Ben Zwycky

Well, of last year. (My year anyway:D) Just got myself a scanner (the long process of rebuilding my comp after the burglary is 95% complete) and so I was able to put together this little offering Enjoy! and don't forget to try the links with extra stuff (it says in the description) and the wedding newspaper

Congrats, Jaguar- my first is due in September- just got a video of the ultrasound scan, quite an interesting experience.

Here too. Been offline for a few days, my parents are visiting. Been a nice time, though.

Happy Birthday! Keep up all the good work (but not today, now go forth and celebrate ) [ 04-04-2002, 14:45: Message edited by: Ben Zwycky ]

Here.

been doing that for the past few days, JS, should have let you know sooner. Hope things are going better, Later,

OK, I haven’t seen this listed as fixed in the VCF and I haven’t found this mentioned recently in this thread, so- Using 1.0.05 (and sp1) Your shuttles ignore the normal flight speed reduction when towing something under autopilot. I haven’t determined whether this applies to all NPC craft because it’s difficult to know how fast they are going. How to reproduce: SNG Choose Firestorm (don’t touch anything else, apart from entering names) Accept Tactical Crew Send the commander to shuttle 1 Log off Log out When he gets to the shuttle launch and tractor the firestorm. Turn round and head to Galcom HQ as fast as you can. (you can reach 560) Now click on the shuttle icon Fly to Friendly Galcom HQ Your speed jumps up to 2249 Disengage autopilot (press a) Your max speed (set speed) jumps down to 560 again. (you can get back down to it faster by using the afterburner) I also noticed that when you order one of your shuttle mark I’s to tow your craft (when it has a crew member in it), it also goes at 2249, but this highlights the difference more I think.

quote: Originally posted by Ben Zwycky: using 1.0.04 RC1 Just tried the space force marine IA scenario. Are you supposed to launch from a station in a PAS? Also, the Add waypoint button in TACOPS seems to be disabled when observing a planet. Was working fine in 1.0.03 #2 What was I thinking? I’ve used TACOPS properly for ages and then suddenly I do that! Note to self: never, EVER post about something you ‘found’ while you were half-asleep. That’s when bad things happen as for #1, I have a screenshot of a PAS type 1 in space (using BCIA0010) (can’t give you a savegame, since it’s in IA) at http://zwycky.webpark.cz/PAS_in_space.jpg if that makes any difference.

Well, just as I thought I'd got the glass over it, my station capture bug scuttles away and it starts working again. Never mind, time to go hunt some more. using 1.0.04 RC1 Just tried the space force marine IA scenario. Are you supposed to launch from a station in a PAS? (from start menu, select Instant Action, then only SFM scenario, get launched from the station in a PAS loaded with STS missiles) Also, the Add waypoint button in TACOPS seems to be disabled when observing a planet. Was working fine in 1.0.03 SNG don't select any options, just name of ship and commander accept, log off, log out enter tacops zoom to moon observe click on menu, waypoint add button is red and unusable, whichever craft you use. click on space add button is green and usable. Can create waypoints without any problems. These are both straight from launching.

Problem: not recieving experience points/medals for capturing hostile stations. How to reproduce: SNG select ter/mil bcmk3 from wraith (lyrius) i.e. only choose launch base, don't touch anything else tactical/cc/mines unload all mines tradcom sell mines buy lots of iridium launch, go to Lennen, capture Pixan (easy when you're cloaked) launch, go to sygan, capture syganstar (easy when you're cloaked) 4 times out of five you won't get credit for at least one capture (no experience points/medal), not even if you wait around and play for another hour or so. Sometimes it'll give you the credit, but only around half of the time. I can understand it for destroying a station, when someone else in the region might have got the last shot, but for capturing them? Even when the region is otherwise quiet? It doesn't matter which launch base you use, but there are more hostile stations near wraith, so it's quicker to test it there. I get the same when using a Megaron, which is my ship of choice. (can't beat it for all round firepower and combat survivability ) I've got a saved game form an earlier version where I'd captured four stations (pixan, syganstar, tulon and New America) and destroyed idan (oops) and a few carriers and cruisers along the way, and only had 2 combat shields and just over 20000 EP's, but that's from an earlier version (1.002)

Phew- made it past the clampdown got the game yesterday

Wasn't there anything from 3000 to 3015?

Here, sir! /:

I have, two days ago. No reply yet. *bites nails*

Mine was supposed to have been shipped two days ago, but I got no confirmatory email from BMT. Let's hope I count as one of the long-standing members

Could anyone be so kind as to post the timeline that appears in the BCM manual? that'd be helpful to all us rp folks who haven't got THE GAME yet. cheers,

Gallion, please check your private messages, I tried to email you, but no luck, so I sent you a PM Check your PM Ben TTFN Cheers, Gallion, tell Akira to check his [ 11-29-2001: Message edited by: Gallion ] [ 12-05-2001: Message edited by: Ben Zwycky ]

quote: Should go out to the Post Office tomorrow if the card goes through OK Thanks, Jen BMT got that nice surprise today, so I should be the first one in the Czech Republic to get BCM!!! Edit: typo [ 11-28-2001: Message edited by: Ben Zwycky ]

that's more like it!

very noice!

Very nice. (I still like the old ones I did, but they don't look so good at this resolution )

Sig test, how's this?

I am doing well I had a couple of lessons cancelled, so here you are! [rp] ”Get the guards inside and lock down all entrances to the control centre!” The heavy titanium security doors slowly closed and met together with a solid clunk. “That’s not going to hold them for long- they might be able to override the lock.” “I know something they can’t override- Svoboda, we’ve got some visitors.” The zenstar’s triple T2 lasers began firing a staccato stream of energy bursts right at James’ position, making him flinch as they first impacted and lit up the shields directly in front of him, but he still kept the turret’s crosshairs right in the middle of the zenstar’s TTD. Distance: 2.8 clicks and closing. “Come on…” ‘Dive, spiral, climb, burst,’ thought Frank as his craft danced to the motions of his hand, ‘lock, launch.’ “Perseus away!” Announced Firehail as the sleek missile arced its way towards its target. What functional fighter craft (and some of them barely) that remained of the station’s compliment slowly leaked out into space, the automatic launchers long since scavenged for precious components. The two attacking Violons with all their support craft launched outnumbered the defenders by almost two to one, not counting the station. Not counting it at all. The hapless viper weaved this way and that, but Frank’s missile still struck home, reducing its shields to almost zero and sending the tiny craft into a tumble. Another burst and the craft was effectively disabled. In lining up his shot, however, he allowed some enemy craft to line up their own, and was hit by a volley from each of the three zenstars on his tail. “~@#%!” Distance: 2.1, 2.0 “Surprise!” rejoiced James as the beam lanced out at the incoming vessel, lighting up the cockpit canopy. The pilot, as much confused by the source of the light as dazzled by it, carried on on the same course, giving the beam time to wear down the craft’s shields and slice through the armoured glass canopy to deadly effect. “Gotcha!” James shouted as the craft’s reactor housing was breached and the little craft burst in a pretty shower. The viper completed it’s attack run and flashed past James’ turret. “+&*, that was fast!” “Override this.” Grunted Joost van Weig as he slammed an Instant Blockade mark IIB over the last remaining set of double doors and activated it’s shield generator. “OK, that should keep them out for a good while.” “And us in here, if we lose the Svoboda. Unless you want to trust the station’s transporters, that is. How far away are they?” “20 of them are about 50 m down corridor 2, and the other ten are about 100m down corridor 4.” “Aiming to attack both doors at the same time. How’s our ambush?” “Well, we’ve got 6 of your guys and 10 of ours waiting for the group of 20 and only 3 of your guys and two of ours waiting for the ten. I don’t like those odds.” “I don’t think Henry, Jason and Graham will be too upset,” grinned Joost. The Vagrant and ralixes homed in on the Svoboda’s target and impacted, despite the Violon employing its EMD and activating its cloak at the last minute. “Can’t tell what damage they did, but their sheilds were too low for them not to have done any.” “Reports coming in from the turrets that they are finding the fighters very difficult to hit manually.” Tell them to focus all their firepower on the capital ships where possible. They can’t take the station without them. We’ll concentrate on the fighters. “Engines are gone!” shouted Firehail, as his indicator dropped to zero. The interceptor’s primary safety system deteced the loss of power and activated the emergency thrusters to bring the craft to a full stop. They were a sitting duck. “Eject!” “No response! It’s malfunctioning!” ‘God, if you’re there, get me out of this one!’ In the distance, Frank could see two of his pursuers closing in for the kill, even without the aid of his radar. The converging pulses of energy, the sickening scream of burning armour, Frank saw his life pass before his eyes, then suddenly a viper streaked across the paths of the two hunters, ripping off a wing from one of them, and ploughing into the cockpit of the other, destroying all three. Firehail locked onto their remaining attacker. He was going straight at them, 3 clicks and closing fast. 2 and a half, 2,… “Why isn’t he firing?” Just as the question left Firehail’s lips, an IOD blast slammed into the side of the zenstar, followed by another, and another, and then two firestars finished it off. “Come on you stupid ejection system, work!” shouted Firehail, pounding the control panel, first with one hand, then both, then he hit both walls of the cabin at once. Something went clang[i/], something went fzzz, some lights came on, then the escape pod ejected. Firehail whooped with delight, Frank just sat in stunned silence. God, it seemed, was in the mood to confirm his existence. With all three of their HUD units hooked into the station’s perscan system, Henry and Jason Shaw and Graham Trein watched the enemy troops walk into their trap. Jason pulled the pin on two grenades in his left hand, and held his assault rifle in his right. Henry silently switched the safety catch on his ZS10 to OFF. They were standing in a corridor that intersected corridor 4 at right angles about 60m from the control room exit. Henry counted with his rifle one, two, three and they began to run towards the junction. In their soft shoes and body armour, even though they were running at an almost full sprint, they were making very little noise as they went past the corner. 0400 March 16th , 3001 Corridor 2 (45m from station control centre) Flanked by 5 of his buddies on either side, the marine aimed his PRL at the entrance to the station command centre and pulled the trigger. The spectacular roar of the missile and the mighty explosion as it impacted right in the middle of the doors left them damaged, but surprisingly intact, due to the unseen protection and reinforcement of the instant blockade on the other side. It did however, shake the defenders crouched in two groups 20m either side of the end of the corridor, waiting for someone to approach the door. 0401 March 16th , 3001 Life support duct 27, grille 28, above corridor 2 (122.5m from station control centre) Kappa team member Mirek Novotny eased the grille loose and lifted it up into the duct where he lay. Bracing his legs against the sides of the duct, he leaned his upper body out of the duct down into the corridor, bringing his BMP-9 sniper rifle out with him. Flattening his body against the ceiling, he zoomed in with his viewfinder. Jason threw his grenades with plenty of wrist action, so that the grenade in his fingers flew further than the one in his palm. Henry emptied half a clip into the group, finishing off one and badly injuring another. The group were alert, and so managed to fire off a few rounds at the pair, hitting Jason twice in the side and spinning him round slightly as they went past the other corner. The grenades went off a second later, taking out another three (including the one Henry had injured, and slightly disorientating most of the remainder. Three tried to chase their attackers round the corner, but were cut down from behind by the two station security men crouched where Henry and Jason had started. They were finished off by the crossfire generated between them and Henry and Jason, now prone in the middle of the corridor. At full zoom, Mirek could see that the guy with the PRL was lining up for a second try, so Mirek took him out with a single head shot. His hand twitched as he fell, firing his next rocket into the floor by his side, which detonated to devastating effect, all but vaporising half of his nearby comrades and depositing their remains on the deck below. The other 5 were badly burnt and either unconscious or momentarily stunned. The remaining 10 further up the corridor were understandably surprised. Mirek carried his momentum on, ‘breathe, hold, squeeze, aim, squeeze.” Two more down. The defenders by the control room took advantage of the confusion (which Mirek continued to add to) And charged forward to positions at the corners of the corridor. Some of the station marines charged a bit too far and were cut down in the ensuing firefight, which didn’t last long. 0401 March 16th , 3001 life support duct 31, grille 18 above Corridor 4 (77.5m from station control centre) Having loosened the grille below him, Graham took advantage of Henry and Jason’s extremely distracting tactics by removing it. While the three remaining Intruder marines were considering what to do, he unleashed a long and loud spread of bullets at them from his hiding place 5 metres away, injuring two of them, before he crawled backwards as fast as he could to avoid the return fire which came quickly. In doing so, his rifle got caught in the duct opening and he abandoned it there, drawing his SCAT 1 pistol and aiming it at the opening as he crawled back. One of the injured marines ran as best he could to the opening and got out a grenade to throw into the duct, however he had failed to notice the noise that Graham had covered up with his burst of gunfire. The noise of the grenades he’d dropped at the same time. Before he could pull out the pin, they detonated at his feet The remaining two marines, one lightly injured and one badly injured, both slightly concussed, were finished off by a trademark attack from the silent strike twins. “Looks like we’re done here.” “You should get that seen to,” remarked Henry, looking at the blood slowly seeping through the hole in Jason’s body armour. “Yeah, stings a bit. Got careless there.” “This is more like it!” exulted James as his turret’s laser sliced into the Violon’s armour. “Get him, Jim!” applauded Mike. “Ben, the second carrier is cloaking.” “He’s jumping!” “All visible enemy craft are entering hyperspace.” It was true. All the remaining fighters were heading for the jumpgate to Varan. “Due not pursue. Remain in defensive formation around the station. I want no dead heroes, understood?” “Yes, sir.” “Acknowledged. Maintaining station orbit.” 0404, March 16th , 3001 Corridor 2 (45m from station control centre) Jon Tulloch watched horrified as an enraged station marine ran to the intruders’ prone, burnt bodies and pummelled them with bullets, screaming the word “Kra-chek!” over and over again. He continued screaming and waving his rifle at them long after the clip ran out and the rifle just rapidly clicked, then he dropped his rifle, dropped to his knees and his screams slowly turned to sobs. A fellow marine ran to him and put his arm round his shoulders. “The Sla’ti killed his parents.” "Oh- I'm sorry."[/rp]

Just in case this thread was ever intended to be a roll call, I'm here. I had some lessons cancelled today, so expect a new 'Ambitions' post soon, prolly tomorrow, but don't you go expectin' this to become a habit Later,

Well, it's been too long since the last part. [rp] 0350 March 16th, 3001 IOD Turret 8, Centris Station “I’m getting hungry. Want some field rations?” offered Mike. “Nah, thanks, I don’t eat on guard duty- I’ll get relieved in a couple of hours. You can head back to the ship, can’t you? I thought you were all done about half an hour ago.” “That was configuring this turret with it’s own minor operating system to give you level two functionality independent of the weapons computer. Now we have to wait for Mr Briggs to re-initialise the weapons computer, so we can re-integrate everything and we’ll both be surplus to requirements.” “Er, right. So basically you’re stuck here with me until then.” “Basically. Should be about… another 5 minutes, then I can get to work again.” “And I’ve been working the whole time,” chuckled James. “Is this what most of your jobs are like?” “I’d say about 95% of our shifts are on guard or patrol duty, which is an awful lot of this, having to stay alert for hours on end, watching out for some bad guy or other to try and hurt my buddies, which doesn’t happen that often. It’s kappa team that gets to do all the neat stuff.” Mike glanced around the turret and then out at the stars “I guess I didn’t really appreciate how boring your job is most of the time. I mean I always have little things to do, or things I can do to pass the time. It doesn’t matter that much if I’m not concentrating when there’s no work to do, and I can always see the results of my work almost immediately, systems fixed, settings optimised, components upgraded, gadgets built. How do you take satisfaction in your work- I mean what keeps you going and makes you glad you became a marine?” “I think of all the people I care about who need protecting, and all the people who are still alive because of me.” “Hmm… yeah,… thanks,” said Mike quietly. “Your welcome.” After an awkward pause, Mike volunteered, “you get a nice view once in a while too, I guess.” “Occasionally.” Mike’s communicator began emitting a quiet but high-pitched whine. He looked at it screen which was filled with rapidly changing characters. “What the-?” “What’s wrong?” “My communicator’s going crazy.” “I’ll check mine. Svoboda, this is Foster. Do you read?” “Svoboda here. What is it Foster.” “Weston’s communicator’s just gone crazy. I was just checking we still had comms.” “Internal Station Comms have gone down. Svoboda’s external comms remain unaffected. Sit tight and await further instructions.” “Acknowledged. OK, Mike get ready for some noise.” “What do you mean? Hey, now it’s…”two faint rumbles almost together interrupted him “…gone dead.” “That’ll be us taking ‘em out,” grinned James, “Whenever we’re told to sit tight, we know something loud is going to happen pretty soon. I sort of expected something louder than that.” “Why not just say directly what’s going to happen?” “You never know who might be listening in. For important plan changes, strategic updates, they generally use hyper-encrypted text messages.” A much louder set of rumbles, recognisable as explosions, echoed around their tiny compartment. “Then what was that?” “Maybe that was us taking them out? Svoboda, what just happened?” “Guys? Will you stop all calling us at once, please? The saboteurs set off a couple of devices just before our assault. We’ll give you a fuller update shortly.” “Well, I supp-“ “Enemy vessels decloaking! All turrets lock on targets and fire only when they approach within 2 clicks.” Mike ducked out of the way as James’ seat rose into the ‘ready to fire’ position, and James’ attention switched to the turret’s independent radar screen. Two new red dots appeared. “OK, what do we have here? A zenstar and a viper, eh? Eanie, meanie, mynie, zenstar.” Distance: 5.2 clicks and closing. “Launch all fighters! Tell the station to do the same. Target the nearest carrier and engage. Assign three vagrants and two ralixes to launch on FATAL. Maintain cloak as much as possible.” Jana waved Frank goodbye and watched his interceptor being catapulted out of it’s bay through the cloaking field in an eruption of rippling space and electrical activity. In her mind she made a simple request: ‘Keep him safe for me, please? He’s in your hands now.’ The zenstar flew straight as an arrow, right at turret 8, almost looking down the barrel of the silent gun. Distance: 3.8 clicks and closing fast. A cloud of blue dots appeared on the Station Perscan screen. “Those are not my guys!” “Intruders on Deck 4! They’re closing in on the Control Centre!” [/rp] I'm already working on the next bit, so hopefully before the same time next week. Later, [ 11-16-2001: Message edited by: Ben Zwycky ]