by next Wednesday at the absolute latest, all else will need to be decided no later than the end of this month, MP matches will start next month. In the meantime, two offline missions will get the new season rolling, see here for details.

To get things rolling we are going to start the new Fleet Action Season off with a couple of downloadable SP Offline missions using UC:AWA (an ACM-based one followed by a specifically-created one, in the normal flow of things, there will be one offline mission per round, two ACM-based missions followed by a specifically-created one every third round) It is possible to take part in Fleet Action purely by participating in single player offline missions, but you will not be able to earn any of the higher medals in doing so, and you will see less action than those who take part in MP encounters. MP players can also take part in Single Player Offline Missions. These will be either saved game missions created specifically for the purpose of FA or individual missions from an ACM campaign using a specifically (and verifiably) marked saved game that will be released on a Wednesday evening GMT (7pm) via the ISS HQ download module (or a link provided in this thread) and must be downloaded, played and submitted by 7pm GMT on the following Wednesday evening (to ensure that everyone has the same time frame in which to compete). This week-long window will occur at the beginning of each FA round. With ACM-based missions, whoever gets the most EP wins, specifically created missions will have their own victory criteria. (The one who submits an ACM-based mission can take part in the contest, since there is no inside knowledge to be had (it is the standard ACM mission just marked), but the one who submits a specifically-created mission where a specific situation has been generated cannot take part in the contest, since they'll know all it's secrets and no-one else will) You must join a fleet team to be able to officially participate in Fleet Action Offline Missions. New players joining mid-season is perfectly acceptable, those interested should signal their willingness to join a fleet team (by either joining a fleet or 'guesting' in a team) by posting in the Fleet Action team management thread The winner of the sp mission gains: 1000 EP 2 successful missions (combat missions for ACM-based missions, SpecOps missions for specifically created save game missions) to their individual statistics total PLUS one of the following three bonuses for their fleet: 1. 10 rating points OR 2. A move for their fleet of up to 2 regions, including routes through regions containing hostile fleets and including escaping from being locked into a system supremacy mission (where appropriate, the opposing fleet will continue against a defensive patrol force) OR (For ACM-based missions) 3. The conversion of a hostile or neutral undefended region up to 3 regions from an allied fleet to a strongpoint for their alliance (For specifically created save game missions) 3. SpecOps: Signals Intel or SpecOps: Sabotage benefits for the allied fleet of your choice against the hostile fleet of your choice. The player who comes second in the SP mission gains 500 EP 1 successful mission (combat mission for ACM-based missions, SpecOps mission for specifically created save game missions) to their individual statistics total PLUS 5 rating points for their fleet Third place: 1 successful mission, 200 EP, 2 rating points for their fleet Fourth place: 1 successful mission, 100 EP, 1 rating point for their fleet Other participants: 1 mission loss, -50 EP The first Offline mission will be uploaded tomorrow (Wednesday 14th March) at approximately 7pm GMT. Players will have until 7pm GMT on the following Wednesday to complete the mission and submit their saved game. You can make as many attempts as you like, but can only submit one saved game. Good luck, commanders! [ 03-31-2007, 01:54 PM: Message edited by: ShoHashi ]

Eastern Time is now GMT-4 (Daylight saving time is in effect since yesterday in the US), so 12am-6am EST would be 4am-10am GMT.

well, we'll be sort of doing that with the map module, the outcome of a mission can influence the ownership of a region on the map, with associated rp after action reports, bragging rights and other rp tie-ins to that. Each battle is significant and has a purpose in a grander scheme of things, the story of each season will be archived so everyone can see what happened even well after the fact, but once one side reaches total domination (all fleet forces of all other alliances destroyed), then the map will have to be reset and a new season will have to be started, since those other alliances will have nothing left to play for. A single full season will probably take a long time to complete (possibly even spanning a few years), depending on how even the sides are (since it can only end once all but one side has been totally destroyed), so if that's not 'grave' enough for you, there's not much more I can do for you Btw, you forgot to state your availability times

Anyone else joining in, or are we going to have to delay the start until April?

I think the 'intelligent gamer website' is referring to is this: quote: YouGamers' proprietary Game-o-meterÔäó gaming performance analysis service is the first of its kind in gaming websites. The free service is based on Futuremark's comprehensive database of over 13 million real world benchmark results. On request, the service scans a user's PC, and then estimates the systemÔÇÖs gaming performance, providing the gamer with an accurate assessment as to how well their PC measures up on every game in the YouGamers' database.Whether that qualifies as intelligent is a matter of opinion, but it sounded cool to me, if no other site does that.

hehe

8pm GMT on Sundays was the time slot that was compatible with the largest number of people (that should change to 7pm GMT for everyone when Daylight saving time comes into effect, which is right around the corner (Sunday 11th March in the US, Sunday 25th in Europe, we'll change to 7pm on the 25th), so that's what we'll be going with. Once everyone has reported in the team management thread *hint, hint*, we can assign people to teams, choose start locations on the game map and perform the random draw to decide the order of play. The team that goes first can then issue it's first mission order and agree on a date for the first match with it's opponent.

good, good Sho? Chav? Wolfie? BC_Vet? Anyone else want in? Speak up or miss out!

I'm sure whatever contribution you can make will be appreciated by all, thanks Eclipse. Any more Insurgents want to step up to the plate?

not a problem, Marc, very glad to have you aboard in any capacity If we end up splitting into two teams at some point it'll most likely be me and Case leading them, don't worry.

OK, good luck with your studies, Krasus. We'll keep your profile in case things ease up at some point and you want to rejoin the fray. OK, it looks like it'll be a single combined Galcom team, then, at least to start with, flying under the CIOPS flag for rp purposes. Who else is up to the challenge?

I wouldn't worry about being 1 day late, people have been known to post their congratulations 3 to 6 months late.

Thanks I really need to update those pics. Yeah, there are more active MP players in Galcom than in the Insurgents at the moment, so from a purely numbers-balancing point of view, one or two currently non-fleet people should either join the Insurgents or 'guest' for an Insurgent team in the upcoming season, so they have enough active players to support a healthy attendance at each match. If there are enough interested non-fleet players left over to form a pirate band (at least 4), then that would add a nice bit of spice to things. Galcom has more than enough for a team and is currently just shy of enough active players to support 2 teams- ISS has enough on it's own and Wraith is 1 short, though it probably has enough to start, assuming it can gather at least one more member or guest over the course of the season (which is quite likely). 2 galcom, 1 Insurgent and 1 raider team would be a nice balance, though at the moment getting healthy enough numbers in the Insurgent team should be our main priority. Basically, if you're absolutely committed to Galcom, then join Wraith, if you want to help balance out the numbers, join the Insurgents.

hehe, nice vid

The 'DNA evidence' they present is that the mitochondrial DNA of a sample taken from the 'Marianemoumara' ossuary does not match that of a smaple from the 'Jesus son of Joseph' ossuary, though these ossuaries have been in the open for over 20 years and were not stored with preserving DNA evidence in mind, so the chances of contamination of the samples are quite high, meaning even this non-match is uncertain. They didn't even take and study samples from any of the other ossuaries, which is sloppy scientific procedure at best. The main 'force' of their argument is the names, which is a lot less forceful than they make it appear. The logic used in arriving at the likelihood of these names belonging to Jesus Christ's family involved a highly misleading use of statistics, massively overstating the probabilities involved (e.g. ignoring name mismatches or even treating them as positive matches, assessing the probability of purely this combination of names rather than all name combinations that would be equally or more statistically impressive), appealing to multiple conspiracy theories to explain away the lack of supporting evidence and evidence to the contrary. (In the above article, the note about the dimensions of the 'James, brother of Jesus' ossuary has since been retracted, that it is the same size as the 'missing' ossuary, but it still stands that the James ossuary was reported as coming from a very different location, Silwan (and contained dirt matching soil from that location, unlike the talpiot ossuaries), there is already a photograph of it from the 1970's, when the talpiot tomb had not yet been discovered, and the original excavator of the talpiot tomb has repeatedly stated that the 'missing' ossuary was blank with no inscription whatsoever and did not disappear, it was just placed in a seperate storage area with all the other blank ossuaries because there was nothing interesting about it and there was a shortage of storage space). Would it be overly cynical of me to suggest there is too much hype and too little substance to these claims?

Congrats, Serondal!

OK, new season approaching, all those wishing to take part please report here so you can be assigned to teams. Reporting in!