ARM505

Papadoc.......jeepers, remember the good-ol' flame fests on comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.flight-sim??? Brings back memories...

Yup, mine refuses to burn CD's as well, and neither my DVDR or CDRW can rip stutter-free MP3's now. Luckily I have a laptop for these things. Does Starforce suck, or does it suck?

Yes, I've done all the obvious things I could think of (cleaning, checking connections, settings, device manager etc.) Again, I would have thought that that would make it spin around a bit and hang for a while before either reading successfully or giving some kind of error. Right now though, it doesn't hesitate to read the DVD - it just reads it incorrectly when trying to open almost any file. I just thought it was an odd kind of error, one which it never did when new. It's actually not just 'home' written DVD's, two DVD's I got on magazine covers failed to read correctly as well, despite performing flawlessly on my laptops drive.

Hi, To add YASC (Yet Another Starforce Comment): I have never had any problems whatsoever running any SF protected game (FC, FIA GTR, Silent Hunter III, Splinter Cell), and indeed still don't. BUT, my DVD drive is now unable to correctly read written DVD's. It's a bit of an odd error, since it doesn't sit there and spin, and eventually give some error - it reads the files correctly, and reports the correct file sizes immediately. When I attempt to access the files however, the data is corrupted somehow. ie If its a winzip file, winzip will report some or other data error, if it's an AVI, WMP will report some sort of problem with the file. Luckily I could just share my laptops DVD drive, but this would have sucked otherwise. The best test would be to remove the SF drivers, but then all the SF games wouldn't run I assume. I just have to work with a hobbled DVD drive. I'm not paranoid, I realise this may not be SF at all - but it's a bit of an odd error, and surely if the drive itself was axed, SF would not allow SF protected games to run? Any comments?

(Mutters under breath)....dedicated server, dedicated server.... I'm sorry, but if they want to improve it's popularity online (and therefore overall, in this more and more popular field), they would do well to put out DS software, IMHO. Observe IL2's success. And I believe it's not just because props are simpler to handle.

I know you guys are trying to be friendly and helpful, but......seriously now...

I bought Half Life 2 (for the single player game only) in the mistaken belief that it would not be cracked in a hurry. Hah! It was soon on the shelves of the local pirate-copy shop, no problems, cheaper AND MORE IMPORTANTLY faster and easier to install! I still believe that a CD key that prevents online play is the simplest and most convenient way for all involved. You WILL NOT stop people copying it if they invest enough time and effort into it.

What happens when I want to play for 'old times sake' in 10 yrs? I still want to play older sims such as LB2 for example. Would I be able to get the thing running then? Maybe in the final patch they could disable the protection, in a few years time (when the final patch is done!

I was only being half-serious. But how hard could this be: 1 - Make 'chute swing a little. 2 - Make the whole sequence 1st person, put wind noises in. If transition between 'in cockpit' and outside is tricky, make the pilot black out momentarily, with vision fading in slowly, as with normal black out. Should be able to use mouse to look around/track the fight/admire chute above you. 3 - Failing that, improve chute/pilot gfx slightly. Small stuff, I know, but it would make for a nice detail. My opinion.

But seriously - what do LO, F4 and IL2 all have in common? Rubbish bailing out. Apart from flying through the plane in IL2, all the parachute gfx are a bit basic, and physics-wise, always results in straight down flight, maybe with some drift, but no swinging beneath the shroud etc. It can't be that hard, and with some of us (not me of course, my friends etc etc :roll: ) spending a fair amount of time floating around in their chutes, it would be a nice touch.

PITBULL 1. Informative AIM-120 is at MPRF active range. 2. AIM-54 at active range. I don't really know what that means though! Edit: Obviously I can speculate that MPRF means medium pulse rep freq, ie that AMRAAM has multiple freq modes for initial search when radar fires up. Phoenix maybe just goes active, with simple fixed PRF (makes sense, older missile). But I don't know for sure, not having worked with those missiles!

Here's the thread I started at the steelbeasts forum - so far consensus is that an A10 can take out a tank, given good hits and correct aspect attack: http://www.steelbeasts.com/index.php?name=PNphpBB2&file=viewtopic&t=4290

If the generally highly regarded tank sim 'Steel Beasts' is to be believed (even though the A10, or indeed any aircraft is not modelled there), the GAU 8 AP round will not kill an M1 or equivalent class MBT from the front aspect, and will likely only immobilise it from any other aspect by damaging running gear. I make no claim as to its authenticity, but as I said, it is highly regarded in the (limited) tank sim world - its armour penetration calculations are discussed in a great deal of detail in the docs, and seem well researched. Obviously, severe damage could be done to external APU's, external MG's, optics etc, although just as obviously, tanks do have backups (ie GAS when GPS is out). The 'mission/mobility kill' is what I'd imagine an A10 driver would hope for when facing any modern MBT, which seem to be exceptionally difficult to actually 'kill', requiring heavy weapons. A GAU 8 isn't really a heavy weapon, impressive though it undoubtedly is. My experience is limited to Steel Beasts though. http://www.steelbeasts.com Think I'm going to register there and ask them quick.