Master_Xan

I agree Jahled, it is hard to not mock people who act childishly. But that doesn't change the fact that we shouldn't mock people who aren't capable of taking it as a joke, or would otherwise react poorly. Just like you don't call your girlfriend fat because most girls aren't going to find it funny, especially if its true. Obviously, the Islamic community as a whole doesn't have the greatest sense of humour. Even though they aren't all terrorists, its a sensitive subject. Unfortunately, newspapers and the media in general does an EXTREMELY BAD job of not offending people, and sensitive subjects are the ones with the largest bullseye. I heard this as well. Back in September they ran, though I heard it was in Europe and not an Islamic country. Some small group went nuts with it. Nobody else cared. The group ran around talking to various Islamic leaders, trying to get them worked up about it. Apparently they managed to succeed, if 4 months after the fact. But it would require some research, as I've only heard this by word of mouth (which is often more reliable then the media, but still take it with a grain of salt).

I disagree. Religion as a concept is simply a belief system, but in practice and reality, religion is so much more to the people who believe it. If you mock laws based upon a certain set of values, you're indirectly mocking the religion that formed those values, but to mock the religion point-blank is something else entirely. For those who truly believe in their religion (myself included), making fun of it is akin to being slapped in the face. This is because religions become more then simply belief, but also a way of life. If you mocked my religion, you would be mocking everything I believe in, the way I live my life, and you would also be mocking me, because my religion is who I am to a large degree. When a group of people is mocking your religion, its more like being punched in the gut, repeatedly. Of course, if you mocked my religion, I'd let it slide, not because it doesn't hurt, but because I'm so used to it and have been taught to not take offense. I also don't hold any single person up as proof of what an entire race, country, or other religion are like, so I'm not going to hold it against other people like you when they haven't done anything to me. But consider the Islamic world. It is their way of life, and because most people in the area believe it they are not used to being made fun of. They also live in a society that doesn't teach against predjudice, nor does it teach tolerance very well. The result is all these people who truly believe (or are faking it, but same result) their religion, take offense easily, and are used to settling things themselves. Mock their religion, mock them, you might as well have punched them. As a sidenote, for anyone who is wondering, I'm LDS (Mormon). Hence I'm pretty used to being made fun of. I also know what its like to have a way of life based on religion, whereas many people in the Western world do not. By this I mean the large number of people who believe their religion, but either do not practice it or the practice thereof doesn't entail any changes to their life.

I agree, I'll never pay $50 for a game, ANY game. That's simply too much to pay, and when you take into account the huge price cuts after a year or two, it REALLY becomes too much to pay. To comment on Ad. Toguro, I don't really think Rebellion is a niche game, but that's probably because I get more enjoyment out of its genre (strategy games) then I do out of most because of the replay value and tactical maneuvers. And I don't know what you're talking about, Rebellion's got some catchy music... I too am a Firefly fan. Great stuff, great stuff.

It's not worth the time it would take to write the nasty letter. Despite how fun it would be, people like that ignore us anyway. It all matters what the big-name editors and reviewers think of the game, not what the actuall players think. Unless the game sells better then sliced bread (*cough* Starcraft is almost TEN YEARS OLD and is still stocked in all stores *cough*). So if you sent them a letter, they'd ignore you. If you're lucky, some guy would write you a generic letter, apologizing for your dissatisfaction with their show. Besides, everyone knows that the general gaming market is far to dumb or too impatient to learn how to play Rebellion. In my mind, anyone who likes the game automatically gets a higher IQ, simply because they are both smart enough to think about a game instead of just button mashing, and capable of said thinking for a long enough period of time to figure things out, instead of giving up after they get crushed by the computer their first game. Don't get me wrong, games like Halo and GTA are definately fun, but they also represent the lowest intelligence of all gaming. Rebellion, Rainbow Six, Black&White and other such games manage to actually engage the brain and remain fun, and are thus far superior games because of it, even if it does hurt their sales. (Sidenote: The best games are like the Rainbow Six series, which allow for creative thinking, require at least some thought, but are still easy enough for the less-intelligent amoung us. That way its fun, engaging, and sells well. Even if its not the best game, it becomes a better community because it allows for the number of players and the funding needed to improve, addon, and so forth.)

It is my personal belief that there is no way to make Muslims and Jews get along, no way to make several of the Muslim groups tolerate Christianity or capitalism, no way to appease everyone all the time, and no good will come from trying. The best thing to do is try not to get people killed, and when you have to step on toes try to step on more forgiving toes. I'd be more sympathetic with the 'free speech' argument, except I really don't care about a comic, nor will it be the end of free speech if they apologize and ban the thing. Besides, it was a tasteless comic anyway. On the flip side, I'd be more sympathetic with the Islamic world if they weren't shouting "Remember 9/11" and "Death to the Danish". Plus burning embasses, brandishing assault weapons and surrounding public buildings to fire them off (which, by the way, is exactly why Westerners view them all as terrorists in the first place). Of course not all of them are doing these things, but enough are, and the media makes sure we all know about all of them, giving the impression that most are. Catholics mellowed out after awhile, and given enough time all "radical" religions do. Never mind that my personal belief is that Christ will come again before the Western world and Islamic communities get along, the same thing has to be done between now and then regardless: cooperation. The best option is, and always has been, to cooperate with the reasonable people, protect against the unreasonable, and eliminate the terrorists, all the while trying your best to not tick anybody else off (which would include not mocking their religion, even in a harmless albiet tasteless comic).

Sorry for the dry spell, and I suppose I could give some excuses (Valentine's Day, a nice vacation, heavier work schedule and more work on A4 testing) but to be honest, I haven't done lots of testing because I just haven't gotten around to it. Just thought I'd post a note here to let you know I'm not going anywhere, and *hopefully* will do some testing this week.

As far as I know, Reloaded is still alive. The project has stalled a bit on the last bits of voice recording and the testing is sure going slow, but I haven't heard anything to suggest its dying off. Then again, I'm not even an official member of the Reloaded Team, I'm just a little peon tester-guy. Nonetheless, at least I'm still doing testing, so SOMEBODY is still working on it.

Tactical strategies: 1) Use your fighters to kill their fighters. Any ship with strong lasers will also do well for this, such as Corellian Gunships/Corvettes, Carrack Cruisers, and of course the two frigates that say that in their descriptions. If you have bombers, DON'T use them against fighters, as they die quickly. 2) Pick your most important target. If you think you might need to flee, take down any interdicters first, while you know you have the firepower to bring down their shields. You must destroy them to eliminate their gravity wells. If they're using ships against your fighters, and you want to minimize fighter losses, target those ships. Similarly, if they have troop ships and outnumber you, you might take out as many troop regiments (by destroying their transports) as possible to keep them from assaulting your planet. If they have an admiral or commander, you need to destroy the ship they're on to eliminate the bonus they give in battle. Sometimes, you capture personel from destroyed ships, sometimes they escape, and sometimes they die in battle, so take that into account when you target ships (especially if they have your people held prisoner). If you think they will flee -and after awhile you'll get a feel for just how far the computer is willing to go- you should keep firing on a ship until it's engines or hyperdrive are offline, so when they flee the ship is destroyed. Beware, engines are often repaired DURING battle. If they can't or won't flee, then you need only disable the weapon systems and move on. Typically, you would target the ship with the most powerful weapons and switch targets when those weapons are disabled, often ordering a new target BEFORE they are disabled in anticipation and to be most efficient, as your ships take some time to retarget. Also note that any fighters capable of firing torpedos (Xwings and TIE bombers are two examples) will do massive damage to a ship's hull once the shields are down, so be sure to give them new targets sooner. 3) The computer groups your ships. Often, the groups are wrong (I'm sorry, but a Mon Cal cruiser should not be grouped with Corellian Gunships, the two just are not the same). As the battle is beginning, regroup your taskforces according to how you plan on using the ships in them. Also note that larger groups ARE LESS EFFICIENT. With the default standoff tactic enabled, your ships stop moving forward when the center ship is in range of the enemy... often leaving the leftmost or rightmost ships OUT OF RANGE. Use swarm in large battles, and in small ones break up task forces to only include three or so ships. If a ship isn't firing but isn't damaged, it probably isn't in range. Give just that ship a target, and it will move within range... but it also removes itself from the taskforce, so you'll have to individually give it orders unless you reassign it. 4) Have all your ships target one ship at a time. Brings the shields down much faster. When your fighters are available, have them target ships with their shields down, while you reassign your capital ships to new targets... this makes your big turbolasers and ion cannons take down shields, which they are good at, while your fighters work on disabling weapons with those nasty torpedoes of theirs. Of course, if your fighters don't have torpedoes (like the original TIEs) then just have them attack the same target that your fleet is working on. 5) If you're the Rebels, build massive amounts of fighters and carriers. If you're Imperials, ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS OVERESTIMATE what Rebel fighters are capable of when deciding whether to withdraw or not. Loosing an ISD to Xwings because you didn't withdraw fast enough is no fun at all. Especially when that ISD can barely kill any Xwings anyway, so it does no good to keep it around unless you've got ships with laser batteries (my single greatest wish from the Rebellion tactical system: the ability to withdraw individual ships...) 6) Sometimes a ship will repair itself during battle. Not all the way, but often engines or some weapon/shield power will be restored. Beware this, but also use it when it happens to you. Battle is a good way to repair your own ships in fact; if they have a few fighters in a system, move your damaged ship there and retreat immediatly. You'd be surprised how fast you sometimes get a ship repaired... and how slow it sometimes takes, as its not as consistent as simply repairing at a shipyard and may take one trip or two thousand to repair minor damage. Don't do this if the enemy has more then a couple Awings or TIE Intercepters, as they are fast enough to do shield damage before you can withdraw. Best to use this tactic in a sector where you don't have a shipyard to park your damaged vessels at. 7) Having admirals and commanders will greatly help you, or your enemy. If they have three ISDs and one has an admiral, you should DESTROY that one first, then DISABLE the other ships. Also, it's sometimes best to put your command personel on a powerful ship (like an ISD) and sometimes best to put them out of the way, like on troop transports or carriers. The computer will often target the ship your people are commanding from, but not as often if they're on a weak ship like a carrier. Unless you only have weak ships, anyway. NEVER put them on small, fast ships like Corvettes or Carracks if there's any other option, as these ships are often accidentally destroyed when the computer attacks and doesn't have time to reassign targets before dealing a lethal blow, and these ships are usually the first to engage because of their speed. If you're sneaky, you can have your command ship remain in place, order the rest to attack, and watch the AI move past/through your entire fleet to get into range of your command ship. This makes it take longer to disable your command ship, dilutes their fire as they approach (they fire willy-nilly until they get into range of their actual target) and obviously gives you the chance to take down their ships with a concentrated attack before they do the same to you. Just be sure your people are on the most powerful ship, otherwise it isn't likely the enemy will target it first. 8.) The 'tactics' available in the game menus are pretty useless. I've only used them when a fast ship is under intense fire, and I can get it to run away out of range while the rest of my fleet is still shooting. You could potentially try and do this with your command ship and keep it out of harm's way, but if it's not a fast ship it doesn't work, and if it is a fast ship it probably has bad shielding, so it will end up disabled anyway. Obviously, no ship is capable of outrunning fighters. I've got more, but this is far too long already. You'll have to wait for my strategy guide (assuming you actually read all that). If something in there doesn't catch your eye or make you consider something cool I didn't actually mention, then you're either a hopelessly terrible tactician or so good that you shouldn't need to read this anyway.

According to RebEd, only a few characters cannot be jedi. Han, Mothma, Thrawn, I think Chewy, and a few others (I don't think Wedge can be, but I'm not sure). Each character is selected 'jedi' independantly from the rest, meaning that if, say, Villar has a 20 chance, that means 20% of the time he should be a jedi, whether Zuggs is or not. It is potentially possible to get almost every character a jedi in an unaltered game, but the chances are very, very slim indeed. Personally, I've never seen Chewy, Piet, Wedge, or other characters that you always start out with be jedi, but I'm not sure this has anything to do with anything. Just an observation. Also, never seen Thrawn or Ackbar be a jedi, but I'm pretty sure Ackbar could be... RebEd says he could, anyway. What stinks is when one of your jedi is the researcher, who can research anything but has terrible stats. Even after training, they are still useless beyond the research labs. Here's something to consider. Vader can't train other jedi as well as Luke can. Because Luke can easily grow in the force, he can teach other jedi, no matter what their rank is... its been my experience that after the minor character becomes a trainee or jedi knight, then Vader has a real tough time getting them trained up to the rank of master. Luke, however, only has this problem if he himself is inexperienced... simply get HIS force rating up higher (a few fights with Vader after Dagobah is usually enough), and he can train people up to master without any problems.

If I'm not making stuff up, x64 is a 64 bit program (such as the unreleased Windows Longhorn OS). There aren't too many right now, as there aren't too many OSs that can handle them (no current Windows that I know of, not sure on Mac or Linux). Win XP is 64, but still runs 32 bit programs. There are a few 64 bit processors though, at least one AMD that I know off.

Originally, I think bombers were usually sent after fighters unless/until they had superior numbers (for fighters). Then they would peel off and take down ships, before the regular fighters did. But there seemed to be several factors to it, such as their capital ship power... if they outgunned you, the bombers sometimes went straight for your fleet and ignored your fighters, no matter how many there were. If you completely outclassed them, then they would sometimes ignore fighters and go for capital ships. And sometimes they just did random stuff. Basically, it was hard to determine what bombers would do. Those and Ywings were the ONLY ships that really did different things, thus making the testing difficult indeed. But enough speculation, time to work more on the serious lack of Ewings...

If he's like me, he only builds a few troop regiments the entire game. I mean, really, why have so many? You don't need them when you play the computer, which is too dumb to take advantage of it (just like you don't need shield generators or weapon emplacements). Much better to use the resources for ships. (If you think I'm crazy for not using shields/weapons/troops, just wait until I release my massive strategy guide. It explains it all, and will be posted around here somewhere...)

I assume that if they decide to give us the code, it will have strings attached, and will probably be only for the RR project. But if they decide to just give us the code, I won't complain...

I'll see if I can't drum up somebody, or scare some poor old programmer out of hiding. http://forums.lucasarts.com/thread.jspa?threadID=100464

I too would like to see some real DS battles played out in tactical... just how many warships would it take to bring down all those turbolasers, designed to protect it from just such an assault? As for my fleet, I once created 4 in a game, hard and large galaxy. It was the first time I'd built a DS, and didn't know the effect of using a DS to destroy a planet... ran into the rebel HQ, down went the planet, destroyed a few others in the same sector, and all of a sudden that silly little robot is trying to tell me Coruscant is uprising... (I still won though )

Alright, that helps clear it up quite a bit. You're unsure if its a buffer per model, or just one buffer, huh? I would imagine per model, as if it was just one then you'd get flickering and fluxuactions on the stock models in larger battles, and I haven't noticed that yet. Although, in larger battles, the fighters aren't visable from the same distance... You're very right, 32bits isn't much at all. If it's that low, I'd almost have to assume its a buffer per ship, as that couldn't possibly hold all the information for fleets of any considerable size, be it coordinates, some sort of framework, or distances between faces. Also, the only bonus I could see for such a low amount of data would be minimal performance loss in large battles, back when Rebellion was put out. This also helps explain why there are three versions of the same model, depending on how close-up you get. Zoom out, and you can't see the details anyway, so no need to confuse the buffer, or see the flickers at all. And model-makers don't design them with less data (thereby preventing face overlaps) because that would make the models just as bad as the original ones... If its hardcoded in, it can't really be changed, and Rebellion wasn't added with extensive mods in mind. Has anybody gone to LucasArts, shown then the progress of Reloaded, and asked for the code to fix just this sort of problem? I bet yes, but I had to ask... though if they asked for the code a long time ago, LA may be more willing now that more time has passed (and with samples of Reloaded, they will take the request more seriously).

Nope, not over my head. Simplified, it would be that the z-buffer is essentually acting as RAM, and how much you have (and how sophisticated) determines what the program is capable of rendering at any given time. Z-fighting would be like layers, which the program has to decide which one to display at any given point. Only there are many layers, not just a few. What doesn't make sense is why not having enough buffer space would confuse the z-fighting... wouldn't that just slow down the render? Or make it not render at all? I assume that the z-buffer doesn't act exactly like RAM, and so when it's overloaded it doesn't slow down, but tries to figure it all out, thus sending mixed signals. Or is it the z-fighting that is sending mixed signals when it gets overloaded? Also, I'm glad that the Reloaded team, though unable to fix the problem at it's core, is at least doing what they can for it.

Hmm... that's the same as against the computer. Can the Alliance pull off an early attack, taking an entire sector by bombarding one or two systems, and then hold it (as they could against the AI)? Also, what's the basic etiquette involving the game speed?

This is why we don't make fun of somebody's poor spelling...

Hmm... so the vanishing thing will happen with every model I import, and there's nothing I can do about it? I don't suppose somebody could explain the Z-Buffer thing to me, so I at least know why? I hope that doesn't hold true for the RR project, as its really not much better to have nice-looking models that are in flux then just having the original, low-quality models.

Alright, maybe I'm doing something dumb, but I can't get this working, so I have to ask. The mission: import models into Rebellion. I checked out the importer, thought it would be easier then using the other method (ResHacker and manually replacing resources). Downloaded the importer, unzip, set it all up as instructed. I run it, and it seems to go just fine. Load up Rebellion, and the old models are all still there... hmm. Go back to the importer, run it a few times with various models, replacing different ships (taking care to empty the Import folder after each one). Same as before, all the originals. Okay... this isn't working. So I try the original method, using ResHacker. After a couple hours of tinkering, I figure out how to get it to show up correctly (although RebEd crashes when I view the model there). However, no textures! That's no good, must be doing something wrong... upon closer inspection of the tutorial, I can't find the location of the texture resources (the writer, is it The Mask? didn't know the location at time of writing). Okay... this isn't working. BACK to the importer, and I go over the installation instructions with a fine-tooth comb. Again. Sheepishly, I realize I didn't put ResHacker's files into the importer's directory... do that, and it looks like the importer did something! I have a log file now! Load up RebEd, and it doesn't crash! Looks great! Load up Rebellion... and I get a ship model! With a texture! That also includes many purple dots! It's just grea- purple dots? What?? Does anybody know why I get purple dots when using the importer? They show up with the Dominator Interdictor model, by the Mask. Other models don't have the dots, but they all have one defect in common. All the models I import "vanish". What I mean is that any protrusions from the ship (say, engines, gravity wells, or even reverse dips, like hangar bay entrances) "vanish", sometimes half-visable, other times not at all, or all visable. This happens when I rotate the view in a circle at any distance. The main body of the ship remains visable at all times, and other, unmodified ships are unaffected. Its... eerie, like a ship with a cloaking field on the blitz. Particularly with the Dominator, as it's all mis-colored, and has so many cool looking protrusions and hangar bays that half the ship is in flux. Basically, I've given up on importing until somebody can tell me something. Which is not good, because the RR project will probably require me to import new models at some point for testing.

If you hate command lines, you're not going to enjoy linux. Once you figure the basics out, its not a hard system to use, but for those of us (myself included) who are used to how Windows operates, it takes some time to get the basics down. Look for a FAQ on your particular linux, perhaps on their website. Or some kind of newbie guide. Don't feel too bad about it, I still can't use linux.

The Avernum 4 testing has officially begun. This means that I wasn't able to do the tests on RR I was planning on today. Fear not, as A4 will not take all my time (particularly when I get frustrated with it and need to do something else before pounding my fists on the computer). Wednesday is when I will give you all a MASSIVE amount of data to work with, as I have the day off of work and did manage to set up a LAN with which to effectively do balance testing today. Just ran out of time to actually test with. EDIT: Well, that ought to teach me to put a date on these sorts of things. Testing is taking much longer then expected, but its still coming along. That 'massive amount of data' should be prepared later next week, but I'll post half of it when I get half of it ready to post... if that made much sense. For now, here's some generalized AI behavior. I haven't come up against any Ewings yet. This makes no sense, because it should be the most powerful Republic fighter available. Doing more tests on that tonight. Also, the Empire doesn't use scimitars very often, but when they do, they are used similarly to other fighters. I haven't detected any distinction between them and, say, intercepters (unlike the original bombers, which were often sent after capital ships instead of fighters). I'm going to deny them access to other fighters and see what happens when I face lots of them. Scimitars seem to be very powerful against capital ships, but very weak against other fighters (duh). My earlier concerns about shields making them live longer then they should for their cost? Definately nothing to worry about. A few Awings will chew through dozens of scimitars and barely notice.

I don't consider Minnesota the middle of nowhere; there's too much there. Forests, mountains, even a large city (Mineapolis/St. Paul). In fact, I wouldn't mind living there. Course, I still understand what you're talking about. Minnesota is just more happenin' then South Dakota. The worst place though is Oklahoma. Now THAT is the middle of nowhere.

I always thought it would be cool if there was a rank above Jedi Master... something really rare, somebody that not even the council could order around. Something like "Jedi Servent," which would indicate that you're a servent of the force and no one else. Or maybe the 'servent' would indicate that you've more fully given yourself in service to others, as all jedi are supposed to do. My experience has been that long distance relationships are a tough way to go, and anybody who knows their geography would agree that Arizona is quite a distance to go for a date. Not to say Dinochick isn't cool (I'm just waiting for her to show up and say something funny about this post...), but maybe we'll start out with less than "Mrs. Xan" expectations . Besides, I've, ah, already got someone in mind for that position anyway...