Jump to content

ARM505

Members
  • Posts

    302
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Personal Information

  • Location
    In an aluminium can, Cape Town, South Africa
  • Occupation
    Heavy machinery operator

Recent Profile Visitors

The recent visitors block is disabled and is not being shown to other users.

ARM505's Achievements

Newbie

Newbie (1/14)

  • Week One Done
  • One Month Later
  • One Year In

Recent Badges

0

Reputation

  1. Wow, long time no post. I even missed the latest version release (insert shock and horror emoji) I'll be honest and say that despite wargaming and simming being nominally my hobby on PC's, I'm simply terrible at it nowdays due to the *incredible* complexity on offer. I grew up watching the earliest attempts at flight sims on the ZX Spectrum (with all of 48kb of RAM, look on youtube for 'Figher Pilot' for the ZX Spectrum!) and it has now become the case that commercially available sims provide professional level simulation complexity, BUT without the benefit of years of training. I happen to be a pilot in real life, so for example in DCS World I could get into the F/A-18 and sling it off the Cat on the 1st attempt without reading the manual (something I always try and do with a new DCS module!), but even with DCS the level of detail now requires many, many hours worth of 'book' work in terms of study (ie. just basic studying, not necessarily with a book, but simply learning to 'make the thing go bang' for example). The latest patch to the Hornet module for example adds the Walleye glide bomb - do I even know how to get one off the rail? Probably not... I started SB with a demo of version 1 - then I found a cracked copy of the full product (v1) at a local game shop (said cracked copy subsequently forwarded to Ssnake for his 'collection' of dubious copies of SB!) Nowdays, whilst the M1A1 and Leo might still feel homely, and I can throw together a basic plan with the map (and maybe even use a shortcut key or two), I basically have no idea of 80% of the remainder of the software. Apart from life in general (career, children etc), the sheer complexity of modern battle simulations is absolutely mind-blowing. I just got Command: Modern Operations last night. It will probably collect just as much dust as it's not-very-distant predecessor, CMANO. I just don't have the time that these things require, not only because I have less time on my hands, but because they're just so detailed that it would take months to comprehensively understand and use everything in it. Which of course brings me to what I *do* do with them (DCS, CMO, SB etc) - I just fire them up for very quick, limited scope engagements. A quick 1 v 1 on DCS vs AI, a small ambush on SB etc. I fully realise that I'll just use about 10% of the capability, but the detail is still the fun part. World of Tanks is just stupid, it's a game, but it's still just stupid, AND you still need to spend a lot of time learning how to play anyway. If I'm going to learn something, it must have a solid grounding in reality, and real physics/systems. SB's scenario's are almost always MUCH too big for me to have any proper idea of what I'm doing - ideally I'd work with one or two vehicles, that's my limit. So yes - SB's detail, and the others like it, is both the attraction, and the problem. But if you're smart about how you go about it, take small bites, and don't expect to master it all, it's still the way to go. /rambling wall-o-text. So yes, I can do M1A1, Leo 2A4 and Bradley FCS's with some degree of competence (some). Retreat route/condition? Hmmm....I *used* to know (sadly a very prevalent answer). SB is now a game among many, sadly.
  2. Sucks to be me. Still can't install the 2015 C++ libraries and still can't run SB. Giving up for the weekend. Nothing seems to work. I'm not going to reinstall Windows for one piece of software (it's the only thing my PC has a problem with), maybe someday somebody will develop something more fault tolerant.
  3. In a heavily ironic twist, it's ultimately my tinkering with my limited in size C: drive specifically to free up space for earlier versions of Steel Beasts that has caused this problem. Let me explain.... Previously, SB used to install a massive chunk of stuff to your c: drive, regardless of where you specified the install to be. This caused huge problems for me, with a limited SSD of 60GB for the boot/OS drive (C). While trying to save some space, after MUCH fighting, I eventually just gave up and deleted the stuff in one of the huge folders that seemed to just be junk, namely the packagecache folder. This was, yes, in contravention of some advice out there, but it has had zero effect on me for some time, UNTIL NOW. It seems (as per the advice) that deleting that folder could cause problems with VS stuff. And lo and behold, that is now the case, many months after the fact. VS seems completely helpless in the face of not finding a specific folder that it's searching for - it makes NO attempt to repair itself, it cannot reinstall from scratch, it makes zero effort to look for the files online if it can't find them locally.......ALL installation attempts (including attempting to install VS Community dev tools etc) fail immediately when the installers cannot find some of the files/paths in those now gone packagecache folders........*facepalm meme again, both at myself and MS* Nothing seems to work - every repair/reinstall always fails when the installer cannot find those missing folders. I'm frankly completely amazed at how little 'damage' tolerance this particular bunch of software (Virtual Studio installations) has. In this connected age, surely a simple online query for missing files by the installer would be handy? In any case - I've worked for hours on this, no joy. Off to play World of Warships some more....I'll come back to this later again.
  4. Same thing here, mfc140.dll not found, and SB won't start. Win 10, version 1607 (the newest update). I haven't had a problem previously, but trying to reinstall the Visual C++ redist. for Visual Studio 2015, the installer fails (both X64 and X86) with a 'The system cannot find the file specified' error, and halts. There seems to be no way to get it to repair itself, and it doesn't show up under the apps that can be uninstalled. *insert facepalm meme* MS, why yu no give us functioning VS stuff??
  5. Thanks for this reminder. I'm also sitting with critical space shortages on my C drive, and this will help. *cough* Drives are cheap yes, but *cough* SSD drives which are smaller are often used as the boot drive, the fact that SB installs 2 GB to C which you don't have a say in doesn't help *cough*. Being able to dodge the space required by the installer alone helps of course, thanks again.
  6. I must say, I nearly lost the damn thing once when moving house, then I nearly swore at it, but otherwise it's very non-intrusive. Until you lose it of course. I just leave it in always though. I've got the codemeter software set to only start when I tell it to, so it doesn't even run unless I'm going to run SB.
  7. There're few things quite so educational as a cracked rib caused by a simple ditch. And that was over relatively open terrain. In AFV's, you are the crumple zone.
  8. The GPSE in the Commanders seat for the M1A1 see's exactly what the gunner sees, so it's not that. It's literally a tube that takes the same image to the commander, if I understand the system correctly. The Leo Commander is looking through a whole separate physical sight (the Peri), hence the ability to look somewhere independently from the gunner. All I can say is hold the gunner onto the target until he calls it?
  9. ARM505

    TrackIR

    Ek lewe nog steeds. Hello HT! Thank you Just finished a marathon play through of a few old classic scenarios in V3, again highlighting how far this sim has come. TiR would definitely add to it all though, thanks.
  10. Just 'updated' to 8.1 - when I ran SB for the 1st time it stated that Direct Input had to be installed, and did so. SB ran perfectly, no issues except the loss of AA from the Nvidia driver side (who knows why), corrected by exiting and resetting the Nvidia control panel. Fullscreen, by the way.
  11. ARM505

    TrackIR

    Actually......now that it's mentioned again, TiR use in all 'virtual cockpit' positions is actually pretty feasible and indeed desirable, ie the Commanders position (as always), and now 3D gunner positions, even unbuttoned driver positions. Just to highlight the 3D gunner positions, it has real use in these new 3D models. It would actually be pretty awesome to be able to 'back off' from the sight and look around, especially to just look right and just use the mouse to make inputs on the control panels, look back to sight and click, ie the mouse wouldn't be used for both eye movement, then clicking to switch to 'switch flicking mode', then clicking somewhere to get back to 'eye movement mode' etc (which I always seem to get wrong in the heat of the moment) Dare I mention 'The List' - even looooooooowwwww priority?
  12. Real men grade themselves for gunnery ratings in the T72. As for the masochists amongst us.....the Warrior for them
  13. Was.......was that guy being serious in that Gavin video?!? I didn't spend too much time in the comments section, I thought it was a joke? Surely?
  14. Wow, that's impressive. I can't call myself an ex-submariner, but I have had a few trips in them (been down to 200m, not quite the max depth of 300m the Daphne was rated to ) - it takes a lot of faith in your equipment to dive if you ask me. I wouldn't want to have to operate in one of those things, but it's a seriously impressive effort nonetheless.
  15. Oh noes! Foreign snails/bugs/soil/stuff could enter Australia! Maybe I'm just used to the endless stories of my fellow South Africans getting flak for trying to bring biltong (dried meat) into Oz land. They seem kind of excitable about that stuff
×
×
  • Create New...