Tarquelne

Due to bitter competition with kebab restaurants, the pizza delivery guys in Aleppo are often rather heavily armed. RPGs and MMGs aren't unknown. LINK

I haven't played since last week, and probably won't till next week. However, when I do play I can be found on at odd hours, especially in the afternoon. A 1/2 hour DT game makes for a nice break. If anyone wants to schedule a regular morning or (preferably) afternoon time/weekday I'm up for it. I think some bots post to this board, btw. Be careful what you say about them.

How many photos do we have to Photosh... I mean, find, for you to include them?

I wouldn't want intimate ("This is Betty, my favorite crease in the terrain.") knowledge of the map to become a dominant factor in games. But, OTOH, that doesn't sound like what poesel71 is proposing. Last time a checked (no DT for me for the last/next few days) two servers were up. I think it'd be nifty if one server were given fewer maps of the sort p., t.h. and i.g. describe . Maybe with longer play times, too. As long as I'm here: I'd also like to see restricted inventories on a few maps. Nothing heavier than a Paladin, or few or no light units, or "Mainly Inf"... Stuff like that. Dropship Demolition Derby... Maybe not.

I wish I'd thought of this several weeks ago, when I was getting killed in what were to me new ways every game... I encourage others to share new ways they've gotten killed, or lost a game. Especially my fellow newbies. (We must overthrow the corrupt regime of the blood-soaked ancien regime yadda yadda yadda...) I've also included the name of the fink who killed me. One of these is from a week or so ago, but it stuck in my mind. 1) Multiple ion Thors defending an open area from behind a minefield. I hadn't seen any ion Thors chosen other than by the occasional bot. Nexus(86?) used several to defend one flank on the Arch map. "Hey, an ion Thor." "Heh heh heh, they're nearly useless." "Whoops, there's a lot of 'em." "%&^$*" Counter: Find another way in, or apply some bot-wrangling and attack en mass. (Or use an EMP or smoke...) 2) Arty used to level your base in a Territory game. (Jung) Counter: A Hermes or two. (Well, you could also take the other base. A couple of EW/AA vehicles is easier.) 3) The 120mm Apollo has a VERY narrow turret. It can pop it's turret up and kill you while you're still trying to zero on the exposed turret, then (relatively) quickly move somewhere else and do it again. And again and again and again. (bboyle) Counter: Practice. Learn to like fast-moving Paladins. Also: Honorary mention: Whoever got me with an AT missile from an infantry squad in my very first game. ("What's that thing dropping?" What's that noise?" BAM! "Hey, good, there's infantry in the game!" (IG, I think.) Discovery: You can have a lot of fun shooting shells from a Hurricane at the spires of an enemy base as the bots are trying to land multiple vehicles. Lots of Dropship kills!

I'm in Taiwan, why? No, wait, I just looked out the window and I'm in the continental US. Whoops. I don't remember how many times I checked - twice? - and what the times were. IIRC I didn't see Landis for at least two days, though.

I saw Landis disappear around Christmas, too. It _could_ be something at my end, but I don't know of anything that changed here.

You're probably right. A supernova would have resulted in complete destruction, but Landis is back up. It's likely under Martian control, but it's back.

It's a string of supernovas heading toward Earth!!! That's just about never a good sign.

I assume he means the use of the patriarchal "uncorrect" rather than the earth-friendly, dolphin-safe, and egalitarian "incorrect."

It won't allow for the addition of new units, but I thought you could specify an inventory the scenario file. (Umm... this. I don't know if the server and client can have different scenario files though, like they can have different Inventory files.) No disagreement from me that the mod system is a good one. OTOH, lacking that download feature, and if your needs are just a restricted inventory, then modifying the Inventory/scenario files on the server might be the way to go. It'd do the job (if the server-side scenario things works), and no one needs to find or download new files. Hmm... you could even set up a batch file to switch in/out the proper files, depending on what sort of game you want the server to host.

I haven't been seeing it at all for several days. Was it still up? IIRC I downloaded the mod on the 14th and tried to play within a day or two but didn't see the server. You might try just fiddling with the Inventory file rather than using a mod. Then people won't need to download and run a mod to join. (That's what I did for the "Palfest" server. (Which I may put up again now that I'm not getting unexpectedly disconnected several times an hour). Non-allowed items still show up on the Drop screen, but give a "Not allowed on this server" message. Would an "Alternative Inventories" server work? "Base" mod, but each scenario in rotation has a different and non-standard inventory? (Some maps infantry-centric, some "Heavy mech", and others with Pals./Shrikes) I guess the essential question is "Can scenario files be modified server-side only?" For multiple variant inventories I think you'd not only have to have the altered inventory #s, but also new intro./objective messages for each map describing the inventory.

Heh. In my very first game I had a unit killed by inf. on that map. "Arg! What are those little mushrooms falling from the sky?" "Arg! What was that noise!?" IIRC it was IG.

Neat! I look forward to trying it out. (Especially now that the connection problems I've been plagued with seem to have been fixed.) I think asymmetric forces - one infantry heavy, the other with no or little infantry - could be a lot of fun. Though it might need an even more infantry-friendly map. I like the idea of including the Thor. Though could the turret rotation rate (Stop/Motor Torque?) and and maybe chassis turn-rate be slowed for the mod? Say, half or 2/3s the current speed? I think that'd help make the current "US commie" map more infantry friendly. And I guess that could be generalized to the Cutters and Mercs, too. [ December 14, 2006, 08:06 AM: Message edited by: Tarquelne ]

I'm trying... I'm trying... but I can't find a plausible way to misinterpret that. And my standards are pretty low, too. The " " was supposed to show I was kidding. Not just happy but with an annoying eye condition. But it's looking like we may not be able to get closer to what H. is thinking than a faster, lighter hover-vehicle than the Ariel. A small, fast, lightly armored unit with a 30mm gun and a fairly high "nominal height" still might be interesting though. Maybe it could kill the engine to hide behind a hill on the ground. It could pop-up to fire, then kill the engine to hide again. I can see how that'd be better than just backing away in some circumstances... maybe rare ones, though. DT's XML files make it much easier to modify than most games, but the engine isn't as flexible as I'd hoped. Not yet, at least. I'm surprised H.'s concept and IG's heavy infantry don't seem doable.

I got survey-the-kingdoms-of-the-world-at-my-feet high. I wasn't paying close attention because I was mainly watching the thing slooowly tip. It was pretty high, though. Holding my breath seemed to help. I may try that... ... as I was planing on using "X" and killing the engines to control height. Yeah! Old tech, maybe, that attempts to send you into orbit whenever you turn it on, so you go into an uncontrolled fall to stay down. I know I can't think of a better use for anti-gravity. EDIT: Tried it. The fall is actually OK. However, unit pops back to the nominal height too quickly. [ December 07, 2006, 08:21 AM: Message edited by: Tarquelne ]

I flailed around a bit in the XML and tried that. A tag mixing problem - inf. tag in a vehicle? The game didn't crash, but nothing happened. I also tried raising the nominal height to 300. You're tossed into the air, then slowly turn-over and finally land HARD on your turret. Doh. Speaking of doh... My sometimes flaky connection flaked-out right when I was staring down Mr. Silly's 120mm tonight. Instant karma! I would have been very frustrated if the scenario weren't about to end... and he hadn't already won.

You can make the vehicle go a LOT faster. But it never felt like an aircraft. Just an air-hockey puck after a really good hit. Raising the "nominal height" makes it float higher up. Silly person. Neat idea. I was thinking yesterday that a heli-type unit would be a nice addition to the game. Maybe use the jump-jet system that the infantry use? With more "juice" for sustained flight. OTOH, I don't know how the game works. Maybe you can have the special function key toggle the "nominal height" or something. Looks good. Imperial Grunt is a silly person, too: "low-flying NOE gunship ... like the Commanche without rotors. A Commanche without the rotors wouldn't fly at all. Of the versions you mentioned I liked the scout/Ew with marker idea the best, followed by an ATGM version. You might give the Bacchus' MG something good to shoot at.

Long "reload" and burst fire seems like a plausible MD implementation to me. One well suited to artillery. Though a concentrate-the-energy-in-one-punch unit like the Ramses seems like a good place for it, too. What advantages is the tech likely to have? Higher velocity seems the only almost-certain one. (Even though AM gives a lot of energy, you've still got to direct it.) If you can't reliably accelerate enough mass to get more damage you'd still get other benefits. Can carry more ammo? If you take advantage of the higher-V to use smaller projectiles. Lighter barrels? That's assuming you can lick some of the problems mentioned in the Wikipedia. More efficient use of AM? A MAG weapon might allow you to use efficient methods when harnessing AM. Molten ammo? Allow the rail-gun to melt the (metallic) ammo. (Why? How, exactly? I dunno. Sounds neat though.) Burst fire? (As mentioned by Caseck.) What else? If it's really lighter and/or more efficient it might be perfect for "light" vehicles. Rather than the Apollo, for example, having the same gun as the Thor it might have a MD version. The MD being the equivalent of the recoilless rifle, I guess. (Thus, the Ontos .) I think the DT developers and modders can just pick the weapon/unit characteristics they want and then come up with an explanation. Though I do like the idea of making a place for some of the standard and/or more interesting techs, such as rail guns. Here's a couple more techs to hang new weapons off of: Another way to get long reload+burst might be a vehicle (or infantry squad) that has an (off board) satellite or few associated with it. The on-board unit paints or marks the strike area, and the satellite drops rocks, or whatever. (Anyone remember the "Thor" proposal? Drop guided depleted uranium rods from orbit.) Metal Storm: It's not MD technology, though I can see coil guns being set up this way. Umm... nope, a search of the DT forum doesn't turn up any mention of it. So: Metal Storm Link is to the company website. Here's some of the text from MS's "The Technology" page. (I've snipped what I thought less important.) I don't know how practical/effective it really is, but it looks/sounds really ginchy. I'd thought there might be a significant play-balance problem with this tech: If you take advantage of the super-high ROF you can then just extract and drop another vehicle. But that shouldn't be a problem if each individual projectile's penetration/damage is kept low enough. Some possible ways to show the tech in DT: A weapon that automatically fires the most-appropriate ammo type at the target in the site. A weapon that allows you to "hold down the button" and fire multiple-projectiles at a target. (Either as an extended burst (0 reload time) or as one big mass ("variable damage.")

Heh, I tried it too, and was also surprised and impressed to see the vehicle grounded. I fiddled with the mass (and also with acceleration), but didn't find anything I liked as much as the Ariel's original settings. The changes just made it ponderous.

I think it's good the way it is, but maybe make it less... err.. "agile" at high speeds? What I mean by agile is that you can stop/turn/start quite quickly at low speeds. At higher speeds it's not as quick, but I feel* it'd be more hover-crafty if it lost a lot more agility at higher speeds. Maybe just worse "brakes"? I also think it'd be even more fun. But of course that's a personal-preference sort of thing. *"feel", i.e., I have no hard data, experience, expert advice, or even a History Channel 30 min doco to back me up.

I tried this tonight on a "Defend the Objective" map. Maybe not a good map-type for that tactic, but it worked well for awhile. (I'm sure it would have been more effective if I'd executed it better.) Then around 15 min. into the game all the smoke cleared for a moment and I discovered that I'd pretty much shelled my base away. Oh well. Live and learn. The Big Clue that it was my guy shelling the base and not an enemy bot is when my Dropship was team-killed.

Is anyone getting disconnected? (Well, "Server not responding.") Or just lag? I got "Server not responding." a couple times now tonight (once in a game with Iceman, in fact). Someone else was using the WWW on another computer on the LAN and didn't notice anything wrong. Normally I'd think the problem was a bad connection at my end - and maybe it still is - but that makes me wonder if it isn't. Also, when I tried "Disconnecting" and then re-joining the game, I could do so. Server, or time to give my copy of XP a boot to the head?

You're assuming people pay attention? The game looks interesting... though I'm not sure it's because of the play or just as - has been mentioned already - a work of advertisement/propaganda. Speaking of your tax $ at work: I read on the game's forum how to clean your registry file of the settings that keep the "game" eating CPU cycles even when you're not playing. Apparently F2C2 automatically installs distributed-computing software made to chew on certain US Navy ciphers. Something to do with "the Annapolis 12/02 playbook".

Yes, I'm sure. It's your daughter who wants to watch the little mermaid over and over. I believe you. I really, really do. I haven't actually seen the movie, so I shouldn't be making fun of it or anyone associated with it in any way. And yet here I am... Especially since it was mooted about that there'd be a "The Lion King" expansion pack made for DT. Anyone know how that's working out?