I really doubt they could easily divert power from the primary powerplant the US has, most likely the mobile war machine will remain with regular fuel. It might help with setting up emergency power generators but it's not going to replace fuel, the range of battery powered vehicles is just too short and constantly recharging vehicles would give their position away and is probably unfeasible anyway since you'd have to beam energy to every vehicle in regular intervals (provided you can even install a receiver on a vehicle), limiting your force deployment to a certain number of vehicles in an area and making you highly vulnerable to having your satelite shot down. Unless you plan on carrying huge base stations every vehicle has to return to for recharging but then a single anti-vehicle missile could destroy your supply. This is better used for civilian or aid purposes where you don't have someone attempting to interfere with your system very often.
It's cheap if you receive treatments that cost more than you could usually afford. Considering the number of bankrupcies in the US due to medical expenses that really doesn't seem like an uncommon situation.
We don't know if China actually has accurate surface-to-space weapons capabilities but we know for sure that they have ICBMs which are guaranteed to destroy any ground-based powerplant they hit.
If an insurgent is in a position to be hit by a space laser he's in the position to be hit by a helicopter that's a few orders of magnitude cheaper and does not violate so many treaties that you risk a nuclear war. Problem with insurgents is not hitting them but identifying them.
I think switching to ethanol would still be closer to the pentagon's preferred scenario than oil. After all one of the goals is to reduce oil dependency. However, ethanol will leave the system highly vulnerable to climate change, a risk the US govt with its denial-stance will probably ignore. Climate change may not be a huge risk to humans directly but it increases desertification and affects vegetation periods, failed harvests are even worse news when your whole electric power generation depends on it. On the upside, as crop production reduces the power of the lobby decreases and the pentagon might get listened to. Importing crops would be economic doom for the US since corn is much more expensive in other nations.
Naw, can be done cheaper: Hit those spammers with one nuke and let Russia's counterstrike destroy MS. As a bonus it'll wipe out most of the RIAA and MPAA.
Then they should do something productive with that copyright infringement, e.g. make pamphlets that infringe upon copyright to get attention (say, "Mickey Mouse gets sued" or "Uncle Scrooge steals Fair Use"), affect the public oppinion and possibly kick a huge scandal loose. Downloading the newest music and movies really doesn't demonstrate anything except that you're too cheap to pay for them.
The original TA had horrible AI. It just built crap at random and hoped its units could move anywhere in that mess. I think SupCom's AI is slightly better than that. Neither is among the more intelligent RTS AIs.
The idea of having sex with a rubber doll is not particularly interesting to me, but I don't find it repulsive, precisely because the dolls are not really very lifelike.
I guess you haven't looked at the Realdoll links further up in this thread? Or do you mean the lack of movement?
Also I'm not sure if the turing test hurdle isn't a bit too high, people screw animals after all and those would never pass a turing test.
It's kinda hard for an opensource game to look up to date because it has a much longer lifespan than a commercial game. Its graphics may have been up to date when development started but there's just no way they're going to be current 5 years later (though I don't think AA has been in development that long...).
The only solution I can think of is going for an abstract look that doesn't show what era it's from, something like Tron.
It's not dead at all, maybe you're looking in the wrong place or something (OSRTS died but not Spring, or were you perhaps looking for TA Spring? The project was renamed to just Spring). The current release is kinda crappy though and we're hoping for the next one because the SVN version is just so much better but getting Lua for mods was a huge step ahead for the flexibility of the engine. Also Fang is back and E&E is getting developed again now so Spring is less dead now than a while ago.
AFAIK Linux players can play versus Windows gamers, I've seen it happen. The lack of a binary makes installation a bitch though, I agree.
And it also features roles and playing so it's an RPG too! And it has platforms, that makes it a platformer! There's fighting so surely it's a fighting game? You go through an adventure and it has pointing and clicking so it's a point&click adventure too!
Why does that need more and more complicated systems though? The anticopy stuff gets more and more elaborate and the false positive rate seems to go up with that. Even most of the oldest systems would have prevented unassisted copying.
As for the most common use of warez I see, it'd be fixable if devs just returned to the late 90s with their policies on multiplayer, i.e. you don't need one disc per player in a network game. If we could just throw spawn installs on the other PCs in a network during a LAN we wouldn't have to use cracks and warez to get that running. Multiplayer is the best advertisement for a game there is, I've bought games because I've seen them in multiplayer on a LAN first but for newer games without LAN installs we need to crack 'em anyway and noone has a need to buy the game when he as a fully working copy on his drive already.
Transporting graphical data isn't the issue, making the avatar come out in a way that fits the new world is (e.g. can't take your phaser rifle into Everquest and with those shoes you aren't getting in, either. Never mind we have a strict "no Klingons" policy!). You could just duplicate the data between all engines with minor adjustments but realistically you don't want people who don't fit the environment. Of course Second Life can appreciate that, they have no coherent style anyway but nothing would ruin the atmosphere of a coherent game more than a furry invasion (unless the game was something like Conker: Online).
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I really doubt they could easily divert power from the primary powerplant the US has, most likely the mobile war machine will remain with regular fuel. It might help with setting up emergency power generators but it's not going to replace fuel, the range of battery powered vehicles is just too short and constantly recharging vehicles would give their position away and is probably unfeasible anyway since you'd have to beam energy to every vehicle in regular intervals (provided you can even install a receiver on a vehicle), limiting your force deployment to a certain number of vehicles in an area and making you highly vulnerable to having your satelite shot down. Unless you plan on carrying huge base stations every vehicle has to return to for recharging but then a single anti-vehicle missile could destroy your supply. This is better used for civilian or aid purposes where you don't have someone attempting to interfere with your system very often.
It's cheap if you receive treatments that cost more than you could usually afford. Considering the number of bankrupcies in the US due to medical expenses that really doesn't seem like an uncommon situation.
Who, exactly, gets to decide how one should be allowed to use their "own" resources?
Res Publica.
or china hits it with a missle...
We don't know if China actually has accurate surface-to-space weapons capabilities but we know for sure that they have ICBMs which are guaranteed to destroy any ground-based powerplant they hit.
These are cold war era treaties, the implied penalty for violation was a nuclear strike.
If an insurgent is in a position to be hit by a space laser he's in the position to be hit by a helicopter that's a few orders of magnitude cheaper and does not violate so many treaties that you risk a nuclear war. Problem with insurgents is not hitting them but identifying them.
I think switching to ethanol would still be closer to the pentagon's preferred scenario than oil. After all one of the goals is to reduce oil dependency. However, ethanol will leave the system highly vulnerable to climate change, a risk the US govt with its denial-stance will probably ignore. Climate change may not be a huge risk to humans directly but it increases desertification and affects vegetation periods, failed harvests are even worse news when your whole electric power generation depends on it. On the upside, as crop production reduces the power of the lobby decreases and the pentagon might get listened to. Importing crops would be economic doom for the US since corn is much more expensive in other nations.
Oooh, cool, how can I contribute my space CPU time to the search for honest politicians?
Naw, can be done cheaper: Hit those spammers with one nuke and let Russia's counterstrike destroy MS. As a bonus it'll wipe out most of the RIAA and MPAA.
I wouldn't equate it with murder but I'd rate it among terrorism and sabotage to critical infrastructure.
Then they should do something productive with that copyright infringement, e.g. make pamphlets that infringe upon copyright to get attention (say, "Mickey Mouse gets sued" or "Uncle Scrooge steals Fair Use"), affect the public oppinion and possibly kick a huge scandal loose. Downloading the newest music and movies really doesn't demonstrate anything except that you're too cheap to pay for them.
I'd rather see them spam Putin and getting "disappeared" in return.
I wonder how many people actually want intelligent behaviour from a bot during sex.
Yeah, that's the page. The community news aren't really updated by anyone but the forums are pretty alive.
Or even produce human children, for that matter?
The original TA had horrible AI. It just built crap at random and hoped its units could move anywhere in that mess. I think SupCom's AI is slightly better than that. Neither is among the more intelligent RTS AIs.
The idea of having sex with a rubber doll is not particularly interesting to me, but I don't find it repulsive, precisely because the dolls are not really very lifelike.
I guess you haven't looked at the Realdoll links further up in this thread? Or do you mean the lack of movement?
Also I'm not sure if the turing test hurdle isn't a bit too high, people screw animals after all and those would never pass a turing test.
It's kinda hard for an opensource game to look up to date because it has a much longer lifespan than a commercial game. Its graphics may have been up to date when development started but there's just no way they're going to be current 5 years later (though I don't think AA has been in development that long...).
The only solution I can think of is going for an abstract look that doesn't show what era it's from, something like Tron.
It's not dead at all, maybe you're looking in the wrong place or something (OSRTS died but not Spring, or were you perhaps looking for TA Spring? The project was renamed to just Spring). The current release is kinda crappy though and we're hoping for the next one because the SVN version is just so much better but getting Lua for mods was a huge step ahead for the flexibility of the engine. Also Fang is back and E&E is getting developed again now so Spring is less dead now than a while ago.
AFAIK Linux players can play versus Windows gamers, I've seen it happen. The lack of a binary makes installation a bitch though, I agree.
Take 'em from Europe, we got too damn many of those things. There's like 80 Wiis piling up on shelves at the local electronics retailer here.
So you stop playing a 40 hour, 60€ game because the intro level took longer than 20 minutes? Man, I wish I had that much money to burn.
And it also features roles and playing so it's an RPG too! And it has platforms, that makes it a platformer! There's fighting so surely it's a fighting game? You go through an adventure and it has pointing and clicking so it's a point&click adventure too!
Why does that need more and more complicated systems though? The anticopy stuff gets more and more elaborate and the false positive rate seems to go up with that. Even most of the oldest systems would have prevented unassisted copying.
As for the most common use of warez I see, it'd be fixable if devs just returned to the late 90s with their policies on multiplayer, i.e. you don't need one disc per player in a network game. If we could just throw spawn installs on the other PCs in a network during a LAN we wouldn't have to use cracks and warez to get that running. Multiplayer is the best advertisement for a game there is, I've bought games because I've seen them in multiplayer on a LAN first but for newer games without LAN installs we need to crack 'em anyway and noone has a need to buy the game when he as a fully working copy on his drive already.
Those aren't games made by Nintendo though. I doubt they'll enforce it on others but their own standard says "no talking with strangers".
Transporting graphical data isn't the issue, making the avatar come out in a way that fits the new world is (e.g. can't take your phaser rifle into Everquest and with those shoes you aren't getting in, either. Never mind we have a strict "no Klingons" policy!). You could just duplicate the data between all engines with minor adjustments but realistically you don't want people who don't fit the environment. Of course Second Life can appreciate that, they have no coherent style anyway but nothing would ruin the atmosphere of a coherent game more than a furry invasion (unless the game was something like Conker: Online).