PKDauntless

I'm sure someone has already considered this but using this tech to capture and create a library of the city zones would be a great way to save another slice of the game. If only the camera were a little faster. Can you imagine trying to pan and fly through IP or Nerva?

I second what Arcanaville said about the mouselook. It's difficult to get used to.

This little trick has made me insanely happy. Yay... And now I'm sad again. But less sad because I know I can save something from this game I love. Now we just need a place to share these demorecord files so people could take base tours of everyone's bases at their leisure.

ETA: Thank you, Black Pebble. Thank you for sharing this neat trick and thank you Arcanaville for posting about it.

This is bad news for me since this is the only way I have to pay for the game. (No bank account or credit card.) Amazon does have the 30-day cards but I still have the same issue regardless of whether they have the 30- or 60-day cards and it seems like a silly step to me to have to buy an Amazon gift card to then buy the CoH time card.

Allow me to introduce the Maritime Prepositioning Force employed by the USMC: http://www.msc.navy.mil/pm3/mpf.asp. While I was stationed at Camp Lejeune we went on an exercise in Honduras where we unloaded these ships, cleaned and tested all the gear, and put it all back where it could be used should it need to be. This was done on a yearly basis. The exercise itself serves the double duty of maintenance of the gear and training for the rapid deployment of equipment.

The MEUs themselves are formed from existing units. IIRC, they're together for a year with six months of training followed by six months of active deployment to sea. (Please remember that I wasn't in a MEU and this was twenty years ago and I've slept at least once since then.)

Before the Gulf War in 90-91, the Joint Chiefs were polled by POTUS about how quickly they could get a force into country should it be necessary. Commandant Alfred Gray quoted three to seven days depending upon the size of force required. When I was in the Corps, there were always units on twenty-four hour alert status. These are battalions who are trained to pancake some pancake up.

Even in peacetime operations the Marines always sanitize their own water supply so it's something they are used to. The standard first aid kit I was issued came with iodine tablets for this very purpose. (And iodized water tastes nasty but it's got no bugs in it.) There's also SOP for preparing local food for consumption which wouldn't have to change all that much once the Marines located and identified adequate food sources. It wouldn't have to taste good because Marines carry hot sauce. The Marines would have simple science on their side as well as a handful of men who grew up hunting, fishing, and/or farming before they joined the military. I don't think food would be an issue. STDs, on the other hand...

I disagree with the morale issue simply because basic training tends to weed out the sort of person who would totally give up in that fashion. There would be some, certainly a few would make it through basic and others might develop mental issues in theater; but look at the history of armed conflict with the Marine Corps and you won't see a lot of suicides. You might see some desertion but not a lot simply because they wouldn't have anywhere to go.

"Shut up and soldier" is a phrase I've heard my Army buddies use and it would apply to the Marines as well. Dealing with the stress of such an extreme situation would be made much easier by simply concentrating on 'the mission' and worrying about extraction afterward.

Yet one more reason I like you, Steelclaw.

I was in communications working in Regiment and Division level communication centers so I wasn't infantry. Still, I completely agree with Steelclaw's assessment. Unlike in the movies, Marines aren't superheroes nor are they completely disfunctional man-children playing with expensive, deadly toys. They are professionals trained to do a dirty job. Many Marine officers are intelligent, well-educated, and prepared for unusual situations. Everything Steelclaw outlined jives with my personal experience as something a well-prepared commander would and could devise.

Finally, I'd like to point out one thing I think might have been overlooked by many of the folks so far. A MEU would have a compliment of combat engineers. I spent a year assigned to 3rd CEB in Okinawa. I've seen some of the things these guys can do to change the complexion of a battlefield. They don't even need anything more high tech than some axes, picks, and shovels to get the job done.

I've always been a fan of this Lazarus Long quote from Time Enough For Love by Robert Heinlein in reference to a modern sort of Renaissance Man:
A modern Renaissance Man/Woman wouldn't need to be able to do everything but should have a wide range of interests and skills. He should be conversant in almost anything that might come up within his native culture and those related; and, even if he weren't specifically skilled in something, he would be able to find the necessary information and work it through. Taken to the heroic extreme you have a character like Buckaroo Banzai or The Most Interesting Man in the World from the Dos Equis commercials.

Lucky. I was stuck programming boring old medical insurance software for 17 years before the company decided I was the expendable one.

More importantly thought: Happy 40th! Forty is a great age. I enjoyed much of forty. (Forty-two coming up for me in a few days. W00t!)

Both Help and Combat tabs removed and no perceivable improvement.

Could someone point me toward a reliable memory test for a machine running the 32-bit version of XP Professional? Bonus points for a test that doesn't have to be burned to a CD/DVD first.

Also, I've read that the 32-bit version of XP has a hard limit of 4GB of memory but there is a potential workaround. Is this reliable, advisable, and stable for running CoH with? I happen to have a fourth 1GB memory stick (assuming it still works) and an open memory slot.

Just checked. I do not. I also made sure to disable the ATI Hotkey Poller after installing the new drivers.

This might be slightly difficult considering this message on the Driver Sweeper download page: Attention - Guru3D Driver Sweeper has been discontinued as such you will not find any download links here any longer.

Ironblade,

I was hoping for an answer to my question about what /graphfps 1 (Swap) is measuring before posting any system info because I didn't want that to get lost in the process. I realize now that I muddied those waters myself by including too much information to begin with.

Don't misunderstand. I'm grateful for any and all help and will be willing to provide whatever info is necessary. But I've posted all that info before and know how much of a wall of text it is.

I doubt I'm the first to have this idea but this specifically popped into my head as I was reading this thread:

Wrist Watch (Fixed Price “Temp Power”)

Hero Description: Sometimes the best weapon a hero has at his disposal is punctuality.
Villain Description: Can’t case a joint properly without knowing the time.

Cost: 10,000 inf (or similarly low amount)

Animation: Character assumes a neutral stance and gazes at wrist. At the same time a watch face displays on screen with the current time displayed.

Number of Uses: Unlimited.

Several versions could be produced with different displays and slightly modified animations such as a pocket watch, digital wrist watch, a Praetorian Loyalist Commemorative pocket watch, a flip phone, a genuine Longbow Junior League decoder watch, a Rogue Island ferryman’s time piece, etc. There might also be call to develop a version that displays the In-Game time. Maybe the themed versions display local time and In-Game time. The digital might display local time as well as GMT. The flip phone would display date and time.

I realize this is a fluff item but it could be fun and being able to click a power icon to get the time beats trying to remember a slash command. The Waiting emote already includes looking at a wrist watch.

I'll go back to lurking now.

I do believe I'm going to miss Champion and its citizens.