Tribunus

Why in the world would they leave out something so basic? It’s not like it’s new technology. I’m dumbfounded by this. I’m sure that I read some time ago, that Force Feedback was being planned. I’m also very sure that there is a growing demand for it. But who is working on it? 1C, the Daidalos Team or has it been hacked already?

Is this true? Cliffs of Dover does not support Force Feedback? The original IL-2, which is a decade old, supported Force Feedback! I would have never thought that after all of these years of development, and all the talk about emersion, that the game would not support something this basic.

My Gaming Rig is in Cairo and I'm still stuck in Kuwait City. So I have no way of using this test mechanism. I'm also not what you would call computer literate, so what I would like to do is give you all my systems specifications and see what you think. I've got a four year old Dell XPS 720 H2O, which was supposed to be a fairly decent rig when I bought it. So while I'm sure that it is no longer cutting edge technology, I am hoping that it might fall within the Recommend range of performance for Cliffs of Dover. I've got a Intel Core 2 Extreme processor QX6700 at 3.46 GHz with QuadCore. 4GB of DDR2 SDRAM Dual NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTX set up in a SLI Dual 160GB 10,000 RPM Hard Drives set up as a RAID 0 So please give me your honest opinions. Am I at the upper end of Minimum Specifications or the lower end of Recommended?

Excellent. I can't wait. After all of the 'Steer Manure' that I've had to deal with over this evacuation from Egypt, mastering "Full Real" sounds like an enjoyable challenge.

I hadn’t heard that. I wonder if you will be able to select individual fuel tanks, the way you could in M$ FS2.

At the very beginning and end of the ‘Bomber interception over Manston’ video, it seems to clearly show the mouse icon moving around and activating controls on the instrument panel. Is Cliffs of Dover going to have a “Clickable Cockpit”?

“Eject, Eject, Eject” FT, I am surprised and saddened to find that you are using ‘Jet’ terminology here. Surely someone as intelligent as you are, knows that these kerosene soaked, winged monstrosities called ‘Jets’ will never catch on.

BadAim will love this. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/41558386/ns/world_news-europe/

Unfortunately I do. The U.S. government consistently rewards bad behavior and punishes good behavior.

Mate, I can guarantee that you will get the opportunity to fire all sorts of different weapons. Plus as an added bonus, the Army will arrange for you to be fired upon by a wide variety of weapons. "There is nothing more exhilarating than to be shot at without result." Winston Churchill

Dual Citizenship. Plus, you will not need to become involved with any on-line scam either. With my contacts, I can easily arrange for you to get a Green Card in a little less than three years. And as an added bonus, during those three years you will be able to travel the world and visit exotic locations and meet new and interesting people. All at the expense of the U.S. Government. All you will need to do is enlist in the United States Army. Then the Army will helpfully make arrangements for how you will spend the next three years of your life. After successfully completing your enlistment, you will be placed on a "Fast Track" for receiving a Green Card. And Mate, don't worry about the pictures of hairy transsexuals you posted, the U.S. Military has recently abolished it's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy. The U.S. Military is now open to all sorts deviants. Hell, they took me.

I've had very good luck with my Dell liquid cooled XPS. But BG is correct, the individual components are mostly proprietary and you will have difficulty upgrading it. That is not an issue with me, as I am computer illiterate. Dell also offers great customer service.

I resemble that remark. Trust me Mate, I am painfully aware that I am no longer a 22 year old Paratrooper.

~S~ BG No Jim I did not. When I evacuated, all I could take with me was one duffle bag and the backpack that I use for a carry-on. Everything else I own is still in Egypt. So my gaming computer, my TWO M$ Force Feedback sticks, CH rudder pedals and throttle and brand new Track IR5 are all still in Cairo. The good news is that I before I left, I was able to get my computer gear, as well as other valuables, packed up and placed in my office at the USAID building. The USAID building is a fairly well fortified walled compound, with U.S. Embassy security 24 hours a day. So it should be a much safer place than my apartment to store my important and high value items that I couldn't take with me. Now I obviously don't work for the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID,) that is just part of my cover story over here, as well as being a convenient spot to have a office.

Here is my latest update from the fun filled Middle East. As you can probably imagine, I’ve been pretty busy for the last few days. I was part of the Stay Behind Team that helped get American citizens as well as some other foreigners out of Egypt. By Thursday 3rd we had evacuated all the American military and Embassy personnel that were being ordered out and as many other people as wanted to go. Friday the 4th the Ambassador decided to order out everyone except a small cadre of Embassy employees and active duty military. At that point they decided that I had done everything they needed me to do, and ordered me to leave. But they did want me to stay close to Egypt as they will need me to be among the first people to return. So I flew to Kuwait, where I can get back to Egypt in about three hours. I got to Kuwait late Saturday the 5th, and was taken to an Agency Safe house .......... No Jim, not that Agency Sunday the 6th I in-processed at the American Army Base at Camp Arifjan, where I got all my necessary badges and bases passes for Kuwait. That night was first night that I had felt reasonably relaxed in a long time, and I slept for almost eleven hours. So I was more tired than I realized So for now I’m going to be in Kuwait. I’ve got an office at Camp Arifjan, an apartment in Kuwait City with a nice view of the Persian Gulf and the city skyline. I’ve also got a great big black, four wheel drive Chevy Tahoe to drive. I have no idea why we always use big, black, four by fours. I’m convinced that the bad guys know that the black SUVs are full of Americans. I’m not sure how long I’ll be here; we’ll have to see how things develop in Egypt. I’ll try and give you a quick rundown of events for the past couple of weeks. This all started as a result of the protests in Tunisia that resulted in the collapse of that Government. As you will remember what set off the Tunisian protests was a guy who burnt himself to death. Here in Egypt we had three days straight where we had men copy the Tunisian guy and burn themselves. Then we had a very tense weekend, that took us to Monday the 21st of February, which was an Egyptian holiday called “Police Day” which honors the hated security police. Being a holiday, eveyone was off work and there were several good size protests going on around the country, protesting against the government. These protests were brutally put down and dispersed by the security police. That led the protester to begin using the internet and text messages to organize a huge protest for Friday the 25th of February, to start immediately after Noon Prayer. The turnout for this protest caught everyone by surprise. Let me share some back ground information with you all. There are protests here all the time, but usually they go something like this. If the protesters have 1,000 people, the security police will show up with 3,000. The security police will order the protestors to disperse and if they don’t, they begin to bust open heads and arrest people. But Friday the 25th after Noon Prayer, tens of thousands of Egyptian took to the streets and there was nothing that the security police could do about it. The security police were badly out number and pushed back all over the city. No one here had ever seen anything like this. Once the security police began to be pushed back, I fully expected that they were going to open fire on the protestors and start an absolute massacre. But for whatever reason that did not happen. What did happen is that the police retreated. Then in retaliation for their humiliating retreat, the Interior Ministry orders ALL the police off the streets. Security police, regular police, traffic police, everybody. This was done for one reason only; to produce chaos that they hope would paralyze the city. So Friday night was wild. Where I live in Maadi south of downtown, all the police were gone by night fall. As soon as it was dark the police station was attacked, the prisoners were release, weapons were stolen and then it was looted and burnt. Simultaneously, a big prison about a mile away was attacked and over 6,000 prisoners were released. A little side note needs to be said about the prison break. This particular prison contained a lot of political prisoners. To include Hamas terrorist who had been captured in Egypt. Just two days later these Hamas terrorist were back in Gaza giving interviews to the press. So the prison break was very well planned. With no police and the streets crawling with armed criminals, we had a wild night. We had shooting and looting going on all around us, literally just two blocks way. Now I’m coming to the part of the story where fact is stranger than fiction. Where I live there is normally a seven man security police detail that sits across the street from my apartment building. In theory they are there to ‘protect’ me, but the real reason is to keep an eye on me and the people who visit me. When this security detail was ordered to abandon their post, it was already dark and no one sent a truck for them, they were just told to leave. But they were afraid to be seen walking on the street in their black security police uniforms, so they decided to hide in the basement of my building. This worked out great for me, because I now had seven AK-47s, along with my 9mm pistol, that I could use to arm people that I knew were reliable. So to make a long story short, after a brief introduction to my armed vigilantes, we convinced the looters to go loot somewhere else. Saturday night was more of the same, but by then people from all over the neighborhood, were organizing citizen watch groups to guard their stretch of the street. So literally every 100 meters or so, there was some sort of road block manned by men and older boys armed with wooden clubs, golf clubs, knives, occasional pistols and one Nimrod who was running around with an air rifle. The grocery stores that had not been looted opened up and were packed with people trying to buy necessities. To the credit of the Egyptian people this went very, very well. It was crowed and there were long lines, but there was no panic. People took turns and waited patiently in line. And the prices stayed the same, there was no price gouging. The price you saw was the price you paid. I was very impressed by this. Sunday the 30th, the Egyptian Army showed up. At first it was just a handful, but I could instantly tell by their uniforms and weapons that they were Egyptian Commandos, not just normal Egyptian conscripts. As they began to establish checkpoints and started to send out roving patrols, they very politely asked for the AK-47s to be returned. But by then we did not need them anymore. Now I will freely admit that my neighborhood is not a typical Egyptian neighborhood. Maadi is home to very affluent Egyptian, Embassy personnel from all over the world to include the Israeli Ambassador and large numbers of influence foreigners. So I’m sure that we were given special treatment by the Egyptian government. So, as the week progressed, our situation got better and better. We gradually, got more Army troops in and even a few regular police showed up. The grocery stores that were open started receiving more food, to include fresh meat and eventually the trash trucks began to run again. Life in Maadi seemed to be returning to normal. But again, Maadi is not a typical Egyptian neighborhood. As things calmed down and with no rifles, I mustered out my vigilante posse and the Embassy got in touch with me and put me to work. This is where I became part of the team that helped people to leave Egypt. Then once we had that under control, the decision was made to get me out of the country. Although only as far as Kuwait. This was a sensible decision on the part of the Embassy. Just because things were looking like they might calm down in Egypt, it didn’t mean that it couldn’t get very bad, very quickly. All it takes is one spark and the Egyptian government could once again pull the police and Army off the streets and it could turn back into complete chaos again. So for now I’m in Kuwait. I’m in one piece and reasonably safe. Fortunately my luck in real life is a lot better than my luck in IL-2.

Just a quick note. This is the first time the internet has worked in a week. So far, I'm fine. Where I’m at in Maadi things have calmed down a great deal since Friday and Saturday, when we were having multiple gun battles only two or three blocks away. You may probably have heard about the Embassy issuing a mandatory evacuation order. But because of my job, I'm considered Emergency Essential. So I'm one of the folks that helps everyone else leave the country. If things stabilize, I'll help keep things running and prepare for some of the less essential people to return. If the situation turns to shit, I’ll be one of the last to go. If the internet keeps working and things calm down more, I’ll give you a full update. This is history in the making. Not having U.S. security like I had in Iraq is a bit unsettling. Especially on Friday and Saturday, when the Egyptian police abandoned the city and we were totally on our own. Anyway, were having exciting times here and I’ll share my observations and thoughts with you as soon as I can.

Happy Birthday Painless The Big Five Zero. I’m sure that you’ll look much more distinguished now.

Happy Birthday Mate.

The early version of the MRE were truly awful. The newer ones are not that bad. When I first started in the Army, we would occasionally still get WWII era C-Rations. Some of those were pretty bad as well. My least favorite C-Ration was Ham and Lima Beans, which was affectionately known throughout the military as “Ham and Mother F*ckers”. Another strange one was labeled Chicken or Turkey, because even the factory that produced it wasn’t sure what was inside the can. But my all time favorite candy bar was the old C-Ration tropical chocolate bar. Which was nicknamed the John Wayne bar.

And when you are finally able to go, the result are little round balls that are has hard as rocks.

I’ve finally gotten it to work fairly decently. But it was a frustrating process. I was trying to use the stock “Smooth” setting, but my view was extremely erratic. Moving my head would either just barely move the view at all, or it would suddenly jump all over the place. Like suddenly looking at aircraft seat or all the way vertically and to the rear and it was totally unpredictable. Finally I switched it to Camera View trying to figure out what was going on and discovered the problem. I had place the TrackClip on my NaturalPoint hat. Apparently the sewn on reflector on the bill of the hat was confusing the system. When I opened Camera View, the sewn on reflector and the left and right TrackClip reflectors were being tracked, but not the top TrackClip reflector. If I turned my head to the left, the thing would track the sewn on reflector and the top and right TrackClip reflector. If I turned my head to the right it I got just the opposite. Apparently the system will only track three reflectors and a fourth one was confusing the system. Once I place the TrackClip on just a regular hat, it settled down and started working as I had hoped it would. Thanks for the help Gentlemen.

Thanks for the help gentlemen. For simplicity sake (since I’m pretty simple) let me start off by using 00_6DOF_Tracker_2_0_sHr and the Default profile. Then once I’ve gained some experience, I may experiment with Exe_512MB_6DOFTiR Do you recommend that download the 5.0 Final B or the 5.1 beta 03? Fruitbat, I tried finding the profile that you mentioned in the main lobby of our TS server, but all I could find was a link to a YouTube movie of you shooting down half the Red Air Force. Perhaps, I’m looking in the wrong place.

I finally decided to retire my TrackIR 2 and purchased a TrackIR 5. It arrived in the mail today, and its serial number is fortunately not among the group that was reported to be experiencing problems. It did not come with a CD, just a note to download the latest software from trackir.com. My plan is to sort it all out over the weekend. But I do have a question that I’m hoping someone will help me with. When I open the Ultra Pack JSGME Mod enable, I am confronted with a vast array of choices for Six Degrees of Freedom. Starting from the top, I’ve got: 00_6DOF_LookAround 00_6DOF_Tracker_2_0_sHr 00_6DOF_XY_Axis Exe_128MG_6DOFTiR Exe_256MB_6DOFTiR Exe_384MB_6DOFTiR Exe_512MB_6DOFTiR Which one of these do I use? Or do I need to use some combination of them? Also, can anyone offer me any helpful hints on setting it up and developing a decent profile? Thanks for the help.

The film clip starts off with the pirates on their own ship, but then they are clearly on the Russian ship when they are shown sitting with their hands tied or handcuffed behind their backs. Only then do we see the pirate ship being blown up. I saw nothing that would indicate to me that the pirates were back on their own ship when it was blown up. So I agree with Gec and Jedi, I don’t believe that the pirates were summarily killed. Not that I would disagree with that course of action.

~S~ Sweper, Mate, once you get into the rural agricultural areas, it’s more like the 8th century. They plow their fields using water buffalos to pull the plow, and they irrigate their fields using water wheels powered by donkeys. Then they haul their crop to market using donkey carts. The only thing that tells you that you are not in the 8th century are the old rubber car tires on their carts. It’s amazing to see how primitively these people live. But the weather is great. We were 23C today. Tomorrow and Wednesday we are supposed to be 24C. But they are forecasting cold weather for the upcoming weekend. By Friday they expected it to drop down as low as 19C. From what I read about the weather you are having there in northern Europe, I’d say that you need to take a winter holiday and come visit me.