KungFuCharlie

You're absolutely correct but I was speaking more from a classification standpoint. To answer it from a classification standpoint, with a jet engine on a helo to get any real speed youd have to fold back the blades and let the helo body become the lift mechanism (wing) thus making it a "hybrid helo" as bumfire brought up.

The X2 is classified as a co-axial helicopter and not a hybrid helicopter. The term hybrid helicopter is not "official" as of yet. But it is very well possible that the X2 will end up in that category... it just isn't right now.

There is already AI in UAV's and in the next few years there will be a whole lot more. Sierra Nevada Corporation has a few big contracts in this area. I did some software AI research and prototyping for them at the last company I worked at. I was going to write a white paper on some of the topics for IT/SEC but switched jobs a little while ago and not in that area any longer. There isn't much information on their website about it at all but this is the division doing most of it: http://www.sncorp.com/prod/isr/default.shtml

A helicopter is defined as any aircraft that derives its lift from blades that rotate about an approximately vertical central axis. Pusher prop or not, it's a helicopter. Which begs the question... if someone sticks a jet engine out the back of a Huey and lights that sucker up... :D

The only time there is an overhead on a 64-bit processor running a 32-bit program is if the application requires a VM or emulator due to the type of operations that it performs. This is pretty rare and I do not think that is the case with DCS or FC2. In most cases, running a 32-bit application on a 64-bit processor is the same. However, the 64-bit version of the same application does get better performance since it can utilize the full scope of the 64-bit application. Security is also better with a 64-bit operating system right now. You will need a new anti-virus program though since they are written specifically for 32-bit / 64-bit systems. Microsoft Security Essentials is free and runs on Windows 7 64-bit just fine. If you want something better get Kaspersky's AV. If you have a really old hardware device (older UID) make sure there are 64-bit drivers available for it. Hardware drivers are specific to 32-bit or 64-bit operating systems so if there isn't a driver for it then you're screwed. When I first switched to a 64-bit system (long ago) I had to reverse engineer the Nostromo drivers and write my own since they didn't release a 64-bit driver until Vista 64-bit came out.

There is usually a button on the router to reset it to the default settings. This will remove the password that you cannot remember and reset it to the default password. Then you can reconfigure everything the way you want it.

There are two things to consider... 1. Installing a program usually adds registration keys and support files to other locations besides just the installation directory. That all depends on the program of course and I haven't done any system image comparisons with BS / DCS to know for sure. 2. Does the program you're installing have a 64-bit version or is it a 32-bit program that runs in 32-bit mode on a 64-bit machine? If it does have both versions then you'll want to reinstall it using the 64-bit installer instead of copying the 32-bit version over. Either way, it is always better to just reinstall it rather than copy files over.

Carriers are essential to projecting power quickly. In a very dynamic political sphere that the world is in right now that is important. And it is probably a lot cheaper to build a few carriers then build up complete military operating bases on all the various colonies. But I am sure the military mission for UK is vastly different from the US so maybe UK doesn't need to project power worldwide and all that... in which case having a lot of carriers doesn't make sense.

Microsoft Windows has one that is built in that works just fine. Sorry, didn't mean to imply that you needed anything else. Just make sure it is turned on in your security settings. Also, the attacker would have to be within the wireless range of your wireless router to do the attack on WEP/WPA/WPA2 which means they are within a few houses of you depending on how your wireless router signal is propagating. So unless there is a reason why someone really wants to gain access to your home network you don't really have to worry about it. :)

Windows has the built in firewall that he'll have to deal with but that is usually as easy as clicking "ALLOW" the first time he runs the program. It's good to have some kind of software based firewall since WEP can be cracked in about 2 seconds and WPA/WPA2 can be cracked in a few minuets to a few hours depending on the amount of packet traffic on the network.

Always get a 64-bit operating system. The reason is because of RAM. With a 32-bit system you can only address a certain range of address space. For physical memory the limit is 4GB for 32-bit Windows 7 and 192GB for 64-bit Windows 7. Virtual memory address space is a little larger for both but sucks performance wise. You'll also want a minimum of 4GB of RAM but 8GB is better so none of your memory gets paged to disk and kills performance.

Have you checked for updated drivers for your graphics card? Any time you install a new version of something and the graphics performance changes drastically then the first thing you look at are your drivers.

Another problem with lasers is blooming... that is why we don't have space based laser systems that can fry something from space. Getting the beam to stay focused enough to have any real effect is pretty much impossible at the technology level we have now. There have been some recent stories about Raytheon having a successful test of a ship based laser system but even still a practical solution that can be deployed to the fleet is still well into the future. Oh, and in my longer post above I forgot to say in favor of UAV's in a dogfight situation that the G-limit would be a lot higher since there isn't any wetware sitting in the seat. :)

DMZ opens up every protocol for every port. It would be like connecting your computer directly to your modem. Basically, you're shutting off all of the routers firewall features that protect against service based threats. If you do DMZ while you're playing just make sure to turn it off when you're done playing. Yes, everyone who has a router with a built in firewall (all of them do now days) has to go through this when hosting games. The reason is because the router blocks external computers from connecting to computers internal to your network without you initiating the connection. When someone sees your server in the server list and tries to connect to your computer, the router views this as a non-user initiated connection request. Thus it blocks it unless you are forwarding that port or DMZ'd. This protection is in place so that infected computers cannot just randomly connect to your computer on open ports, exploit a protocol or service vulnerability, and infect your computer with malware, steal your data, etc. Unless you have another service or application that uses the same port as DCS then you can leave that port forwarding turned on all the time without fear. You'd know if you did since trying to host a server on that port would fail since the other service or app was already using that port. Long story short, it is safe to leave the port for DCS forwarded to your computer at all times. But, as was said before, if you're not using static IP addresses in your home network then you'll have to change the IP that it is forwarded to whenever your IP changes.

All of you should read a book called Cyber Warfare by Richard Clarke. You don't need the most stealthiest aircraft or top notch avionics to successfully carry out kinetic military operations. For example: In September 2007 Israel bombed a Syrian nuclear facility that was being built by North Koreans. They used F-15 and F-16 aircraft and the Syrian air defenses never even saw them. The reason is because Israeli cyber warriors owned the Russian made Syrian air defense network (i.e. got control of the system remotely by exploiting a security vulnerability in the network) the day before the attack and on the night of the attack they simply replaced the real data coming from the defense sensors with data they recorded the night before where there were no airplanes in the airspace over Syria. The Syrian defense operators had no clue this had even happened. This allowed the Israeli aircraft to infiltrate the airspace, drop bombs on target, and return home without any significant threat from the Syrian air defense network. I know this isn't directly related to the topic of next generation of planes but I think that the answer to the topic has a lot to do with the topic of cyber warfare. If you can control the enemies air defenses then you don't really need high-tech aircraft. Personally, I think that in the near future we will see a lot more UAV recon and bomber aircraft but fighter aircraft will continue to be manned. Eventually we will see UAV fighters but technology just isn't good enough yet for a pilot to get the type of SA to win in a dogfight while flying remotely. That doesn't mean we won't see BVR based UAV's in the near future... As for UAV's... sure, you don't put a pilot in harms way but there are other significant issues that must be addressed. The enemy using them to their advantage similar to how insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan could monitor the unencrypted video downlink of Predator drones comes to mind. A more technology advanced enemy might even be able to take control of a drone or jam its uplink and downlink making it useless to the operators. You also have to consider the political issues with UAV's... when the Predator first came out politicians in Washington tried to get themselves put into the military decision making loop since they could get intel in real time from the battlefield. Luckily the military has been able to prevent that from happening too often. You also have to consider the strikes that kill civilians... do you blame the operator, the intelligence analyst, or blame it on faulty equipment? These are all things that will factor in with what we will see for future aircraft. I will end my long semi-off-topic post with a quote from a VP of Lockheed Martin that was one of the top dogs at Skunk Works back in the day. I cannot remember the exact words but they were very similar to this... "At any given moment the US military is operating technology that is 50 years more advanced than what the public currently knows about." 50 years more advanced... Can you even image that? Of course that doesn't mean a complete aircraft with 50 years advanced technology... that could mean just one component of an aircraft is that advanced. So really you may need to be discussing what the 6th public generation aircraft is. :)

No, the "DirectX Games" setting will not work for LO or DCS. That setting is for games that follow Microsoft's standard for DirectPlay (tech included in DirectX). The ports that they use do not include the port that LO/DCS uses. Thus, it won't work. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/240429

Oh, and if you really want a good book on running an Ubuntu Linux server, this is the one to get: http://www.informit.com/store/product.aspx?isbn=0132167980

It would work but it would be a hack and not fit into the true purpose of the mod. Is there no way to use the targeting indicator to do this? I'd like to play around with the idea but I leave for Vegas tomorrow morning (rough, I know :D) and won't be able to play with the editor until later next week.

True to an extent. The blade would need a graphics card but it could be "headless". You'd just have to use VNC or RDC from another computer to launch FC2. There is that automated server application in the Mod forum that might be useful for this also... monitors the FC2 server and restarts it or the computer as needed. Haven't tried it out though so not sure if it works. Few more things... 1. Does DCS or FC2 run on Linux? If not and you want to host it you're going to have to run windows either as the OS or in a VM. 2. Do you have a static IP address for your home network? If not, hosting anything is going to require work arounds to constantly update your DNS routing every time your IP changes. Since DNS isn't an instant thing, server users will experience downtime after every IP change while waiting for all the DNS servers to update. There are ways to force DNS updates from your own machine but I'm not sure exactly how legal they are and it might piss off your ISP or get your IP blacklisted on security sites. 3. Do you have a high traffic home network; wife and kids that like to download music and stream netflix while you're trying to fly online? Do you have a computer connected to that same home network that has private information on it (like Quicken for finances, photos of your family, etc) that you'd like to keep protected? If you're hosting a lot of services off your home network then you have to be concerned with bandwidth usage and security at all times. Instead of running your own server, have you looked into getting a server from somewhere like Slicehost? It is a full up server and you get full access to the operating system. So you'd be able to run a teamspeak server, webpages, and everything else on it and then run DCS:FC2 from your home network using the built in server discovery (or hyperlobby / steam / whatever) for people to find and connect to it. I don't mean to scare you away from running your own server but there are a lot of things to think about when deciding to open up your home network to external traffic. I've thought about it a few times but always decide to stick with GoDaddy for my web hosting and other places for my ventrillo / teamspeak servers. Heck, I cringe every time I have to forward the port through my router just to host a FC2 server when I am flying with my squad!! Not that the router protects me from people with any real skill but it at least stops the script kiddies from getting in. :D

What can we say... we keep running out of designators and code names. :D

True but we do take some liberties in our simulations to quickly fix problems. Besides, who said anything about shooting? It was just a coincidence that everything started to fail right after the warning message... :smilewink:

Not a problem; always happy to help if I can. If you run into problems getting it set up just post your questions and I'll try to answer them. I've been "playing" with Linux for many years but only in the last 3 months have I actually been using a Ubuntu workstation full time. So I am still learning all the things I should have years ago. :) Forgot to mention, I had a Windows Server 2008 box for a few years. I liked it because it was basically Vista without all the bloat. However, from a workstation perspective Windows 7 blows it out of the water. I do remember it was pretty tough to get all the security issues fixed and I wasn't even running IIS (I was using WS2008 as a desktop OS and not in a true server role). There is a bit of a learning curve with Linux but it is definitely worth the time in the long run.

Yes, very good initiative on this one! I am not very familiar with the rule system just yet so some of my suggestions may not be possible, but here they are: 1. Is there a way to put a trigger on the runway so that when a bomb hits it, a flag gets set? Then you can test against that flag as well in determining if they made an illegal take off. 2. Instead of exploding them, can you trigger a left or right engine fire along with a hydraulics failure? The idea would be to make them completely useless in a fight but still allow them to RTB without losing an aircraft. Once they realize the consequences then I doubt they would do it again.

The Taliban and insurgents have done some stupid things but launching a SA2 or SA3 ballistically is probably not something they would do. They would know what a good resource that is and they wouldn't waste it needlessly. But then I could be wrong and they are that stupid. :)

Standard operating procedure. Makes it easy for the many autonomous software systems to parse and disseminate the information into various databases, reports, etc. You can probably do a Google search and actually find the standards document that outlines the format, language, etc of all the reports. Well, most of the reports anyway.