Imperium Two is now open. Click here for more information.

-Griselda

Occhidiangela and I have been exchanging email, and here's some news to be passed on.

-- CH

* * *

Please feel free to pass this along to our friends at RBD via a post. It is
sanitized for "unclassified." I have to be careful about that. What you
see on TV and what I see here don't quite match, though some parts do.


I walked the two miles from my work space to my living space this morning
after I got off the midnight to dawn watch (I am turning into a Vampire,
methinks) 2 miles across a desert. As the sun comes up early, before the
100+ temps hit, this place is not as ugly as it is by high noon when the
horizon grows a brown line about a third of the way up, much like LA does
now and again. The distance, as the crow flies, from the Air Operations
Center to the "Maritime SLum" where I live (I am beginning to refer to
myself as "Al Udied Trailer Trash" ) with some Marines, some Navy sorts,
and a few Air Farce friends, is about half a mile. However, the Qatarese
and the Americans/Coalition have divided this Air Base up into some rather
odd geometric shapes, which results in the road from the Air Ops Center to
the place where we live being almost exactly two miles gate to gate.

The desert itself is desert of the least likable sort. It makes the Mojave
look a veritable garden. Rock and dust, not the great dunes of sand one
sees in the films of Arabia from Hollywood. Scrabble, hard rock, and yes, I
saw this AM one very small bundle, about three metres square, of green
foliage. Not sure how it got here, wonder if it passed through immigration
properly.

To my left as I walked the long black, dusty ribbon of ashpalt to my cell,
was the air field proper and on it a variety of airplanes: troop transports,
tankers, commercial airplanes bringing or taking away troops, fighters.
About halfway home I watched a section of F-16's take off, loaded to the
gills with gas and bombs, and then saw about 10 minutes later a pair of
F-15's return. Hmm, still had their bombs on them, so I guess nothing much
legal to drop on for them.

What does the air ops center look like? Well, imagine the movie "War Games"
and the big room where they all watch in horror on the big screens as Joshua
works out the great thermonuclear war. Something similar, not quite as big,
and a flat first floor without the tiered theater seating effect; darker;
and covered in a fine layer of tan dust. It gets everywhere, and yes, each
day techs are seen taking PC workstations out to be air cleaned yet again.
On one sidewall CNN runs 24/7 on a rather large screen, with no sound. Some
hundreds of PC workstations, all with flat 17" screens, dot the floor in
reasonably ordered and parallel rows. UP in front, up high, are the four
big screens, one of which is quartered off into sub screens to show a few
more things, the others dedicated to "situation maps." A person at nearly
every PC is doing something for the effort: planning, chatting via a comm
net, working logistics, search and rescue, liaison with our Australian or
French partners, sorting out the UAV issues, what have you. Up behind us in
the back of this grand room, hanging from the ceiling, (think second or
third floor of a normal building) is "the battle cab." Therein the
elephants, Colonels and higher, gather and harrumph about, and then issue
some grand pronouncement via one of the many comm circuits or VOIP (Voice
Over INternet Protocol) circuits. THis gets various and sundry folks on the
floor a-scurrying to answer their bidding. I am one of the floor rats.

The whole time, a small team ignores the rest of the hubbub and works the
core piece of the operation: the coordination of the planes in the air with
the Marines and Soldiers on the ground in Afghanistan and Iraq. It is an
around the clock, labor intensive task thanks in part to the immense
political complication of a thing called "the targeting process." Ya can't
just drop a JDAM any old place, you know.

To say the Rules of Engagement are complex is to say that Cerberus was the
son of a Bitch. I will leave it at that. We have JAG officers in the Ops
Center 24/7 to advise the operators and the elephants about legal and
illegal choices available when dropping love and affection from on high in
the shape of 1000-lb laser guided bombs. (Leaflets are apparently
authorized 24/7, although I am sure Green Peace would scream about the
litter leaflets must contribute to. On the bright side, they must help
alleviate the Bog Paper shortage in Bagdad and Fallujah) I am led to
understand that the Marines and the Soldiers have their share of "combat
Jags" roving about giving similar advice, though I don't think it is by the
billable hour.

Most of the really interesting stuff I simply can't talk about, but I will
say this about the Air Force: when it comes to building an air base in the
True Middle Of Nowhere, there are unsurpassed. The civil engineers have
done themselves proud. While a few folks still live in a tent City, most of
us live in double wides on cinder blocks, a massive improvement in
habitability and certainly nicer digs than my Marine pals in Iraq have.
There is even running water, after a fashion, shipped in from a
desalinization plant. There is a septic field as well, which makes for good
sanitation. A veritable fleet of orange septic trucks run every day to
remove the residue of a few thousand souls from this man made and rather
expensively built oasis of rock, pavement, plastic, and steel. (One wag
spelled out on the side of an orange septic truck, with white reflectie
tape, "Dookie Monster." Such passes for wit 'round here, I guess.)

I was floored and pleased to run into, three nights ago, some Canadian
gents. For political reasons, their government does not fly its flag over
this base, though they have worked here in the past and I think still help
in Afghanistan. Even better, I found that one of them knew quite well a
Canadian helicopter pilot I worked with some 12 years ago in San Diego!
Small world, we shared a beer and a few cigarettes. Pilots of all stripes
find it easy to socialize together, I have found. The Brits are their usual
cocky and funny selves, the Aussies immensely fun to work with (I missed
their 25 April sunrise service for Remembrance Day, was on duty) and the
Japanese professional and polite, as I recall from my sojourn there. The
French, . . . aah, the French. Nice enough chaps, the pilots, here to
support the brand spanking new nuclear powered Aircraft Carrier DeGaulle
that is providing nominal support for the Afghanistan Operation. The poor
blokes are quite hamstrung politically in what they can actually do. Rough
on their professional pride, though they make the best show of it that they
can. I rather admire them for that. Damn, I think the Brits are getting to
me, I just re read that and it sounds a bit Brit! EEEEP! My NATO English
has not completely worn off, even after 6 years!

This has run a bit long. Will be getting to work in a bit here, so I will
sign off. More in the not too distant future. Not having to fix plumbing
or mow the lawn leaves some time for correspondence.

Occhi
"But it's a dry heat!"

I've been playing an Average, Large, 5 opponent map as the Darloks in an attempt to figure out spying and to win a final war (Darloks seemed like a good choice, with the spying and security bonuses). Anyway, check out the poor Altari and their starting area:




Heh heh, poor little birdies. They would be wiped out by the Klackons later on.

PS: Am I crazy to love playing as the Darloks? Maybe it was just the map and my opponents, but in this game I jumped out to an unbelievable tech edge - spying was a cinch with all of my computer tech h34r: . I was researching Adv. Computer Tech VII before my closest rival had gotten Mark VII! Also, in Final War, the 20% Security Bonus REALLY helps cut down on Rebellions, Sabotage, and Espionage. Rebellions in particular seem to be quite fatal in Final War

Not to mention they have the sweetest graphics in the game! I especially like the gropo Darlok and his badass sword. I named myself Palpatine, re-named my homeworld Coruscant and had a great ol' time! A great race for evil final-war roleplaying - DEATH TO THE REPUBLIC! :war:.

I have been a little sick lately. Nothing serious, or so I thought. Had a lot of chest congestion, some coughing, lots of mucus. Thought it was a cold. On Friday, at the doctors office, I got a battery of xrays and scans, doctors thought I might have a slight touch of pneumonia.

Today I found out I have a tumor in my lung. Right where my lung connects to my wind pipe. A big lump. And even though it's only xrays and scans, I know what it is. The tendrils are easy to see, and my doctors have no doubts. It's latched onto a rich nest of blood vessels. It's that damned little octopus from hell again. Lousy little fucker is back for round two. I know it's motives, I know how it works, and I know how fast it can spread.

I just found out today, so I don't yet know what is going to happen. But soon, very soon, I will be going AFK for a bit. I don't know how long. I might need to travel this time. I just... don't know anything yet. I am guessing that to remove it, if such a thing is possible, everything around it is probably going to have to go. I think. I don't know. There are new procedures now, new lasers, new surgery techniques since Round One.

In as little as a week or so I will be going for an extended AFK. Against my wishes, I going into some cancer clinic. I don't know, I was awfully upset. Pissed even. Really frigging pissed.

I knew that it was only a matter of time... but it is so soon. I am not going to rant about life not being fair... But I am just not prepared. I do not feel cocky. I do not feel confident. I feel weak and old and tired. I have been worn thin lately. My mental state of mind has not been good. This has caught me at the worst possible time, with so many irons in the fire that demand my attention.

More details as they come.

I'm brand new to the site, and wanted to compliment all the folks who have done such a great job in setting this up. Well done!!!

I'm a veteran MOO player, but I have no prior experience with net-related game playing, so I thought this would be difficult. Thanks to the excellent instructions, I had MOO up and runing on XP for the first time last night. (I'll post a report shortly)

After the disappointment of MOO III, I hadn't much hope for any new MOO experiences, so this is a real treat. MOO I is my favorite strategy game of all time - the balnces and interfaces in the game flow so seamlessly. It really does deserve the tribute that you have given it.

Thanks again for everything!

Players have until Monday night (their local time) to complete this event. Reports are due by the end of Tuesday night. Please post your game summary, or report, or a link to your report, in this thread. Reports or additional information to supplement game summaries are welcome any time, but at least a summary must be posted on time to be included among the list of official participants for this inaugural event.

Let the comparisons and discussions begin!


- Sirian
Event Sponsor

Not sure if this is the right place to post this, but I just realized (while working on my Report website) that there's no link from RealmsBeyond.net to the Realms Beyond Orion page. The only link is in Sirian's thread in the Master of Orion forum. The URL is easy enough, but if you don't know it's there, there's no way to get there from Realms Beyond. Maybe a link could be added to the Realms Beyond front page. While I'm at it, there's also no link from there to this new forum, the links still lead back to the old forum, and again if you didn't know the forums had moved, you wouldn't find these. There is a link in a thread in the General forum, but it's not obvious, and will gradually move down the page. Same for the links in threads in the Civ and GalCiv forums. Especialy as report times come up for both the First Imperium and the next Epic, it would be good to make it easy for visitors to the main Realms Beyond pages to find the new forums.

For those not in the gaming mainstream, Lineage II goes live next week.

http://www.lineage2.com/main.asp

This is a MMORPG from Korea that uses the Unreal engine.

I’ve been checking out the open Beta for a week or so, and my take is:

“Save your money.”

The good: Spell effects, character models, mood, lighting and music (a bit overwrought and flakey, but at least they tried), user controls and interface.

The ok: Scenery. Look controls.

The bad: Game engine (oddly enough) runs much more poorly than Unreal, engrish, minimal effort adapting game for North America, compass/minimap (or the explanation thereof), GM’s, monster AI and pathing.

The ugly: PvP and karma system, player bots, player griefers you can’t deal with due to (aforementioned) silly PvP and karma system, leveling grind, Grind, GRIND (assuming you can find someplace to level not being farmed by player bots or hunted by PK’s), downtime, Downtime, DOWNTIME.

Sigh. I would REALLY like to like this game, and am rather attached to my Dark Elf Assassin, but, sheesh! I actually have a rather high tolerance for griefers and jerks online—dealing with them adds a bit of spice to life. It is the downtime (and stupid GM’s) that are the killers for me.

Last night sums up my relationship with the game nicely. I ran around, did a couple of quests, got a couple of new ones and a new dagger , and trucked up to the edge of town. It was 10:30 pm; I had an hour of good gaming time ahead that could be stretched out if things were going well. I was stocked up and regenned, and had an open quest out in an area of the game I had never been to before. So I….logged out, picked up a book, and read a bit before bed. You see, I wanted to do something entertaining before I went to bed for the night…

I guess I’ll go explore the new area tonight. Unless something good is on TV. Or I’d rather clean up the kitchen. Or do laundry. Or wonder how long until WoW or EQ II.

Cy

I'm currently playing an Impossible game as the Psilons. My chief rival is the Bulrathi, who are about even with me in population but well ahead in technology and production. They have Class X planetary shields and Class VII deflectors, and I have nothing that can penetrate that shielding, so the combat is taking place over my planets.

Here's the start of one combat:






Although the Rhino is no threat to my planet, I'm going to target it first because it's the fastest:



And now the Rhino is just barely in range of my nuke missiles. I shoot one.



Although the missile will do exactly one point of damage if it hits, the Rhino backs up to avoid it. Now the slower ships are in range of my Hyper-V missiles:



And the Warbear backs up to avoid the missile. The Rhino should be killed by the volley that's on the way; I spend this volley of planetary missiles on the Colony ship to further reduce the number of targets. Another Nuke is targeted on the Grizzly stack:



Now, I'm going to target the Warbear with the planetary missiles:



The Warbear is now in range of the Hyper-Vs:



And now the Grizzlies are coming back for more:



Four turns later, the Warbear is destroyed, and the Grizzlies are in range for a Hyper-V:



I finish off the Grizzly with one Hyper-V and three nuclear missiles left over.

I probably could have retreated my ships and beaten these guys with my missile bases, but this would have worked just as well if they were packing bombs or bio weapons. This trick is less effective if the invaders have good speed or missiles - although I've had good success in the latter case with a large design with auto repair and one rack each of Hyper-Vs and nukes. If you're careful in your targeting, you can often make two stacks back up on one turn.

I have no idea what posessed me to post this, but for some odd a reason a communal recipe thread seemed like a good idea. To get into each other's heads better and maybe try a new food.

I'll start.

I used to call it "The Reason I am Still Single" but now is refered to "The True Love Tester." A lot of my foods have fun names. No idea why. When I fix one of these now, my wife pleads and bargains with me for me not to eat it. I only feel that it is fair to post a warning, don't plan any romantic encounters or even any social functions for a few days... Or, if you are evil, make social plans. Punish society for their sins.

What you need.

6 large fresh eggs.
Several thick crusty slices of rye.
Bell pepper, cut into rings. I like using red and green for festive colours!
Cilantro, oragano, rosemary, dill, and salt and pepper to taste. Greens should be fresh and minced.
One vidalia or burmuda onion. Take your pick, both drastically change the sammich dynamic.
Good olive oil.
Red wine vinegar.
Mozerella cheese, hopefully freshly home made. Can also use feta cheese or even ricotta.
Capers and a pickle.
Oh yeah, some baby romaine head lettuce.

Be very careful how you prepare the eggs. Cook them wrong and your sammich is ruined. Yucky. I like the 13 minute method, which I will cover here. Fill large pan with cold water. Add eggs. Salt water and add a splash of olive oil. Bring to rolling boil. The moment it comes to a rolling boil, remove from heat, cover, and let sit for 13 minutes. When the timer dings, quickly spoon out eggs with a bit metal spoon and drop them carefully into a cold water and ice cube bath to stop the cooking. Egg whites should be soft and silky feeling, not rubbery. Yolks should be velvety and slightly crumbly, never hard or green or black. Eww. The texture is everything here.

Chop eggs into hunks. Don't mince, chop. Hunks. Large bit sized pieces. Chop mozerella into hunks. Add a small portion of eggs to a large stainless steel mixing bowl. Add a slight splash of olive oil and red wine vinegar. Add more eggs. Toss the mix, don't stir it with a spoon as you will only moosh the eggs. There should never be to much oil or vinegar. Just enough to coat the eggs, but not enough to be loose and runny at the bottom of the bowl. Add seasonings. Toss carefully. Add cheese. Toss. Add capers. Toss.

Prepare bread. I like mine lightly toasted, to carmalize. On bread, drizzle a slight amount of olive oil and vinegar, and add a smidge of the freshly minced oregano. On the bottom slice, lay a bed of fresh baby romaine leaves. Carefully spoon egg salad mixture on to lettuce bed. Add a slice or two of onion, a few rings of bell peppers, add top slice of bread. Serve with a fresh dill pickle... Hopefully home made as the store bought ones are nasty... Eww. Especially good with a dark bitter ale for some reason. I find the taste irresistable and delicious... I eat these probably, hrm, 2 or 3 times a week.

Delicious... And good for you. Different, as most people think of egg salad as nasty mustardy mayo nastiness smeared onto bread. Blech.

Again, I must warn you...

After eating this, your breath will smell like you french kissed a zombie. Your SO will most likely flee from you. So will most other folks. Eating one of these is antisocial at best, criminal at worst, with Dubbya showing up at your door asking you about Dubbya Emm Dees. Please, for the love of all things good, don't dutch oven your SO after eating one of these. (Farting and pulling the blankets over their heads) Don't go on car trips. Don't go to movie theatres. Don't take romantic baths together, unless you really did want a bubbling hot tub on the cheap. Do NOT feed to small children and then send them home with their parents, as said parents might try to put a voodoo curse on you or give you the evil eye come next gathering. Do NOT feed to dog or cat or fox or house hold pets. Just take my word on this one mmmkay?