It's off-topic, but Arthur Anderson was arguably/more/ dishonorable than Enron, since an accounting firm is supposed to stop such shenanighans, not find ways to facilitate them. In addition, it was at Arthur Andersen that the document destruction occurred.
Wal-Mart's sysadmins still need to spend the time to take the system offline, do a full security audit, and reinstall -- since there/could/ and quite possibly was another backdoor installed for more serious violations.
With graffiti in the Real World, normally that's on the OUTSIDE and only a cleanup is required.
What about wedding planning and interior decorating, both of which I'd figure are completely female-dominated, and both of which are rife with details?
That's a curious age, because in many American schools that's when mathematics education shifts from concrete basics like arithmetic to more abstraction and rigor, such as algebra and geometry (which is often the first course in which students have a large amount of theorem proving to do).
For pure sadism, I once put seven max-miniaturized Stellar Converters on the same doom star, in/one slot/. That generated a pretty big damage number when hitting Antares, if memory serves.
The AI did come out with some truly bizarre ship designs. I once saw an AI running around with Doom Stars... armed mostly with vast numbers of nuclear bombs, and with practically no defensive systems.;)
As for luck... whoever was behind gets far more beneficial random events, which is why the AIs will constantly get thousands of free credits and numerous free techs, while your events will mostly consist of exploding ships and monster attacks if you've been playing well. I've seen the game try to punish a human player with an Antaran attack (good, once you have assault shuttles or tractor beams; bad before then) *and* a monster attack on the same turn.
Another approach is to use waves of missiles (MIRV FAST ECCM ARM merculites to get the shields, then a couple of MIRV FAST ECCM ARM EMG merculites to get the warp core explosion; couple with fast missile ranks to get off maximum numbers). EMG merculites takes both Computers and Chemistry, however.
MOO2's usually going for about $10 new. Try amazon.com, gamestop.com or ebgames.com -- one or more of those should have it. If memory serves, that's how much I paid for it (boxed version w/ decent paper manual, not just a jewel-case).
From what I've read, MOO3 was/meant/ to be pretty different (imperial focus points and all)... but they scaled that back dramatically, and also have been having numerous delays and assorted issues during development. It ain't looking pretty, so you might want to wait for reviews -- and perhaps go for Galactic Civilizations from Stardock instead, which should be coming out around the same time. Brad Wardell's been pretty good about updates about it on USENET (comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.strategic, notably).
Incidentally, at least on my system (a PIII-ish Celeron running Win2K and a GF2MX400), the mouse frequently locks in MOO2 v1.31. This can usually be fixed with opening up a dialog box (use the keyboard), and right-clicking and dragging. It wasn't meant for Win2K... if you have a 9X-based system, it may work better for you. There's also some instability bugs when moving captured populations, AFAICT.
No, no. As of 1.31, the final patch, graviton beams still did structure damage/before/ penetrating armor -- despite the description. Try them out; it's one of the bugged weapons.
Another weapon bug comes in the combo of Black Hole Generators being completely ineffectual when ship initiative is on. La-di-da, you can wait wait wait and ships never take damage, let alone implode.
It is, and this is being generous, 16% of a preview....and it was mostly backstory, which from a gamer's POV won't necessarily be that important. If he wanted to "introduce the players", it would be better to describe the race advantages/disads in GAMEPLAY terms, and then describe the races in terms of how they PLAY.
This was more of a fragment of a preview of the MOO3/story/, not the game.
Hm, according to the Mooniac guide, miniaturization is rather limited... I think that once you get to Hyper-Advanced VI or so in all the fields that have ship components you want, they don't get any smaller.
I don't recall seeing Stellar Converters go below 200, for instance. And the Antaran tech, as somebody else mentioned, never miniaturizes, so it becomes much more worthwhile to use HV AF disrupters w/ Achilles + Structural Analyzer + HEF (it's not like shields won't go down in a jiffy at that point...)
Stasis beams and the warp interdictor/stargate combo were still both perversely strong, however, and 1.31's ship initiative broke the black hole generator (it simply doesn't hurt the victims anymore).
You're neglecting the most munchkin weapon of them all -- the lowly Stasis Field.
It's got short range, but either phase cloak or subspace teleporter can get you into range in a jiffy. Then it/completely/ imprisons a ship so it can't do anything, even repair...
A horde of small, fast ships with stasis beams and a remotely decent weapon can kill most things, if extremely slowly and with painful repetiveness.
At the very minimum, it involves deception -- because vendors enter into a transaction under the assumption that purchasers will abide by the laws and agreements, and somebody breaks them.
...and as we all know, everybody implements fully-specced APIs perfectly and nobody EVER needs to work around implementation bugs and undocumented features. Right. What world do you live in?
Erm, console games can also be a lot less bug-prone because of the extremely limited target platform -- that is, people aren't swapping out video subsystems, audio hardware, et al, on consoles very often. In addition, that console isn't running random buggy freeware cursor utilities at the same time, nor is there much of a risk of the user corrupting the configuration by tweaking or deleting "useless" files.
WRT Microsoft, go find Bill Gates's "An Open Letter to Hobbyists", sent to the "Altair Users' Newsletter" about how people were stealing copies of his BASIC interpreter.
I've seen plenty of posts on Slashdot offering ways to get around the free registration for the New York Times and similar sites, because people aren't willing to give up the slightest detail for content.
Buyers should always beware. If you don't have the money to throw around frivolously, do yourself a favor and wait for reviews from people who do. Especially in the case of high-profile computer games, it's not like there aren't hordes of USENET posters who'll lambast a product if they feel it deserves it.
So? Adobe sells cheaper versions, too -- Photoshop Elements comes to mind, and IIRC it's in the area of $99. Then, there are competitors, such as JASC's Paint Shop Pro (also in that price range); and some Gimp fanatics will claim that the Gimp is a reasonable free alternative, even on Windows. And you can probably find older versions of PS full on eBay, slashing your argument even further...
Oh, and the big costs are going to be support and development/Q&A, not production...
Why don't you ask him to link some statistics from a reliable source, such as the IRS; rather than pithy, but not necessarily accurate or applicable, quotes?
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One is, but being a US citizen doesn't change the fact that he was captured in Afghanistan along with fellow Taliban soldiers.
It's off-topic, but Arthur Anderson was arguably /more/ dishonorable than Enron, since an accounting firm is supposed to stop such shenanighans, not find ways to facilitate them. In addition, it was at Arthur Andersen that the document destruction occurred.
Wal-Mart's sysadmins still need to spend the time to take the system offline, do a full security audit, and reinstall -- since there /could/ and quite possibly was another backdoor installed for more serious violations.
With graffiti in the Real World, normally that's on the OUTSIDE and only a cleanup is required.
What about wedding planning and interior decorating, both of which I'd figure are completely female-dominated, and both of which are rife with details?
That's a curious age, because in many American schools that's when mathematics education shifts from concrete basics like arithmetic to more abstraction and rigor, such as algebra and geometry (which is often the first course in which students have a large amount of theorem proving to do).
For pure sadism, I once put seven max-miniaturized Stellar Converters on the same doom star, in /one slot/. That generated a pretty big damage number when hitting Antares, if memory serves.
Dumping is selling below cost to damage competitors. What, prithee tell, is the cost to Microsoft of a license?
As long as they sell enough licenses to recoup their costs, they're definitely not dumping.
On obsolete ships...
;)
The AI did come out with some truly bizarre ship designs. I once saw an AI running around with Doom Stars... armed mostly with vast numbers of nuclear bombs, and with practically no defensive systems.
It did get production bonuses.
As for luck... whoever was behind gets far more beneficial random events, which is why the AIs will constantly get thousands of free credits and numerous free techs, while your events will mostly consist of exploding ships and monster attacks if you've been playing well. I've seen the game try to punish a human player with an Antaran attack (good, once you have assault shuttles or tractor beams; bad before then) *and* a monster attack on the same turn.
Gyro Destabilizers.
Another approach is to use waves of missiles (MIRV FAST ECCM ARM merculites to get the shields, then a couple of MIRV FAST ECCM ARM EMG merculites to get the warp core explosion; couple with fast missile ranks to get off maximum numbers). EMG merculites takes both Computers and Chemistry, however.
MOO2's usually going for about $10 new. Try amazon.com, gamestop.com or ebgames.com -- one or more of those should have it. If memory serves, that's how much I paid for it (boxed version w/ decent paper manual, not just a jewel-case).
/meant/ to be pretty different (imperial focus points and all)... but they scaled that back dramatically, and also have been having numerous delays and assorted issues during development. It ain't looking pretty, so you might want to wait for reviews -- and perhaps go for Galactic Civilizations from Stardock instead, which should be coming out around the same time. Brad Wardell's been pretty good about updates about it on USENET (comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.strategic, notably).
From what I've read, MOO3 was
Incidentally, at least on my system (a PIII-ish Celeron running Win2K and a GF2MX400), the mouse frequently locks in MOO2 v1.31. This can usually be fixed with opening up a dialog box (use the keyboard), and right-clicking and dragging. It wasn't meant for Win2K... if you have a 9X-based system, it may work better for you. There's also some instability bugs when moving captured populations, AFAICT.
No, no. As of 1.31, the final patch, graviton beams still did structure damage /before/ penetrating armor -- despite the description. Try them out; it's one of the bugged weapons.
Another weapon bug comes in the combo of Black Hole Generators being completely ineffectual when ship initiative is on. La-di-da, you can wait wait wait and ships never take damage, let alone implode.
It is, and this is being generous, 16% of a preview. ...and it was mostly backstory, which from a gamer's POV won't necessarily be that important. If he wanted to "introduce the players", it would be better to describe the race advantages/disads in GAMEPLAY terms, and then describe the races in terms of how they PLAY.
/story/, not the game.
This was more of a fragment of a preview of the MOO3
Hm, according to the Mooniac guide, miniaturization is rather limited... I think that once you get to Hyper-Advanced VI or so in all the fields that have ship components you want, they don't get any smaller.
I don't recall seeing Stellar Converters go below 200, for instance. And the Antaran tech, as somebody else mentioned, never miniaturizes, so it becomes much more worthwhile to use HV AF disrupters w/ Achilles + Structural Analyzer + HEF (it's not like shields won't go down in a jiffy at that point...)
Yes, they changed the extra-turn sequence.
Stasis beams and the warp interdictor/stargate combo were still both perversely strong, however, and 1.31's ship initiative broke the black hole generator (it simply doesn't hurt the victims anymore).
You're neglecting the most munchkin weapon of them all -- the lowly Stasis Field.
/completely/ imprisons a ship so it can't do anything, even repair...
It's got short range, but either phase cloak or subspace teleporter can get you into range in a jiffy. Then it
A horde of small, fast ships with stasis beams and a remotely decent weapon can kill most things, if extremely slowly and with painful repetiveness.
At the very minimum, it involves deception -- because vendors enter into a transaction under the assumption that purchasers will abide by the laws and agreements, and somebody breaks them.
...and as we all know, everybody implements fully-specced APIs perfectly and nobody EVER needs to work around implementation bugs and undocumented features. Right. What world do you live in?
Erm, console games can also be a lot less bug-prone because of the extremely limited target platform -- that is, people aren't swapping out video subsystems, audio hardware, et al, on consoles very often. In addition, that console isn't running random buggy freeware cursor utilities at the same time, nor is there much of a risk of the user corrupting the configuration by tweaking or deleting "useless" files.
If you like dark, try some Camus, Dostoevsky, or Kafka. Or, even some Chekov (e.g. "Sleepy").
WRT Microsoft, go find Bill Gates's "An Open Letter to Hobbyists", sent to the "Altair Users' Newsletter" about how people were stealing copies of his BASIC interpreter.
I've seen plenty of posts on Slashdot offering ways to get around the free registration for the New York Times and similar sites, because people aren't willing to give up the slightest detail for content.
Buyers should always beware. If you don't have the money to throw around frivolously, do yourself a favor and wait for reviews from people who do. Especially in the case of high-profile computer games, it's not like there aren't hordes of USENET posters who'll lambast a product if they feel it deserves it.
So? Adobe sells cheaper versions, too -- Photoshop Elements comes to mind, and IIRC it's in the area of $99. Then, there are competitors, such as JASC's Paint Shop Pro (also in that price range); and some Gimp fanatics will claim that the Gimp is a reasonable free alternative, even on Windows. And you can probably find older versions of PS full on eBay, slashing your argument even further...
Oh, and the big costs are going to be support and development/Q&A, not production...
Why don't you ask him to link some statistics from a reliable source, such as the IRS; rather than pithy, but not necessarily accurate or applicable, quotes?