Tripp Hazzard

The complete elimination of weapon redraw.

Functional Holsters/Sheaths

Full Power Customization: choose the animation, choose the emission point (T for Teen means no groins, get over it! ), choose and customize the optional prop, customize the color and sound effect.

No whining/entitlement on the Forums.

It CAN be done with the current engine, but it would probably require a whole new set of animations to match the weaponless effect to a weapon stance.

Which, according to BAB, is one heckuva lot of work, so it's probably quite unlikely.

OTOH, that is exactly why they didn't do power color customization for so long -- the amount of work necessary to implement it was prohibitive with the staff they had. And we did (eventually) get that, once they had the staff to do it. So maybe it's not as unlikely as one would think.

OTTT (On The Third Hand), some people would want a one-handed weapon, like a raygun, some would want a two-handed rifle version, and others want it from a wand, and others want it from a staff. And while you'd probably point a wand directly at the target, do you point the staff, too, or just raise it and it comes from the head of the staff? So now we're talking about 4, maybe even 5 complete new sets of animations. And we're back in the unlikely camp.

And what "weaponless" animations would you use? The Energy Blast ones have the "gathering force" at the start, which wouldn't make much sense with a weapon. Fire and Electric are only suitable for those sets. I think you'd actually need a new set of "beam" effects for the attacks.

But if it ever happened, I've got a couple of character concepts that would fit it perfectly.

Edit: Heh. Overlapped with Pork.

Look at Energy Assault again. All the blasts come from a closed horizontal fist. You'd have to change that to a hand holding a gun. And at least one has both fists side by side. Another change. And then Pork's better description of mine for the Wand/Staff conflicts.

Power Posts may not always be the most well-thought-out, but they are always positive and enthusiastic, showing a true love of the game. Power just tends to post in the initial rush of excitement, which is better than the way others post in the initial rush of rage.

Don't stop, Power, you help balance the bile.

And as anyone who's seen my other thread knows, I messed up on the video, and have to get a card anyway.

Ouch.

Oh, well, it'll be nice to have onboard graphics in case I have problems with the card.

The parts should be here Monday. I expect to install them next weekend (so I have time to swat any bugs that crop up), and I'll post an update here for those who are interested.

Thank you, FX. That guide is going to be very useful!

My current mobo is several years old, and was far from cutting edge even when new. It only has an AGP video connector, and I'm currently running an NVIDIA 7600 GT, that being the best it could handle.

I'm going to see if I can find an Ultra Mode compatible card locally that I can afford, and then I should be okay for another couple of years.

The neat thing is I'll be jumping 8-10 tiers on that chart. I should see an astronomical increase in my video quality, and in the overall performance.

Prepaid credit card?

Debit card?

Out of curiosity, why is PayPal not an option?

Me again.

I think I shafted myself on my planned upgrade.

I need a minimum of Radeon 3850 video for what I want to do.

I purchased a board with Radeon 4200 video onboard, thinking that 4200 is better than 3850, no?

But a little more research indicates that in Radeon numbering the first digit is the series, and the next three indicate the "level" of the card.

So I need x850 or better, and bought x200.

I still need better video, no?

That 35111 was the HIGHEST bid pending . . . wow. I feel your pain.

(PS: "Your" = "Belongs to you". "You're" = "You are" )

Hopefully this isn't a discouragement, but I'll be there, too, as soon as I upgrade my system (Note to self: read the specs BEFORE buying the game!).

Not leaving CoH, just expanding my Happy Fun Time options.

You can pay the rent in Galaxy City, too.

There's a random chance that Zombie Groundhogs with Lasers on their heads will rain from the sky in a random zone whenever anyone enters the Arachnos tunnels in Faultline.

Well, they do in MY reality . . . .

I've now got this image of a blaster laying out a string of mines, then stepping out from the corner and going "Needer, needer, needer!" at the bad guys . . . .

Well, no one was screaming "DON'T BUY THAT!", so I pulled the trigger. I'll have to upgrade the video to take advantage of Ultra Mode, but I should have more money to work with by then.

I appreciate everyone's input, and especially the drive and system information links. It was all actually much more helpful than it might look like just reading the thread.

Thanks, all!


Edit: being able to hold off on a video card allowed me to add a 500GB hard drive. I currently have OS/Apps on one drive, Data on another. I'll migrate both to separate partitions on the 500 to take advantage of SATA's speed, and it'll probably STILL be faster than my current setup.

Keyboard and mouse are USB, so I'm okay there.

Any experience with IDE to SATA adapters? Would that let me get by until I can replace the drives?


I have issues with TigerDirect, but I may swallow my pride and see how they do on the prices. Haven't heard of Insight, I'll see what they have.

Thanks to you both.

NewEgg pulled the vid card I'd selected due to "limited or insufficient quantities", and the Mobo/CPU combo I'd selected has expired. So I'm starting over.

Father Xmas, after paring your $600 system down to the components I need, it's only $40 over my budget.

Would you be willing to elaborate on your reasons for those specific items? Do you already have a post somewhere giving that info?

Edit: Carp. That Mobo is SATA, isn't it? My drives are still IDE, and I need two IDE channels. Yes, I know IDE is outdated, but I'm trying to avoid replacing EVERYTHING.

Edit 2: Double Carp. Everything's SATA now, isn't it? So I'm going to need to upgrade my hard drives, too. And that blows me out of the water.

Guess I won't be playing STO, or seeing Ultra Mode, for a long time.

PSU is 420W, no worries there.

My budget's in the $300-350 range -- the tax return's not going to be as much as I'd hoped.

As mentioned, I need Mobo/CPU/Ram and Vid Card. I'll be dropping them into my existing system.

Messing around on Newegg, I've put together this package for $320:


ECS IC780M-A2 (V1.0A) AM3 AMD 770 ATX AMD Motherboard

AMD Athlon II X2 245 Regor 2.9GHz Socket AM3 65W Dual-Core Processor Model ADX245OCGQBOX

G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory

PNY XLR8 VCG98GTEE1XEB GeForce 9800 GT 1GB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card


I know Elite's not the best Mobo, but I've used them in the past and found them satisfactory.

I'm assuming that an Athlon II X2 is as good or better than an Athlon X2?

I also know that I won't get the full 4G with XP, but I'll live with whatever's left over after XP allocates what it needs. Heck, the vid card's going to eat a full gig of that anyway.

Suggestions? Warnings? Cautions?

You're absolutely right on the video. I finally found the Ultra mode info (funny thing, searching for "ultimate mode" didn't find it ), and yeah, I want to kill both birds with this stone. So I want a video card that can handle that, and it will also cover my STO needs.

To further elaborate, I'm perfectly comfortable with making hardware upgrades on my system. I've even put together more than one system from scratch, and all but one booted on the first try. (The one that didn't turned out to be a defective stick of RAM.) But those were all pretty much "kits" , with the actual pieces chosen by people that knew what they were doing.

I'm more than willing to go 3GB of ram, and yes, I'm running XP and plan to stay with it for a while yet.

Between "Ultimate Mode" and Star Trek Online, it's time to upgrade my system, so I turn to the friendliest batch of tech-heads I know of.

I need to meet these specs:

* CPU: Intel E8400 Core 2 Duo or AMD Athlon X2 5600+
* Memory: 2GB RAM+
* Video: NVIDIA GeForce 8800 / ATI Radeon HD 3850+

I would prefer an AMD processor, but I'm not locked into it.

I'm assuming that combo will also run the upcoming "Ultimate" graphics mode?

I need MoBo, Processor, 2Gb of memory and vid card at as reasonable a cost as we can come up with.

Thanks in advance!

No.

My mother's mother was a Danish immigrant, and I still say "No".

This is a SUPERHERO game, not a Medieval/Fantasy game. We already have plenty of magic/time travel/fantasy in the game.

We need more Tech/Future/Sci-Fi.

We need a Moon/Space Zone. Maybe even an Underwater Zone. We don't need more historical/fantasy zones.

My two inf.:

It didn't produce the overwhelming flood of transfers they thought it would.

Extending it another month not only makes players happy, it allows them to confirm that.

And datamining the transfers gave them valuable info to help identify RMTers.

I predict we'll see this made permanent.

I called it "Deadheading" until I heard it referred to as the Hospital Express.

But I think I'm going to call it The Red Line now.

And I use it occasionally even after level 10. Debt is a nuisance at most. As long as you're not obsessed with your numbers, it's just no big deal.