(baogame.vn) – Những ngày qua, làng game thế giới đang rất hoan hỉ bởi hàng loạt các tựa game có dấu hiệu “ngủ đông” đã chuẩn bị thức giấc. Và sau đây là những tin tức mới nhất về những tựa game không thể bỏ qua này.

Source: Tin vắn cập nhật (chiều tối ngày 21/11)

Yesterday I found a treasure in the low-price-box on the super market. 6,95 EUR for a complete game? Lets buy it!

I found Supreme Commander, a RTS game that I played the Demo of as it came out one year ago. It features three campaigns. One for each of the three factions. Each campaign includes 6 very long missions that requier good ressource management and unit coordination. It remembered me so much on Total Annihilation from the late 90s until I found out that Chris Tailor, the lead designer for TA, made SupCom, too. It was clear for me that I am going to buy it someday until its available for a low price. This article does not feature many informations about Supreme Commander yet. Follow me back in time and take a look through my eye on SupComs predecessor:

Total Annihilation!

Back in the year 1997: A little company called Cavedog entertainment created a RTS game with the name Total Annihilation that won lot of prices (“Game of the Year” in many countries) because of its unique units and terrain in 3D and the long and intense experience inside a multiplayer match. Chris Tailor, the lead designer of the project, left Cavedog short after the games release and opened his own company. The Arm and Core fight for more than thousand years now to get the control of the most important planets and moons inside the milky way. One year later a first Exp-Pack came out: The Core Contingency and added over 75 new units and 25 new missions, that  continued the story of the great war after the Arm campaign, to the game. Another Exp-Pack called Battle Tactics followed, wich includes 4 new units and over 100 new missions that were based on Commando-Missions without much base and economic construction.

Energy is power

Not only models and terrain in 3D made this game that special compared to the godfather of RTS Command and Conquer. Both armies had to collect metal and had to manage their energy. You can say that energy was the most important resource in TAs base and army construction. Everything costs energy, like in the real world. Without enough energy left the construction of units and buildings takes very long. The player had to manage a constantly changing energy in- and out-rate. The higher the in-rate of energy was, the more out-rate could be used for construction. There were many ways to get energy inside the game: Through water powered plants and wind wheels, or by converting metal into pure energy.
Especially the gathering of metal was easy on artificial moons made out of pure metal, while the player had to search for metal veins on ordinary planets. This circumstance made the not so important material become very important, because metal-veins dont spring out everywhere. You can say that TA featured a real economic system.

The name of the game

Total Annihilation is the name of the game and thats what you get inside one of the mainly over 15 hours lasting battles with your friends in multiplayer. I can remember that I played against my uncle and my best friend Ritual hours over hours in LAN-mode. We used metal moons to get a lot of metal in-rate. Beginning in the morning at 9 AM through to 9 PM at the same day. Sometimes we had to save our multiplayer match before we could continue on the next day. After the first Exp-Pack was released, the player of the Core had the chance to build one overkilling unit called Krogoth, a multiple legged Mech that could destroy complete bases in no time. We had a lot of great moments while playing both with the Core Army, sending our Krogoths into 1on1 battles. There was no unit limit inside the game. That way we could build 10.000 unit large armies that hit each other on large plateaus all over the map. A lot of destroyed vehicles were lying around the map after some time and made it impossible to continue the war. This large junkyard  forced us to start converting the wrecks into new metal before we could send our troops out again for another intense war. Great times!

Supreme Comeback

Over 10 years have passed and the ex lead-designer of TA Chris Taylor got a comeback with Supreme Commander. The game uses the old technologies that was used in TA. Taylor and his new team upgraded the TA engine, allowing the player to zoom in and out a large range. From satellite view down to 3 meters above ground. The same energy and metal management is included, too. I didnt started to play Supreme Commander yet. But I cant wait to get my hands on this baby.

I’m feeling kinda unwell, so you don’t really get much of a blog entry tonight.

You get a brief recount of my day:

Went to an Internet Cafe, played some games, namely Left 4 Dead, Supreme Commander: Forged Alliance, and Counterstrike: Source. L4D was fun as always, and I managed to do fairly well in it. CS:S was also fun, and I also managed to do pretty well in that.

Forged Alliance is where I both shone and failed. The first game we played, I was still getting used to Forged Alliance, and the way it does things (I’m just used to playing Vanilla Supreme Commander, without FA). The map was too cramped for my liking, and, all in all, it was a pretty awful round. Props to Rear Admiral Reni, though, because he pretty much steam-rolled me.

The next game, however, was a different story. The map was spacious and I knew what I was doing. So I kicked some ass. I had about 15 Fat Boys, which are these giant mobile base things. I had 10 Defense Sattelites, which rain down death from above. I had over 600 other offensive units. The term ‘Complete and Utter Ass-kicking’  is bandied about a lot, but I feel justified in saying that’s what this was. And I did it all without nuking anyone.

You get a photo of me from Friday night (I started out dressed as Gendo Ikari, but then I swiped my top hat back off of Freddie, so the costume sort of evolved)

It's Gendo!

And you also get a short video relating to my costume.

And there you have it. A short, but hopefully entertaining, blog post.

RCMP

I’m talking 49th parallel, don’t cha know.  Better known as the great white north…. Canada, eh!

I’ll be off line riding for several days and comments will be delayed as I schlep the Harley toward Calgary, you hoser.   I’ve socked some away for a brewski and traffic fines as we try and navigate speeds (1 MPH = 1.61 KPH) and the unusual road rules!  For example did you know it’s illegal to take photos of the RCMP?  One of those interesting “learning’s” from my trip in ‘05 while cruising the Jasper Range on “Barney” the ‘ol Metallic Violet Fatboy.

Our group was pulled over for passing two RV’s who were traveling on the shoulder of the road, up a hill, spewing clouds of diesel smoke and trying to make 30km/h in a 80km/h zone.  Sure our tires crossed over the double yellow!  It was by design as we wanted to give the RV’s plenty of space and there was no on-coming traffic…except way off in the distance a RCMP mounty… who with keen eyes noted our infraction and performed a perfectly executed Starsky & Hutch 4-tire screeching U-turn… as if we were Canada’s Most Wanted.

Adding more insult, the Rodney Rude hoser was insensitive to us foreigners and most dismissive of any explanation.  It was as if simply taking a ride on a too-sunny day meant we had to prove that we were entitled to any civil rights!  Yeah, the RCMP “acted stupidly” and it was a clear case of motorcycle profiling, but we didn’t have the Canadian supreme commander shine a spotlight on the incident!  In fact, the mounty never once smiled which explains the rise in public complaints.

We took our tickets and white working-class motorcycles and motored on, but I was thinking, how appropriate is that Canadian colloquialism of “Harsh my Mellow”… eh!

Look for posts about this trip in about a week… ride safe.

RCMP photo courtesy Edmonton Journal. No disrespect implied or intended with use of CANspeak.

All Rights Reserved © Northwest Harley Blog

Identifying a situation appropriate growth rate is necessary to accurately project economic growth and military production capability.

The below chart shows the cost in time of generating the resources required for the construction of an additional T3 power at 100%, 50% and 25% growth priorities, assuming unlimited mass fabrication capacity and engineering capacity.

Price is calculated in accordance with psalm 14
Price = Mass + E/40

Yes, I know…

Ok. I know it has been around 2 and a bit weeks since E3 ended. But I’ve only had a blog for a week, so give me a break! Anyway, in this piece I am to attempt to summarise some of the major PC games. Note: this isn’t all of them.

Mass Effect 2: Firstly, E3 saw the first game play of Mass Effect 2, sequel to the excellent Bioware RPG, Mass Effect. Lets make this clear. Shepherd is not dead. In fact, you once again don that shiny, shiny spacesuit in the quest for the destruction of all evil. Apparently this time, though, you are on a suicide mission, so it shall be interesting to see if Bioware once again seemingly bring Shepherd back from the dead in the final game of the trilogy. We shall see. What we do know is that you will use your save game from the original so that the traits of your original Shepherd will be used in the new Shepherd. However it will only be personality and appearance that are carried over and not skills, annoyingly, everything will have to be started from scratch.

Star Wars: The Old Republic: Another Bioware, this game also had its first game play footage. Said to be the first MMO with 100% spoken lines. Now, I’m no expert in the process of game making; but that is a lot of coice acting required. Think about it. Firstly the game is made by Bioware, so it’s going be very story driven, ie a lot of text/words in general. Secondly, it’s an MMO, famous for centuries of gameplay and endless quests. Basically, don’t be surprised if you see piles of used voice-boxes lying on the streets surrounding the Bioware offices.

On a serious note the game looks bloody good.

Bioshock 2: E3 saw the showing of some BioShock 2 multiplayer demoige (that definitely is a word). The multiplayer side of the game is being developed by Digital Extremes and looks to be taking the form of a standard deathmatch and team deathmatch modes. As it’s BioShock, though, there will be plasmids to liven things up some what. The formula is also tweaked slightly more, atleast in some modes, by the random spawning of a Big Daddy suit. Should be interesting

The character you play in mulitplayer games is a tester for Fontaine Furturistics and is testing new plasmids. Therefore, as a perk of the job they get an apartment in the bowels of Rapture, which acts the as a multiplayer lobby. This apartment also acts as a location to swap plasmids – that have been earned through a COD4 style unlock system – in and out of the players inventory.

Little of the games singleplayer was even mentioned at E3, but it is a fairly safe bet that it is not going to be too shabby! Coupling something of the potential calibre the singleplayer has with a decent multiplayer good proper the BioShock franchise to legendary status. Roll on October!

Supreme Commander 2: Chris Taylor’s awesome Supreme Commander took the RTS genre by storm, back in 2006. The sequel looks set to other everything that made the original excellent: massive scale, demanding game play, and excellent multiplayer and skirmish facilities and improve the bad, mainly the awkward economy system. Using the Demigod engine, the games certainly looks impressive and the immense scale of the original still seems to be in place.

Left 4 Dead 2: Arguably one the biggest shocks of E3, Valve certainly stirred up the hornets nest with this one! For instance, one Steam group, set up to boycott the sequel, currently has over 35,000 members. Anyway for those of us that are actually looking forward to game, it does look rather promising. The Source engine is, as expected put into good use, but has also now been further enhanced for even more gore, including proper dismemberment! L4D2 also has a wider variety of tools to inflict damage on the zombie horde, including chainsaws and axes. The new game also offers more special infected, although only the charger (half tank, half normal infected) has been revealed as of yet.

L4D2 also has daytime levels as you take control of 4 new characters on there crusade through infected Louisiana. Despite these changes, it still looks like classic L4D fun.

On a sadder note, the PC was once again fucked-over at E3. Not even a Windows 7 demo. Come on guys, in the words of EA ‘The PC is the biggest gaming platform in the world.’ Make a bloody effort.

Cost and output are measured in terms of siege bots per minute.

Energy is converted in accordance with Psalm 14 (Mass = Energy / 40)

Note that the T3 generator’s doubling time is one third of the T1 generators, but keep in mind that the price of the T3 generator is 51 times that of the T1 generator and that it would take 128 T1 generators to produce output equivalent to the T3 generator’s. Also it must be pointed out that the above comparison between T1 and T3 generators assume that all of the T1 generators come online simultaneously, however the price of the 128 T1 generators viewed as a whole would be much lower if the generators came online one at a time. This line of thinking suggests that output is lost during construction of the T3 power generator and to minimize this loss the player should focus as much construction effort on the T3 power generator as possible.

Distributed unit production is the act of producing units at separate and distinct locations. Unit aggregation is the act of collecting and uniting dispersed units.

Distributed production and aggregation is easy in supreme commander.

1. Build factories in separate locations, assist each factory with engineers.

2a. Set the factories to have a common que destination using the factory move control.

2b. Setup a multi- air transport ferry route, select all of your disunited units and instruct them to board the transports. The transports will disperse and collect each group of units and drop them at the ferry route destination.

2c. Setup a multi- air transport ferry route, using your factories move control instruct your units to board the transport ferry route. The transports will automatically pickup units as they exit the factory and ferry them to the ferry route destination.

The primary benefit to distributed unit production and aggregation is that your production is distributed and their for harder to kill and easier to defend in the sense that you can’t lose all of your production in the same attack. If you choose you use air transports you will have an active air transport fleet where you can easily move the destination of your ferry route to the location that is under attack and then instruct your assembled army to board the ferry route and they will be ferried to where they are needed; which saves on defence expenses such as point defence. You can also use your air transport fleet to make a combat drop on your enemies.

With the nomination of Sonia Sotomayor as the new Supreme Court Justice it got me wondering if this was on of the coolest job titles in the world. 

You got the President of the United States(not bad), Pontiff (great hats and lots of dough), Chairman of the United Nations, or Supreme Commander of Allied Forces are just some more.  All of huge pluses like it being the last job you have. 

Unfortunately I think it takes some sort of specialized education to get there, maybe a night class or two.  Perhaps an on line course, but all worth it in the end.

The most difficult skill to learn is efficient time management.

It’s obvious that micromanaging your army early game is more advantageous than micromanaging your army late game; but it isn’t obvious that micromanaging your army instead of micromanaging your economy is counter productive. Losing an army is more desirable than losing the ability to build another, by micromanaging your attacks you neglect economic growth which includes resource generation and military production.

The best industrial military strategy in supreme commander is to identify a proper unit mix and then “Fire and Forget”.

Build your armies using a relevent unit mix, identify a point of attack or a strategic objective to capture or eliminate, select a route of attack or a pre-attack que location and then send your army on it’s way. Fire and forget; an army is not a resource to defend, it can defend itself and it’s ability to defend itself is comperable to its construction price.

Never forget that an army at worst is only worth it’s construction price and at best worth victory.

The first step in making my final artefact was creating the map itself. I did this in three major stages, the first of which was simply doing the main texture work to create the Yin-Yang pattern which is a central feature of the design.

This done, I decided to do the city half of the map first, since I anticipated it would be more time consuming than the nature half. I decided to use mainly buildings from the “UEF” faction to construct the city, since those looked most like a contemporary city. By placing different buildings in manners that caused them to merge together, I was able to create a surprising variety of different designs, and make a city that looked quite passable overall, especially from the low views I intend to use in the final product. Furthermore, by raising it up on a plateau, I ensured that it could be used for horizon scenery in later scenes if I so desired.

Once I had finished the city half of the map, I turned my attention to the nature half. This was fairly simple, since placing large numbers of props at once is one of the few things the Supreme Commander editor is well suited to. Due to their tiny scale and low polygon count, the overall effect is less pleasing than I would like, and the small selection of models is also a detriment to the appearance of the map; but it is sufficient not to embarrass me.

The next step in the production is to begin scripting the camerawork and NPC movement. When that is complete, the product should be essentially finished, though I may yet add more polish to the appearance of the map if I am able.

Prey. I bought it for like 10 SEK (~1 €) from an internet store, and after playing through the whole game, I can say that it were 10 wasted SEK. The best way to describe this game would be to call it a bad B-Sci-Fi American action movie. At the back of the cover it claims to be oh so innovative and action-packed. But it’s just not. You start at the first level like this bad-ass indian guy who hates his heritage. His girlfriend and grandfather wants him to accept who are are and all that, but of course he doesn’t want to. He wants to GTFO! Then you talk to the grandfather, walk over to the bar, and listen to these all-American guys throwing priceless jokes at his girlfriend who’s working at the bar. At first glance this game looks quite promising, it’s fun to walk around and interact with the toilets and TV and other stuff around the place, while listening to the main character’s (named Tommy, anyway) fun comments, “- Does she ever clean this place?”, “- Spice and sugar MY ASS!” etc etc. This first level is the only worth re-visiting.

Then the wolves startes to howl. Then you brutally beat up the two guys a the bar with your wrench, until they almost die. Then the aliens come. Light flashes, things break , and you all get sucked into the spaceship. Very epic. Now your goal is to find your lost grandfather and girlfriend, while smashing the aliens with the wrench you just happend to pick up earlier, and eventually you find alien weaponary to. But this is were it’s starting to get bad. Really bad. The game totally sucks!! First of all it’s super linear, I mean, yeah, this game isn’t marketed as an open-ended one, but throughout the whole game you just run along small corridors with two choices of way, MAX. Then there comes this open room where you kill some aliens, and then it’s back to the corridors. Nowadays it would be impossible to make a game as linear as this and still expect people to play it. But then again, linear games isn’t necessarily bad. Crysis is a game with a linear story, but the levels is so big and epic that you don’t notice. You might even consider playing it twice, with another strategy perhaps. But this running through corridors might have worked with DOOM (1) or something, but not today.

Then the story isn’t exactly bullet-proof either. Saving your girl, and eventually the world from these aliens trying to harvest the humans for food, isn’t exactly original. Another example of a great game who manages to have a great story is The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind. In that game the gameplay is for many just horrible, but the story is as worked out, epic and big that you totally immerse yourself into it. If the story is great enough you don’t need the special effects or action, it might just be as rading a good book. A book were you can TAKE PART IN. So, now that Prey lacks this story, then they could compensate it by making the gameplay and action good. Unfortunately Prey doesn’t have this. You just run around, killing the same monsters with weapons without feeling at all, and wait for the level to end. The controls is ok I’ll guess, but the action isn’t even imaginable. Because it isn’t there!

What about the “innovative” factors then? According to the game designers this game is made with new-thinking by allowing you to CHANGE GRAVITY! You can flip it, twist it, walk up walls and warp it around small planets. And yeah, it kan be a bit of fun jumping around a small globe without falling down, but it’s far from as innovative as it claims to be. This can’t make up for the the rest of the game, that you can walk up walls from time to time? Then there are these portals teleporting you from places to others… wow. Didn’t they come up with a better way of getting you around? But there are actually some puzzle-solving aspects of the game, like twisting a cube in order to get to a new… portal. BTW, I hate how predictable this game is. When you run around you always now what the character will say, or what enemies will show up or were (B-movie?). I just hate predictable games, it’s way to un-stimulating for me. Anyway, the last so called innovating feature is Deathwalk. This basically means that you can’t die. Thats impossible. The game cover states that dying is no longer annoying – it’s fun! Well, it’s god damn more annoying than in a regular game! What happens is that you get teleported to a place were you have to shoot spirits in order to raise your life and spirit-energy. Then you get sucked into a hole and throwed back to life. Nice. Oh, I forgot. You can turn into your own spirit and walk through fire and ambush enemies etc, while your body still floats in the air. This is also a big part of the puzzle-solving in this game, and everytime you need to activate Spirit Mode, there’s a sun painted at the wall or anywere else… Very clever.

Since I want this to be a serious review of this game from 2006, I will present the few good things about it. First, I guess the graphics is ok. And when it was released it probably was quite nice. Then there is the epic soundtrack by no one less than Jeremy Soule (Morrowind, Oblivion, Guild Wars, Supreme Commander, Unreal II etc). The music is very good actually, a shame it was used for a game as bad as this one.

To conclude it all, I give Prey 1.5 of 5 stars. If you are an extremely big fan of linear action games without any real feeling or story, then Prey is the game for you. If not, just leave it. I want my 10 SEK back.

Photos: MMI/Naklo Foundation

Left, Carole Rosen of Binghamton, NY and Ariela Nazar-Rosen of New City, NY in Lelow, six kilometers to the west, at the gravesite and shrine of Dawid Biderman (Sorry, link is in Polish only but we are translating and will post an English-language  wikipedia entry soon). Right photo, Tadeusz Reyher and Ariela Nazar-Rosen at the monument to Tadeusz Kosciuszko in Szczekociny, a nearby village six kilometers to the east. Kosciuszko, who was a great friend of the USA and played a major role in the American Revolutionary War, after returning to Poland led Polish troops in this area during  the 1794 Kościuszko Uprising against Imperial Russia and the Kingdom of Prussia as Supreme Commander of Poland’s National Armed Forces. That was approximately 18 years after the completion of the Palace

Many players consider only experimentals when situations get deadlocked. I went through and calculated the price of each experimental in terms of siege bots.

Mavor’s is equivalent in price to 916 siege bots or 3 and a half T3 artillery or a combination of the two. Imagine what you could do with over nine hundred siege bots.

Strategic Missle Launcher is equivalent in price to 280 siege bots, and each nuke is equivalent in price to 52 siege bots. Honestly, how often do you kill fifty two siege bots worth of enemy hardware?

T3 Artillery 245 siege bots, costs three and a half siege bots a shot (13.6 a minute).

Scathis price is 182 siege bots and every two projectiles cost the same as a siege bot. Every minute the Scathis costs 30 siege bots to continue firing.

Don’t build experimentals until you’re completely handicapped by unit limits.

Often players concentrate all of their anti-air defences; don’t do that, unless you are fighting concentrated t3 or t4 gunships without air superiority over your base. Each type of air defence has it’s advantages, you should take advantage of them.

Surface to Air Missiles: Often inappropriately used as the final solution in concentrated air defence. SAM launchers when used in very large well spaced grids with slightly overlapping ranges can saturate huge areas of land or sea making it impossible for enemies to operate aircraft in the area.

Anti-Aircraft Artillery: Flack is the best solution for hardened concentrated air defence.

Mobile Anti-Aircraft Artillery: Completely ignored by the vast majority of players, yet they have become my primary form of land based air defence. T1 and T2 mobile anti-aircraft artillery can always be reorganized to maximize their affect if a region becomes important or irrelevant, you can simply move your air defence. They can also quickly arrange themselves into a well spaced grid when a group is instructed to defend other units or in my case a single wall segment used as an air defence point.

Interceptors: T1 and T3 fights are fantastic for eliminating bombers and other fighters, and as a last resort bringing fire upon gunships.

Gunships: Apparently intended for attacking land based forces, however most players are unaware of their fantastic capacity for destroying other gunships. T2 and T3 gunships are the ideal mobile solution for other T2 and T3 gunships and especially T4 gunships.

The SAM launcher is two and a half times more expensive than the AAA and the SAM launcher deals eight times as much damage per second as the AAA. At first that may look like a fantastic return ratio, but it’s deceptive. The SAM launcher and AAA can only target one aircraft at a time, however the AAA deals splash damage and the SAM does not.  

Two SAM launchers and five AAA are equivalent in price. Two simultaneous targets vs five simultaneous targets. The two SAM launchers deal three and a quarter times more damage, however the AAA will often have overlaping which makes them ideal for defending against massed aircraft attacks. The SAM launchers true strength is area defence. It’s range is twice that of AAA and it will likely kill most aircraft that fly within it’s range do to exposure time.

Silsila Qadriya, Ghawsia: It is named after Sayyadinah Shaikh Sayyad Abdul Qadir Jilani radi allahu anhu who was the Mureed and Khalifa of Shaikh Abu Said Makhzumi radi allahu anhu , the Khalifa of Abul Hasan Ali Qarshi radi allahu anhu ,Khalifa of Shaikh Abul Farah al Tartusi radi allahu anhu , Khalifa of Shaikh Abul Fazl Abdul Wahid Yamni radi allahu anhu ,Khalifa of Shaikh Abu Bakr Shibli radi allahu anhu , Khalifa of Shaikh Syed al Taifah Junaid Baghdadi radi allahu anhu  till Hazrat Ali Murtuza radi allahu anhu . Sayyadinah Shaikh Abdul Qadir Jilani radi allahu anhu  received a robe of Khilafat through His ancestral link from Sayyadinah Imam Hassan bin Ali al-Murtuza radi allahu anhu  as well as with eleven links in between.

Sayyadinah Shaikh Abdul Qadir Jilani radi allahu anhu is the Emminent Wali Allah who enjoys the distinction of being Ghaws (Supreme Commander in the Spiritual Hierarchy). He also enjoys the status of Mahbubiat (Beloved of Allah Subhaanahu Wa Ta’alaa) and Fardaniat (Singularity with Allah Subhaanahu Wa Ta’alaa).

I bought and built a new computer two weeks ago with the help of newegg.com.  Let me tell you, if you need a new computer and want a ton of power on a budget, now is the time to buy!  Comparing what I was able to purchase for $800, I would have had to spend at least twice as much to have one of the big boys assemble a system for me that was even close to as capable of a machine as I have created.  Prices have dropped substantially for PC components.  I built a computer with close to top of the line parts for around $800.  Lets get to the specs then I will tell you more details about it.

CPU:

• AMD Phenom II 920 @ 2.8 Ghz (quad core)

Video Card:

• Sapphire ATI Radeon 4870 with 1Gb gddr5 memory

Motherboard:

• Foxconn A7AD-S (it rocks!)

Ram:

• 8Gb G.Skill DDR2 800 memory (4×2Gb)

Hard Drive

• Western Digital Green 1TB

So, the part that is probably the least impressive is the hard drive, it is the green model so it is a little handicapped due to being “energy efficient” @ a slower RPM.  Let me tell you, it really isn’t a big deal though, that is not a noticeable issue.  I might order a solid state Flash based drive to install the OS and programs on it but for now I am using just the green drive.

Since this is my first new build in 4 years, I sort of went crazy!  I went big on the video car and the CPU, I dropped 8Gb in the machine and went for the whole 1Tb drive.  I also learned from the last build that one major requirement for any build is a brand name motherboard.  My last build had a Soyo board (I don’t like tiger direct, newegg is by far the best, the basically stopped making mobo’s after I ordered that piece of just and for the past four years I have struggled to keep that thing running).  This time I went with Foxconn based on it being brand name, in the $100 price range (I didn’t want to buy an over priced board)  and having a ton of great reviews!  I sort of lucked up on the CPU, I was going to do the build in late December before the Phenom II’s came out but waited because my old computer was working again.  Between Layoff fears (tomorrows topic) and the economy taking a dump (related topics of course) I was hesitant to spend the money on a new build.  I survived the second round of layoffs at Cessna so I just gave up on waiting (knowing another round of layoffs was coming… tomorrow) and decided the new computer could assist me in doing other work for my dad’s company or possible side projects such as the R/C tank I am designing (future topic).  As it turned out, the waiting helped me out a bunch!!  not only did AMD launch the Phenom II’s and reviews pop up all over but the price dropped a ton on them as well!  A processor that launched in the mid to high $200’s now cost below $200!!!  By waiting a month and a half, I was able to get a much better processor with good overclocking ability for the same price as the Phenom 9850 BE I was eyeing before.  I had been watching the Sapphire 4870 1Gb since I first decided it was time to build a computer so I was happy to finally get it so I could find out if I was right to select it.  On top of all of this, Newegg had some killer discounts and bundles!!

I installed Windows 7 beta 64bit on this one.  For games I have Supreme Commander and Counter Strike Source installed.  I intend to install SolidWorks 09 on it if/when I get a VPN set up so I can use a license from my Dad’s company.  Let me tell you I haven’t been able to find the limits of this machine!!!  I am hoping I can install solidworks soon so I can at least attempt to bring this machine to its knees.  I ran SupCom on Max settings on a dual monitor set up and this machine didn’t even flinch.  I doubt it even sped the CPU up past idle…  I guess I just need to find more intensive games…  Maybe I will install X-Plane 8 or 9…  I think that would have some affect but I am not sure how much.

I guess I should focus on Windows 7 for a bit.  Let me tell you, I never really played with Vista, I know it is a good OS (now…) but I haven’t really had a need to use it and I never had a computer that had Vista on it.  I was intending to buy a copy of Vista Ultimate 64bit with the new computer but decided to hold off.  So when Windows 7 Beta came out and the reviews were saying how good it is, I thought I would take a look.  With the new build having 8Gb I needed an OS that would support all of it.  I can tell you right now that I am extremely impressed with Window 7.  I have experienced a few issues with it (namely that I couldn’t get the WatchGuard VPN client to install which could be hardware related too..) but on the whole, I like it.  I am probably going to buy it when it comes out.  Yep, thats right, you read it, I am planning on buying Windows 7.  I do think their multiple versions scheme is a little stupid but whatever, they are the big boys, I am going to assume they know how to extort the most money out of the consumers…

So yeah, in conclusion, NewEgg.com is AWESOME!  My new computer is the Bomb!  And Computer components are to cheap to not consider building your own.

In vanilla supcom their is no exponential cost to assist factories. The additional cost is simply the engineers contribution to the production of the unit at hand. When dozens of engineers are assisting a factory the greatest time cost is waiting for the unit to clear the construction pad,  it is more timely to have more than one factory and to split the engineers into equal groups so that the time to clear the construction pad is reduced by a predictable amount.

production time lost to units clearing the construction pad = time to clear construction pad / factory count

Supreme Commander: Forged Alliance (c) THQ

Date: 16.02.2009
Size: 2 DVDs
Game Type: Sci-Fi Real-Time Strategy
Protection: Securom

Game Notes
~~~~~~~~~~
The last days of man are at hand. Two years after the Infinite War the once great warring nations now lie in ruins, and humanity’s hope for a brighter future is nothing but a bitter memory. A new, seemingly unstoppable enemy, supported by the zealots of The Order, now seeks to eradicate mankind; UEF, Aeon Loyalist, and Cybran alike. With their backs against the wall and staring into the abyss, the tattered remnants of Humanity’s forces must put aside old hatreds and band together as they prepare to make one last desperate stand. One last chance. An alliance forged in blood, steel and hope, they turn to face the dark.

Install Notes
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
1. Mount or Burn iso.
2. Install the game.
3. When asked for a serial enter: ****-****-****-****-****.
4. Copy crack from the Crack directory on the DVD.
5. Play and regret that you didn’t save money to buy a new pc!
6. Thanks Reloaded for crack.

To win it is always essential to develop a war book. 

A war book is a list of everything that must be done in war. War is much more than tactical maneuvering, war is all of the inteligence and man power that opposing forces can mobilize. Most Supreme Commander players have memorized an initial war book, they know exactly what to do for the first eight to ten minutes; but as soon as the clock ticks out of the familiar predictable progression, most players fall back on a closed posture which is easy to memorize. Players simply ‘pork’ up, they fall into a contracted defensive position where they aimlessly build static defenses. This is a lose situation.

The contents of war books are often mundane and obvious when you step out of the situation. 

For Example:

The most common situation is defeating a player who is aimlessly fortifying.

1. Setup radar coverage.
2. Identify all radar blips.
3. Prioritize targets.
4. Identify a method to destroy your target.
5. Destroy your target.
6. Repeat.

This system is incomplete, it requires that you also have a system for prioritizing targets.

1. Power Infrastructure
2. Mass Fabrication
3. Manufacturing
4. Defenses

And then a method for destroying your target.

1. Bomber Strike
2. Land Strike
3. Artillery Strike
4. Nuclear Strike

And grading the apropriate method based on types of defenses… and the list goes on.