Lord Sinister

The character models in Skyrim do definitely seem to be much improved from Oblivion's.

Banned for declaring they are a Brigadier General.

I swear there this was a mod for Unreal Tournament many years back...or at least a mod by the same name. Either way it seems interesting, a bit like Left 4 Dead, but with shuffling zombies rather than sprinting ones...

I've made some minor changes based on what you said, Blue. I bumped the crew size up a bit but I also lowered the class of the ship to Medium Frigate rather than Heavy Frigate. Are the current figures okay? Is there anything else you can see that I need to deal with on there? I wish I could have more Utility hardpoints.

This might help.

Banned for breaking in to some nice gentleman's home.

Gah something that annoys me is attitudes like this, particularly in games. I have had friends rant at me about 'bad team mates', more recently it's been 'TF2 f2p'ers'. I could go on at length about this, but suffice to say I don't know the circumstances with regards to you (perhaps you're referring to people insulting others on their team and deliberately trolling them, mic-spamming bad musing and so on). Other than that it's generally been in my experience that it has been impossible to dissuade other people from this particular attitude.

I wish I had dreams like that.

Well, here's my attempt at this. With the physical attributes and personality, I felt that some possible personality points were needed in the physical attributes part as explanations, but if that's wrong then I'll try and fix it. And the personality part contains some backstory, if that's wrong I'll try and trim it out. What does the 'MV' stand for next to the ship name? Also can all ships not have hyperdrives? I ask this because you explicitly state that light frigates can have hyperdrives. In fact is there a limit to what class can have what equipment based on size limitations? I apologise in advance if I have got any of the below horribly wrong. Also brief question about the Utilities system...with the medium frigate, there are only three hardpoints, right? And these can be weapons OR utilities, right? The reason I ask is because if that is the case I'll probably replace the ion cannon with a docking bay for the 'shuttles' I mention in the description of the ship, assuming those are allowed. Also please do not consider the below final just yet, it's not quite complete yet and I'll also be editing it based on feedback. Name: Jaan Tagon (Captain of the Shadow Spear) Gender: Male Species: Human Age: 47 Height: 5 feet 9 inches Physical Attributes: He has hazel eyes and neatly kept dark brown hair with streaks of grey. He has thin eyebrows and lips. He also has a neatly kept goatee beard. His thin and gaunt appearance serve to hide both his strength and experience through many years of military service to some empire somewhere that he has long since abandoned all ties to (after stealing their prototype stealth medium frigate, the Shadow Spear). He is open minded, and combined with his experience this enables him to react fast to new and unexpected situations. He is fairly agile but a previous war injury (I'm no experienced doctor so I'll keep this vague unless anyone has any good ideas for this or unless I have to specify something) prevents him from sustained physical effort such as long runs. As a consequence in close combat he will always be trying to end the fight as fast as possible by subduing his opponent through various forms of martial arts, although he could hardly called proficient at them, he can hold his own. With combat he would prefer stealth over brute force, preferring ambushes, traps and general deception rather than open combat. Hit and run tactics would be amongst his most used strategy against opponents. He can use a multitude of weapons owing to his past military experience, bar perhaps bladed weapons such as swords and so on. He wouldn't be good with those (except for perhaps stabbing an opponent in the back whilst they are unsuspecting). He generally always has a somewhat determined and wily expression on his face. Personality: Despite his love of somewhat underhanded strategies to deploy on opponents, he is a man of principles and will honour agreements and so on (although despite his willingness to honour agreements honestly, he doesn't take betrayal well, and is generally unforgiving of those who break their deals with him (read will never deal with them again), or may well pretend to deal with them only to double cross them out of spite (although often planned at a point where it will provide some gain to him)). He has also always opposed the mass slaughter of innocents (one of his reasons for abandoning his service to the previously mentioned empire). After a tragedy best left vaguely described perpetrated by the Empire, he resolved to abandon them in favour of of exploring the richness of the Galaxy, with no real aim except perhaps slow and enjoyable personal gain. Over a period of months he put together a plan with many men and women he'd come to know over his years of service who were loyal to him. The plan was to steal a prototype vessel that was to the citizens of the Empire who knew, a mere rumour. The Shadow Spear, the first vessel of its kind, a medium frigate with prototype cloaking technology capable of rendering a vessel undetectable to all their known methods of scientific detection. The plan (which is only mentioned rather than explained to keep things short) went off without a hitch thanks to the captain's connections and the skills of his chosen loyal companions. It has been several years since then (and they since collected the families of those who wanted to bring them) and the crew are now well accustomed to their ship and fairly self-sufficient within it. Ship Name: ISV Shadow Spear Build: Medium Frigate Draft Length: 202m Speed: Medium (could be pushed up to high in a straight line at the cost of manoeuvrability, ie turning would be along very large arcs) Agility: Average Armor: High Power Provision: Very High Crew: 142+Captain+ship's NON-SENTIENT computer Description: Built by a nameless Empire several years ago the Shadow Spear was a prototype in using stealth technology. Designed to carry scientists on test runs rather than for actual combat, it carries lightly-armed shuttles with sophisticated research and scanning equipment rather than proper strike-craft. The vessel is primarilly designed for hit-and-run strikes. It can push its engines to a speed greater than usual (at the expense of mobility) in order to improve the efficiency of its stealth strikes against other equivalently sized or larger vessels (it's not designed for extended combat against other vessels). Decloaking, firing its heavy cannon, and then hoping enough damage was caused to allow the ship to turn (or re-engage stealth mode) without significant damage. It's not designed to counter smaller vessels although it does have a point defense network that may allow it to hold its own, but due to the ship's limited mobility the effectiveness of this point defense network against serious numbers of opposing fighters is doubtful. The Shadow Spear has a sizeable amount of cargo space. Four cargo sectors, A, B, C and D, each one with rooms and bays of various sizes, scaling up further down the alphabet. ie A has a lot more rooms and bays than B, C, or D, but they are smaller and more specialized, with rooms devoted to things such as shelving and small containers rather than the space for enormous cargo containers. D on the other hand has the fewest bays, but they're larger and quite capable of containing large industrial equipment if it needed to. D's main cargo bay has a direct line to the shuttle bay through some large service doors, and could be used as an auxiliary shuttle bay if the main one's outer door were damaged rendering it impossible to maintain a liveable atmosphere in there, but it would take time to set that up. In general the close proximity means that heavy equipment or large objects transported on to the ship via shuttle craft could be stored in Cargo sector D's main cargo bay. The ship is also capable of entering the atmosphere of planets and of landing on the surface of planets. Usually this would be done to make repairs that cannot be made in space (as to visit the surface of a planet the ship's shuttles can usually be used). Service: The Shadow Spear saw very little service under the empire beyond a few test runs. However following the captain's acquisition the Shadow Spear has spent the last four years roaming the Galaxy, contending with pirates, various authorities, and the natural hazards of space itself. Conflicts are generally few and far between, with the aim being to secure treasures without engaging any hostile forces. The Shadow Spear's first combat came when it engaged an imperial patrol ship (heavy corvette class) mere minutes after it was stolen. A lucky shot from the heavy cannon did a surprising amount of damage to the patrol ship's main reactor and following several chain-reaction explosions, the patrol ship exploded. Initially the captain mainly focussed on assaulting and stealing from supply ships of the Empire, acquiring wealth, trinkets, various artifacts and so on. Depending on whether or not the stolen goods could be made use of by the Shadow Spear and her crew, they were sold on to the black market. Inevitably though, the Empire soon began to crack down on the Shadow Spear's games of cat and mouse with the authorities. Supply ships began travelling in convoys, with heavy escorts. The Shadow Spear eventually decided to branch out in to the rest of the Galaxy. The frequent stealing of supplies provided things such as food for the crew of the Shadow Spear, but in case their main source of food and supplies (stealing from imperial transports) eventually ran dry, the captain had the foresight to have the entireity of cargo sector B devoted to the purpose of providing and storing food for the crew of the Shadow Spear. Crops are both grown and farmed on board the ship and provided that food is rationed, the system works well. The importance of cargo sector B to the rest of the ship is invaluable. Anyway, as the Shadow Spear moved out in to the rest of the Galaxy where other forces dwelt, they came in to contact with pirates. Most of the pirates encountered have attacked in rag-tag groups of fighters and bombers, mainly with the intent of ambushing individual ships and plundering them. The Shadow Spear's cloaking device and point defense network generally served to fend off attacks by these. However the Shadow Spear once encountered a very old light capital ship under pirate control (it carried various strike craft within). A tense battle on the outskirts of an asteroid field eventually resulted in victory for the Shadow Spear, thanks to its heavy cannon and the light capital ship's age and condition (it had evidently gone without proper maintenance for many years). It was able to effectively deal damage to the ship it was designed to destroy (although weakening it enough to raid it for supplies was the intention of the captain after the battle appeared to turn their way, however the condition of the enemy vessel meant that the strain of the battle and the attacks by the Shadow Spear eventually ruptured its main reactor and destroyed it), and the asteroids provided reasonably effective cover to re-cloak and prepare to attack from new angles. However despite emerging victorious having destroyed this pirate cruiser, the Shadow Spear did suffer some damage, not just from the strike craft, but also from the asteroid field. Repairs were thus made on a nearby fringe world that was only inhabited by some long-abandoned colonists. The crew of the Shadow Spear chose to make their repairs far from these settlements to avoid both attention and risk. The final 'kill' that the Shadow Spear has gained so far was a light frigate of the Empire they had long since abandoned. It was discovered that the Empire had a way of tracking the Shadow Spear, including whilst it was cloaked (this was eventually discovered to be a very subtle tracking device that has since been disabled and removed, and the rest of the ship was scoured for any more of these hidden devices). Four years after the Shadow Spear had been stolen, the Empire had had a light frigate specially built with the sole intention of tracking down the Shadow Spear and either destroying it or disabling it. On discovering that their cloaking device was useless, and being out-gunned by the light frigate, the captain of the Shadow Spear ordered it in to a nearby hazardous nebula. The light frigate in pursuit of them followed. In the nebula both ships suffered damage, and their sensors and other systems were hindered a fair bit. Eventually an energy discharge from the nebula crippled the engines of the light frigate. The Shadow Spear came about and destroyed it with their heavy cannon. On leaving the nebula, the Shadow Spear was victorious, but not without cost. Seven crew members were killed and the hull was scarred from multiple energy discharges and venting atmosphere in more than a few places. The ship was forced to set down on a nearby planet and make repairs that lasted a month. Since that experience, the Shadow Spear has moved back in to more colonised regions of space. The captain has been looking for work from others rather than simple raiding of cargo ships and the salvaging of various debris from long destroyed or abandoned vessels, and so on from space. This could possibly be in the form of bounty hunting or escort duty for privateers or minor corporations or organisations. In particular he and his crew are on the look out for what they term 'the big one', something that would set them all well off for the future, so they could abandon piracy and perhaps even colonise some small forgotten corner of the Galaxy for themselves and their families... Vessel Records: 3 Confirmed Kills (not including fighters/bombers), 70+ victories (raids on cargo vessels that resulted in the salvaging of supplies, artifacts, monies, successful evasion of superior foes like masses of pirates, authorities, etc), 2 Damages, 0 Hull Rebuild. Hardpoints: W1. Heavy Cannon U1. Docking bay (containing four 'shuttles') U2. Stealth System Node Non-Hardpoint Weapon(s): Point defense network No picture right now. I'll see what I can find (or possibly make ). EDIT: Heh, Blue I totally hadn't noticed you'd +rep'd me to take the plunge and post this until just now.

Well it's finally available on Steam for pre-order in the UK (I couldn't find it before), and it's actually more expensive than on Amazon by a couple of pounds. It's quoting £27.99 as the pre-order price on Steam, BUT it does have £39.99 crossed out as its proper price for Steam, implying that once it's available the price will go up.

Whenever I try to draw anything, things don't scale properly, or whatever the correct term is. As an example, say I drew two circles, they wouldn't be the same size. Which is rather annoying. That said, I do believe that through practice and hard work anyone can do anything. I simply don't spend very much time drawing at all. I feel that there should be technique to this beyond trying to draw lines and 'hoping' stuff looks right. Is there any good techniques for trying to draw 'stuff' that anyone could perhaps recommend? On an unrelated note there's some really nice art work in this thread. Do you do any pictures of the Spy, Jek Jek Tar? Or is it just the Sniper?

This seems interesting to me, but having never done anything like this before I'm unsure if I should take the plunge and risk screwing it up.

I've recently started playing Star Wars: Republic Commando for the first time. One of the first games I've played where I've honestly found nothing to fault with my companion AI (at least so far). Yet it came out years ago.

No, he's saying he'd be blown down 'like an old sea calf' ie he was weak. I think. For the affidavi, my guess is he's saying something like 'I'll give you half a davy' which probably means 'I'll give you my word' or something. Obscure pirate phrases ahoy? Either way, I hope you've PM'd Ross.

Banned for not really banning me for 1/4 of a second.

Banned for getting in the way of me banning Bill Ludwick.

I am certainly know scientific expert, but isn't fusion power a possibility for the future, assuming there's funding? The main issue with it from how I understand it is that so far prototypes have mostly required more energy than they've produced.

Banned for being fallible.

Depends if it's a proper original Ghastly Gibus or whether it's a Ghastlier Gibus. Also, it could well be one of those random items that shouldn't be tradable but somehow is...

Banned for being called Bill.

I'd say almost certainly. The Halloween stuff restarting (gifts etc) may have been automatic, like for wearing the season-limited hats. I'd say we'll definitely see some new Halloween content, possibly some time this week. I mean, they refer specifically to 'next week's update', and I don't know of any major TF2 updates that didn't include new content.

Just guessing here: I deadlights captured thee before yea could repel boarders? Well blow me down for loads sea cove? What you have for 77 sounds right to me. Either way, I reckon you'd best try and see if you can get some input from Ross, as he'll probably know what he actually said. EDIT: Alternatively: My deadlights captured thee a'fore ya could repel borders. Well blow me down for an old sea calf! I gives ye me affidavi' I give ye yer cut of any loot we take. From: http://www.hark.com/clips/dxkhkygpyw-freemans-mind-episode-27-half-life-machinima

I don't know how many of you are US based (you may not get good pings although there is no automated high-ping kicking), but if it helps, this is the IP for my TF2 server (it's UK based): 85.236.101.22:37115 Currently it's just doing 100% Manor.

Done, but maybe what I did was a bit much... What do you think? I thought it was going to be orange, but nevertheless I don't think it looks too bad, myself. EDIT: In fact I quite like it!

Is BTG's server still up?