Nuke

i didnt know this was a thing that could be done with a mod. frankly this is something squad should have done a long time ago. anyway with reference to normal maps, is there a way to use dxt5_nm. this essentially puts the red channel into dxt5 alpha. this makes the channels interpolate independently (color data interpolates together), and also gives you a bit more depth on one channel. there is also a newer format (3dc/bc5) that is essentially a two channel format (they are similar to the way dxt5's alpha works) which could give even higher normal map quality for the same cost. there is also a one channel version that could give us better greyscale quality for things like emmission maps. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3Dc

dosbox has really solved issues with old dos games for me. most of them run. the biggest problem is with games build on directx versions prior to 8. they just dont like modern windows. which is sad because a lot of early opengl games (and even a few that use glide through a wrapper) work perfectly fine. any operating system works fine when properly configured. be it windows, linux, osx, dos, whatever. when you buy from an oem thats what you get (at least until you start uninstalling all the demo ware they put on there and accidentally break something, i hate oems). if you get crashes, something is wrong. in my experience reinstalling everything is a fix all assuming you know how (i was a system builder back in the pentium 4 era and this is how we did support).

i didnt exactly go in expecting shakespere.

ive seen a few gamers in their 30s who have massive games collections that they cant run. which i think is about the only case you need an older os. i have a few games that wont work on anything but windows 98. some will work in xp and some grudgingly work in win7. i can slap together a nostalgia rig if im desperate for some old games. but im not going to drag everything else through the mud for that kind of capability. vm if you can, dual boot if neccisary, but dont slow your 64 bit hardware down (it's not just ram, its all the architecture improvements which end up not getting used) by running a 32 bit os.

as a movie i thought it was pretty good. but it was so full of obvious technical mistakes and annoyances. every time they tried to explain any of the technology i had to facepalm. analog tech! why? analog systems are so dead that its hard to find people who know how to build them. unlike digital systems which everyone and their mother seems to know and understand. but you keep on watching and at the end of the movie you didnt feel ripped off. one big pet peeve of mine with movies, is how grossly they underestimate the effectiveness of modern weapon systems. after seeing what a simple full metal jacket rifle round can do to meat, that big M61A2 vulcan 20mm gatling gun (firing 110 rounds a second!) should have ripped a massive wound in the side of that kaiju. especially if equipped with du rounds. depleted uranium is really good for projectiles because its liquid state is so small to be no-existant, it essentially goes from solid to vapor instantly on impact, resulting in a devastating explosive effect. why just planes, why not artillery, 105mm howitzer. such a large beast would be hard to miss, even from several miles out. lets just face it meat is easy to mutilate with weapons of war.

idk, i dont think ive dated one sane girl yet, some of them were pretty hot. they all seemed to have severe emotional psychological problems, which they all had to take meds for. im sure sane ones exist, though i have the feeling they aint no fun. i guess thats about as much i can say on such a g rated forum, its kinda like that motorhead song damage case. wait, i thought this was a hack physics thread.

win7 x64 is the best thing since win xp. when i used xp i used the professional x64 version, i haven't used a 32 bit os (on a 64-bit cpu) for ~8 years. i always find it discouraging when people keep beating that dead 32-bit horse.

we need bigger magnets. and more power!

on the contrary i think we should move the art of war into space, and make the earth a no fire zone.

when it comes right down to it, is any source of information reliable? i dont really trust anything unless i see it happen myself. there have been too many occasions where something i read in an academic book was blatantly wrong. i knew it was wrong and ive seen it be wrong. you want to know for sure, figure it out yourself, and if you are feeling lazy there is always wikipedia/the internet/the news/the government/other humans/the voices in your head.

id be happy if you just stored the state of the filters in the save file. so that they stay as i set them when i exit and return.

a jaeger didnt seem like the makers of that moving understood how structural engineering works. like that ship/club would have broke in half if not supported by buoyancy. the kaiju have their own structural issues as well. meat is heavy and doesnt absorb damage very well (its main advantage is the ability to self heal, not absorb energy, see zerg). i found out on a hunting trip some years ago what kind of damage a tiny 7mm round can do to a deer's spine. now take a 15 inch battleship gun and shoot a kaiju with it. i figure you will get the same result. i think battletech is the most believable, but still far from practical (its primary awesomeness point is that it has awesome gameplay mechanics). i dont think its beyond the capacity to build something like that. loads are somewhat acceptable. you might have issues in your heavy and assault classes (i always preferred mediums and lights myself). as for the reactors, dont use the tokamak as the yardstick for how big a fusion reactor needs to be. physics require it to be that big because of probability of divergence and the fact that gyroradi are finite size, but thats entirely due to the toroidal nature of the core. other forms of fusion like polywells and dpf could result in reactors considerably smaller. the tokamak will go down in history as the brickphone of fusion reactors.

schools really suck at teaching math. i went through high school and finished a 2 year degree without any inclination that i would be able to understand advanced concepts in mathematics. then i ended up learning them on my own in a few months of doing projects. the, 'solve 50 completely arbitrary and practically identical math problems every day' way of teaching math needs to die. the endless repetition gives kids this notion that math is boring, the lack of practical exercises gives them the notion that they will never use this, and then when they move into something they dont understand, they get the notion that its way beyond them. and i found out entirely on my own that none of that is even remotely true. math is awesome.

planes are already starting to have wifi, which im sure passengers already use to move about a considerable amount of data. dont see an issue with having the black box hooked up to the plane's existing ip network to transmit flight data back to a server somewhere on the ground.

i would add a 5th fundamental force, i would call it bill.

getting readings is easy, its the signal processing thats hard.

things used in game programming, like quaternions, would not exist without imaginary numbers. this also relates to quaternions, for example doing slerp. which is essentially walking across the surface of a hypersphere. i hear you people like games.

this is a really good idea. i rather like the idea of having the ability to improve parts over the course of the game. but i think i would model it after nasa's technological readiness level (see link). because thats the process actual space tech goes through from idea to functional component. it would also add the ability to do test flight research on parts (you know jeb wants to). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technology_readiness_level instead of having a part instantly unlocked with science, you instead unlock a test prototype. it seems most of the science we have to do thus far has been environmental stuff and not testing any hardware. you could have a model where the environmental science nets you instead of parts, research grants, which can be spent on prototypes (which are crude versions of the final part). testing a prototype raises its trl level which results in a new and improved part (much as how the system you describe works). to make things interesting, a prototype part would simulate technological bugs, and would there for not be used for a mission critical aspect of space flight. for example, if you test a prototype engine, you may not get reliable operation. it might be prone to overheating, or it might not let you turn it off, or it might cause you to leak fuel. i hate to use the term random failure (for obvious reasons), but thats pretty much it. thing is its still science, so even a failed test will raise the trl. thing to remember here that part use raises its trl. at each level the engine becomes more reliable, more powerful, and the bugs start going away. at arould lvl 8 you have a fully functional and reliable part that you can depend on for mission critical tasks. ultimately if you want to level up a part, you have to use it, its not a thing that should have to be paid for with science or research grants.

i usually use apokerb

when the game starts it would just load graphics and data needed for the splash screen and menus. game database population would just happen after you loaded a save. this also means any mod not selected in your save will not need to be loaded. you could handle the save loading in the launcher i suppose, but there is no reason that an in-game mod select cant work. you just need to slightly change the order in which the game initializes stuff. right now the game database seems to get initialized first. the game database seems rather flexible, it can accomplish feats like loading mods on the fly, so i dont think there will be much of an issue initializing it elsewhere. game would start with a short load (system configs, interface graphics, splash screens), almost immediately give you a menu, and then when you load a save, the database initializes (using an inclusion list) with a long load. you would set up an exclusion list on the creation of the save, anything not on that goes into an inclusion list. both lists would be stored in your save file. if a mod is on neither list then it is a new mod and the game lets you decide what to do with them (via a yes/no dialog), and this updates your lists. then on load you only load folders with names on the inclusion list. you can take it a step beyond that and have full in-game mod management with install/update/uninstall and spaceport integration. but that is certainly not a requirement.

if you need a reason to start using compressed textures, this thread is it. most of those maps are going to be 3 channel, and dxt1 can take those down 1/6 for the same resolution some will need alpha channels and so will need to use dxt5 (normal maps can use dxt5_nm), those will take the texture down 1/4 with same resolution squad: compress your textures!

id love to have better iva where you can move about and explore the interior of your ship, moving around in zero g or with centrifuges.

put mod options in that little window you get when you start a save. your options would be, 'stock only', 'all mods', and 'let me pick which mods to use'. could probibly just use radio buttons. if you select the last one, you get a popup window that gives you a list of all items in the gamedata folder with checkboxes next to them so you can select the ones you want. what this little thing does is generates a folder exclusion list. so when you load all the files in all the folders under gamedata, check and see if they are excluded, and if they are, skip them. though you may need to populate the game database after you start/load a save, rather than when the game first starts up.

i dont know how you figure this. ksp's ion engine is 0.5kn, an engine like NEXT only has 236mn thrust. so its over 2000 times more powerful. there are some theoretical designs that can do better, theoretically mpd thrusters top out at 88.5 newtons of thrust and power requirements around 4MW or more. thats still less powerful than that 500n ferrari engine that ksp gives us. though from a gameplay perspective the stock ion engine is fine. nobody wants to spend hours on a single burn without some higher physics warp modes (its already intolerable).

il be sure to check it out (its already downloading), b5 was awesome. i will probibly also need to also take some liberties with propulsion as well, such as engines with ridiculously high isp and exotic propellants like metallic hydrogen. engines will also be dual mode and capable of running on a large number of atmospheric compositions, so no propellant need be used while in the atmosphere. ships will have a compact fusion reactor of sorts to augment thrust through thermal or ionization effects. theres really no way around that, space fighters in general tend to spit in the face of hard sci-fi, so there will be some handwavium and unobtanium in there.