Schnittertm

Depending on the plane and on the sophistication of the plane the costs might actually not be that much lower or lower at all for certain planes to model, just think of the PMDG aircraft that are modeled to exacting standards or the up and coming A-320X by Flightsim Labs currently entering the beta stage, which will also, as it looks, be a simulation of the Airbus A-320 that is as complex if not more so than most planes in DCS, at least from a modeling perspective and what the developer wants to achieve. There might not be as much of a market for the highly modeled and overly complex airliner planes either.

What I did to solve that problem is, to buy a USB hub, connect most of my flight sim gear to it and plug the hub only in if I need it into one of my front USB ports. Since they are easily accessible for me that is not a problem. Also, if I need any other controller (e.g. 360 pad or Arcade Stick) I plug them into my front USB as needed and unplug as soon as I'm done. The only thing I had to do, is disable the analog stick on my G13, as I usually use the display in that for temperature and load monitoring, so it needs to stay connected. Still, it is a problem that sadly many developers seem to overlook. Another problem, which prompted me to buy a 360 pad is, that some games refuse to work with any other controller than the 360 pad, unless you get some kind of third party software and even with that it might not fully work.

Level of Detail. It governs the complexity of the 3d models at different ranges from your point of view. Basically, the further away an object is, the less detail it will have, which is often done in several stages in the rendering engine. This is done to reduce load on your GPU while redering far away objects, especially if there are lots of them. Also, with far away objects you wouldn't be able to see much of the detail anyway.

They had three or four testflights with one prototype, the last of which ended in a crash, probably due to problems with one of the engines, killing the test pilot. Naturally, as the war ended, they never really got to an operational use. But it is true, it will be hard to get an accurate flight model, as the number of flights and the data for them is very likely not enough to create an accurate model based on those numbers, if they ever did record any and if the records still exist.

So, I was just browsing Kickstarter again and while doing so I stumbled upon this KS project: Now, this Kickstarter is always one of the kind that I am very cautious about, as it doesn't show of any of the - possibly supposed - work that has been done for the project. Now, my questions would be, can this be legit (I am of the opinion it is not, but I may be mistaken) and has anyone ever heard of this Chris Donovan offering this Kickstarter? Does he have the skills, machines, access to the hardware and capabilities to make this happen?

They might ask Frontier Development for help on that, I mean they have an entire galaxy, called Milky Way by some, created procedurally and are working on figuring out how to do planetary landings. As for a new X-Wing or Tie Fighter Space Sim, I would definitely be on board for one of those, it has been too long since the last one.

Ah, you know, game AI will sort itself out once Skynet is installed and operational. ;)

Yep, same here, even though I'm a bit disgruntled at the stunt Amazon pulled here in Europe (which is, I think, the only place to order the Collector's Edition), putting the EU version on the UK store only and therefore having me pay even more, because of the currency conversion LBP to EUR. As is par for Europe, though, the price was not adjusted from US to European currencies, which means 99.99$ = 99.99£. *sigh* Still, I believe it to be worth every cent.

Yet it is that ease of use and the low cost that actually led to the creation of weapon systems like the Stinger/IGLA, as it is also beneficial to your own military, which would also employ them. As a soldier, no matter the intelligence level of the individual soldier, you'd want a system that is as easy and as fast as possible to deploy in a combat situation, a system that, at its peak requires little or no thought, increasing reaction time to and survivability of a threat (in this case from the air). As a nation, you'd want the system as cheap as possible, as you would either be able to buy more, put funds towards other equipment or, if that is your fancy, save the taxpayer some money, though most politicians are a bit stingy in that respect. The problem arises, when those weapons are exported and sold to other parties which later are then considered undesireables at the least and enemies of the nation at the worst. Then, suddenly, your own, expensive, equipment is under threat from your own weapons. Then you do need intelligence services to find out where those weapons went. If they weren't sold illegally, tracking those weapons should at least be reasonably easy, as you at least know the amount and general area where they were last. With weapons sold illegally or a track to them that has grown cold, you only know a probable amount of those weapons existing somewhere and you'd know how long they'd hold out with factory equipped parts, but that is it. You will have to use other means to find out their whereabouts, some of them highly undemocratic and certainly questionable, as some intelligence services are known for operating outside the boundaries of certain laws. If their actions are justified is a debate that can easily drift into the political, so I will keep shut about my thoughts on that matter. The only defense against these weapon systems, other than finding them and taking them out of action (through destruction or buying them back), as I see it, is proper training of the pilots/aircraft crews and installation of early warning and defense equipment, as is done on modern aircraft (e.g. MWS, Flares). Still, manpads will be a threat for low flying aircraft and despite all the training and equipment meant to defeat them, they might claim multi-million dollar equipment for a the exchange of a small, disposable launcher. It might be unsatisfactory to know this, but if there were such a thing as the perfect defense, then no one would use or even produce manpads.

Well, what can you say, Wehrmacht uniforms, designed and made by Hugo Boss.

Most movies of that kind are American and most countries being the 'bad' guys there usually were customers of the Soviet Union/Russia, so it figures that MiG's would be the bad guys. In WWII movies the bad guys always fly Messerschmitts or Zeros.

Yeah, that's what I thought, too. Some other things, that gun on the big drones looks a bit like a 30mm cannon, which means that in this fantasy they have pretty fantastical one-hit one-kill ammunition. Then, there is the thing that none of the F-16 started? Unlikely. The drone starts up the radar and goes unnoticed? Similarly unlikely. Also, you wouldn't pack your planes or vehicles that tight and parking B-2's in the open, before you have them loaded and started? Come on. The most realistic one would be the last drone, as it is small enough to be deployed quickly and might actually be used as an assassination tool. The others? Too large and would be deteced and shot down by air defense before they'd inflict much damage, if the trucks themselves wouldn't be apprehended beforehand for driving into areas where they should not drive to.

I don't think rational thought is one of the strenghts of humans, especially in the case of extreme, genocidal circumstances. You are facing the exctinction of all life as you know it, that life is squished into a few space ships, wolves snapping at your heels at every turn, wolves disguised as sheep among the flock, many are just normal humans torn out of their normal everyday lives, not knowing if they will survive the next day or where they will sleep or if they are ever going to step foot on a planet ever again. The circumstances don't get more extreme than that. Add to this that you have people with different views on religion, politics and other sensitive topics which people will only forget about for a very short while and you have a recipe for disaster or at the very least for a lot of disagreements. Even the soldiers will have problems there, because, even though they have been trained to be professional and rational, they are still humans, prone to mistakes and now the government and the nation/planet that they serve is, in a sense, not there anymore. What are they fighting for then? In these rather extreme circumstances it is not hard to imagine that it is dog eat dog out there. Most humans will only work together as long as there is a benefit in it for them. If that is missing, then you will have rebellions, dissent and a whole lot of other stuff. A mix of normal people from differing cultures, interspersed with extremists and criminals makes a very explosive mixture in and of itself already. You can look at every series and will find a lot of logic errors and other such mistakes, just as in the real world. I mean, remind me why it was necessary to have all the Battlestars and Mk. VII Vipers linked into the same defense mainframe on Caprica? It was that singular, big mistake that even enabled the Cylons to destroy the colonies, otherwise they would have had to go up against a whole fleet fully armed and battleready Battlestars with support fighters, which would have been more than powerful enough to take out several Cylon Basestars each. But, alas, a small subroutine in an insignificant navigation program disabled all but one of the new high tech Battlestars and their support fighters. As for equipment decissions, well, they may also have been dumb, but considering that these kind of decissions are often made by politicians and not people in the know, it is kind of understandable. Apparently, at least according to a study of the German MoD, of 109 possible Typhoon fighters only 74 are available and only 42 are actually combat ready and that is not the only equipment problem. Lobbyists, contracts, incompetent politicians, wrong decissions, all that can lead to such problems. That computer system in BSG was probably proposed to be cost saving and therefore the politicians said, yeah, okay, lets do it, it will makes us look good in the eyes of the voters and we haven't heard anything from the Cylons in over 40 years. As for what I found annoying about BSG 2.0, well, that was the underlying implications of providence and that everything has happened before and will happen again and its religious undertones of supernatural providence. But then again, if you consider the end of the series, maybe they were programmed that way.

Right now it isn't, but the September newletter hinted at it being available in the near future.

You know what they said "Nuke it from orbit, it's the only way to be shure!" ;)