Learning by tryin' while getting better and better

People like me have awesome opportunities and I'm not speaking of job offers (but just in case "hello there, you're welcome, let me freelance it"). Knowing how to do stuff like me is luck or sometimes it even feels like destiny. I'm talking about the ability, to make dreams come true.

I create Open Source stuff and still have many unfulfilled dreams like the one of working for a triple A title in the game industry or the deeper meaning of getting paid for doing so. People like me don't really need all the financial background, they just do what they want to do (main requirements: food, water, electricity). You need to know about 3 or 4 things in order to mod a existing game >> 3D, Texturing or Scripting / Editing in general. If you have the mainly important artistic skill, you will be able to realize whatever you could dream of (of course only virtual stuff). The only thing keeping you from doing it is the bunch of work that it includes. While doing a copy and paste of a config file with minor adjustments can be done on the fly, other things like modeling can go mad on little details.

Recently I red of a April day jocke and that a blog got payed by Facebook. I also saw that one insanely talented modder posted his newest creation in usual fashion as freeware but also as payware on turbosquid.
Many modders would agree with me: The amount of time needed to create a good Addon exceeds every expectation. Some would start a discussion on the importance of keeping the zerro $ menthality. I'm just saying, my own opinion differs a bit since I had to realize that most things don't even get considered. I mean many Addons lack on quality. Some modders are for example great with import/export jobs which usually is a lot of work. Others are great modelers and some are excellent texturizers and everything in once is pretty hard to get, see me as another example, I lack on something, too – to name it on configs. And then theres the time issue and real world living. Today I stopped further development once again because after a nice modeling session with some basic texturing and data handling I started the engine to test my creation. Yeah it was big fun, using my very own vehicle for floating like a boat, diving like a sub and early flight tests. I'm working on some kind of combo-craft and everything was good untill I had to remind myself that after the test drive I will need to look after:

- Cockpit and instruments
- Moveable parts (e.g. flaps animation)
- Materials (e.g. transparency for windows)
- VFX (e.g. engine glow effects)
- Config Parameters
- Data handling
- Polycount optimization

I did this or that a couple of times, recently by creating my own Sci-fi vehicle prototypes and testing them. It's always the same with me, I'm playing with so many different shapes that after hours of spare time consumation and while I reached milestone after milestone there was always something left on the todo list.
In such a case, work ain't gets finished at all but that's my very own kind of problem. I think that a good Addon shows that someone really took care of making it a brilliant example and such things are always rare goods.

Micro Crowdfunding. That's what I would call a solution for the as seen everywhere lack of ultra HiRes + mega features. That's because only a few modding projects are done by more than one person, especially where ingame items or objects get produced. Guess what I think that we all should support those who realize our dreams (be it just by modding a game). This means I would pay for the triple A ingame content but different to a DLC I would try to support individuals instead of companies since niche gamers have no big publishers or game studios. With a easier way to donate like a handy function for generic forums we could not only support the makers, also we could take care that those hand picked talents can sweeten our life just like we are a aid to them.

Speaking of me, having a blog ain't a good way to monetize my software skills but it still gives me spare time satisfaction. Releasing my own mods for free is a must and still a thing of personal interest. But if I could I would profit with some support. Since modding is fun to me I don't need anything else and so the good things come for free. If I run out of money and end up unseen you can play the guess what happened game. ;)

Conclusion with the formula for triple A mods:
Creators own satisfaction + skills + support = Evolution in modding

Happy virtual live out's folks!

Taskforce Civil Vehicle

Civil vehicles can be boring, especially in video games. But some prefer to play like me, be it as a freaky collector of Mods, messing up the scenery with proper objects or at good days, beeing serious pro sim vehicle riders.

Pro sim gamers know what I'm talking about. I ain't talking about Arcade Games. One needs to know at least the basics about using a specific vehicle since from our viewpoint even that can be something worth mastering. Then theres a possibility to learn the extra features, e.g. some special or uncommon functions. Also one could read a lot of Wiki's to know about things like air manuevers or whatever counts in real life, too. From another viewpoint too much realism ain't a must have compared to the time it would cost. So if one is more about steering all kinds of vehicles, it's not the classic MS FlightSim thing starting from some airport and landing thousands of miles away (with or without time acceleration). Same goes for a space flight, means a Journey from Earth to Saturn ain't like a quick Earth to Moon visit. We don't have the time or we might have no patience. Instead we enjoy the important things like offroad driving, starting, manuevering, landing, sailing, diving and so on. So we don't miss the interesting part but sometimes playing a "realistic" Sim that way feels kinda strange, comparable to a vertical take-off with vertical landing right at the same spot. It's quite important to have something to do while commanding a virtual vehicle. This way it's more fun and keeping guys like me away from creating scenarios with way too many objects in one place. I often see vids on YT with let's players who only do crap while recording it. In one of my recent posts I said it's about one vehicle. But how about having some fun with it, what to do with it? What I miss most is a good 360° view of the vehicle, so why not run around it with the camera instead of doing lazzy master stunt attempts that end up boring?

Just think of a buddy on your side that gives orders to you:

"Ahhh, I'm getting mad by your flying style"
"Land here, please / Drive there / Set course to... / Hold course"
"Circle target / intercept object / "Dock at" / Follow object"
"Faster! / Slower"
"Pickup something from here / deliver to there / transfer of passengers"
"Fill your cargo space with important goods"
"Slot upgrade or over-cheat your craft"
"Stunting like fly under that bridge / do a looping"
"Withstand a heavy storm"
"Find the SGU Destiny Ship around the galaxies"
"Maintain a fleet wisely and don't forget anything while doing so"
"Force and handle onboard system failures by deactivating 'modules'"
"Master and provide yourself with a executive interactive self experience production like a James Cameron"

Different situations are fun and also something for the eye. When it's about realism, all the kewl things like changing the weather conditions to 2012 means that in real life, such things are unlikely to happen. In standard conditions, only helicopters are thrilling tricky to handle, planes or boats make one feel sleepy. Wind gusts can be entertaining but in general it's pretty boring to watch a buddy playing non combat games. FPS games put you into direct action, Sims need more thinking just like a strategy game. There must be a way of beeing a Captain of something could be big fun, if for example a Voyager Intrepid Class ain't floating around without having anywhere to go or a Sail Boat without a destination could be avoided.

Exactly, we need some nice tasks and tasks need driving experience (btw, you don't really need somebody near or spend pesos for a teacher). You can get the raw material, the vehicle of choice. All those Addons help making Sim games more enjoyable since they lack with stories and in most Sims there is only scenery and vehicles. So in case you feel like me, let's hope that a GF is near saying "If you land on that Vulcano expect some hot action". Said very simple it's about "flying" in a way that nobody would scream at you, even you know there might be no one near (anyway you could use a voice chat or whatever to join other nerdy peeps giving orders for fun on teamspeak).

So, heres my order to you: No matter what you steer, drive savely. But don't forget to be relaxed in case of playing Sims. Improve on skills and in the end, you guess it, the classical jocke that never gets old:

"Attention, our Captains did a sky dive, are there any pilots on board?"

- silence -
"We are going to crash against a mountain"

- a drunk voice answers -
"I can fly this thing"

- meanwhile in the cockpit -
"Sure, I have hundreds of flight hours on my PC"

That drunk guy is at least a candidate. But I would judge such a situation by asking which Simulator he played, but that's another geeky topic. If a kid on board can proof on my laptop to have IL-2 skills, he would be the one to land that airplane. Of course, in that case, he or I would need assistance, maybe not ;]

Well, to be honest, I have a fifty-fifty chance to land savely in video games, how about that? :D   Or how about my space skills, I can land on every planet in our Solar System except Earth, no kidding, very useful ain't it?

More skills based on more serious manuevers is what we get when we try, try, try. The good thing about virtual simulations is that they ain't real, only realistic. And those who play with Scenario Editing can do a lot more to enhance the situation by adding different objects to the current map. Flying over forests can be boring. Ever tried to place entiry cities in the middle of nowhere? Trust me, it's big fun! Many people start with modding games by modding their own ingame experience. So better don't waste with your dreams fuel.

Have a good "A to B" OR "Just don't care". I guess it depends on the mood and maybe it's a proper thing to fly under bridges for the sake of skills. :)

Status Report: My Modding Projects

Right now in real life: Working on the Punt Boat
(Season begins soon)
[Image Source: sxc.hu]

I've been busy recently. There are a lot of things I would have shared with you that I allready forgot. Never mind, let's face the important things at least. Real life goes first and I wouldn't be the first blogger to fail and this would be my number #Iduno construction zone. But I'm still in the game working on some Mods. In general, the things I like to play with are:

– Product Design (means concept drafting)
– Skinning
– Mesh-importing
– Map-editing
– Playing with config files

The Universal Cargo Box is one of it (I missed to do anything for it recently). The MagShield UVW-Textures is another. Meanwhile I do one or two Delta Glider EX and Arrow Freighter skin jobs. Seems Orbiter is my game of choice. But theres some Mod evaluation going on with Vehicle Sim. And I'm still creating a huge Scenario for IL-2 (but I wonder if it will be compatible with the newest Patches). For IL-2 I plan to create another dozen of Skins. And the BSG Diaspora game also awaits my long time ago promised Flight Skills Test map. I don't want to talk about other things since most things never get finished and some are too heavy to do anyway. Big fun could be the scenario creation within the Map Editor of WC Saga (placing cat's in space).

The idea to create my very own vehicle leads me to research good looking shapes since years and I'm now about the enter the dimension of cockpit design / texturings. Let's see, maybe I start from inside-out instead of drawing exterior concepts first. In the end, I'm trying to match polycount, once I have done the all the research and experimenting, aswell as finding the right plattform-game. But oh wait I was dreaming, just saying, the vehicle would be a space, air, deepsea and floating thing with feets, skids and wheels in one. ;)

Little by little I try to do my part. While I crashplay vehicles and things all the time, I always enjoy Open Source Mods and I wish I could do more to provide others with my little creations. This way I want to shout a BIG THANKS to all modders of vehicle Sims, be it by scripting awesome things or just adding mixed vegetation to the games. Every good Mod makes a game more immersive and theres a huge lack of that thing in every detail... when speaking of virtual games.

Oh and by the way, improving this Blogs look and feel is another thing written down on my task list. This Blog is a free time thing, now highly ranked at search engines but still almost without visitors or feedback. I don't have the time for playing games these days and my PC is a waste since I needed to change it's cooler. Anyhow there should be some releases coming up in the matter of sooner or later. And of course, I will write about the one or other topic on my mind as soon as they appear or whenever I have the muse and time for it.

Requests: On the need of finding something of use

Inspiring Submarine designs with a lot of Steampunk

We need more fancy rides, so I seeked for 3D Meshes for futher implementation into some Simulators and what I had to find was that most things don't even exist in the virtual world. While researching I found out my preferences are somehow unseen or let's say if you ask me, I would reflect a very specific nerd-faction. This means I'll take my opinion and I'm asking in the name of all vehicle related sim players that want to be early adopters, too. Here is some opinion leading for all of us. I hope you agree with me in particular. This list is aimed to bored Modders in search of something special. Thanks in advance!

These are some of the 3D-Meshes or Mods me and others would love to see:

Marine
U-Boat Type XXI (kewl design, hot historical specs)
U-Boat Taifun Class (huge and modern)
Seabreacher X Shark, Dolphin or Orca (fun and innovative)
Sailing Boat Dehler Dehlya 25 (tiny and cute)
Deepflight Black Hawk or Deepflight I or Challenger or Super Falcon Mk II

...

Air
The Jet from the movie G.I. Joe 1 (the non AI two-seater variant)
Synergy Aircraft (a crowd funded futuristic plane)
Mi-24 (a russian helicopter)
He Triebflügel (epic WWII concept aircraft)
He 112 (good looking, good manuevering)
Some Horten Glider Planes (one-wing concepts, needs flight skills)
Wingsuits (YAY, needed)
...

Space
Mars Attacks Flying Saucer (kewl design, epic gadget)
The Flight of the Navigator (unique design, for fantasy purposes)
BSG Rising Star (one of the most beautiful ship designs ever)
A super movable Spacesuit (needed for some)
...

Terrain
Some more very freaky Concept Cars (from real manufacturers).
Some hotter Mech Warrios (more sleek, please).
More different Byclicles or how about some virtual Inline-Skating?
...

Notes
All should have cockpits, except the two last ones. Thanks for developing! Ah and thanks for creating any awesome vehicle design that not got mentioned in here. Keep up the good work! :)

This topic is sheduled to be filled from time to time with whatever I end-up researching while looking for hot mobiles. Soon with pictures and more fancy entries.

Between Star X and Star Y – A true Fanboys Dilemma.

Spaceship Orion from the 60's:
Forgotten entry + hard to match + Low-Res only?

About mixing Space Sagas and their Spaceships
Sure, mixing Space Sagas is no good idea but sometimes it can't be avoided. All those fancy Ships known from movies and tv shows can be called real, at least within a games Mod. So, if you played with thousands of Spaceships in dozens of games, you soon start to realize that one thing might not fit coupled with another. This took years for me to understand. It's a technological and design specific fact that you can't combine for example Stargate with Star Trek, without calling it Steam- or Cyberpunk. If you ever had that feeling, it's a Dilemma! Let me give you another example: Just compare a Warp Drive or Subspace with some generic engines and while we are talking – where are the RCS trusters on most Sci-fi ships at (since most missed to include them)? And that's only talking on the surface of a very deep topic, mainly because for the designers theres a lot of goals when bulding a fictional spaceship. It could be the generic look of the time setting, the technology need or just a current design trend OR as in many cases only a fast solution. Imagine us living in a harsh industrial time. We would see angled minimalistic and sure footed non aesthetic designs. In the other example we would live in a super High-Tech century and our ships would be organic and feature whatever we can dream of. Let's make a note: Different Sci-fi Looks and different time frames produce inconsistency. My favorite way to compare such things is by looking a the cockpit or bridge design or by aerodynamical aspects of the hull. While I often find ugly canopies I also discover many non- or semi-aerodynamic shapes or something I would call "Comic-Look". One thing is for sure, all the stories around the Star Sagas are huge and epic, each as it's own. But what about the specific assets like Spaceships in the matter of the look of the Saga, are they even realistic? And when it comes to gaming, how about mixing them all up togheter?

"Creating a virtual mega Hangar full of different Ships – a long time goal".

Back to reality
Sci-fi is just Sci-fi, but not for us gamers. Lot's of famous Spaceships appear from game to game. Many games offer some simple Unit Management, a Map Editor or some scripting access. This way nerdy folks create fun scenarios containing multiple amounts of different Spaceships. It's just like doing what you ever dreamed of. Once you parked all those fancy Spaceships in one place, which I did over a thousand times, you will be creating a mess, just like me. Different Scalings, window sizes, engine types, hull platings, colours, Sci-fi Technologies and in the end even more important things like different Mesh and Texture detail levels. This was just a little set of things which might not fit. Even in a lone role, when not creating virtual empires, taking a simple ride into space depends on having something to fly with. Running different Sci-fi Mods I had to find a solution to such a complicated question and since it differs from day to day, how to choose my current most liked Sci-fi Universe Spaceship to role play with it? And will it satisfy?

"Help, I know hundreds of Spaceships".

So, what kind of Fanboy am I today?
Most of those Sci-Fi Universes are my favorites. It's a constant change. And there are those days where I don't even want to know a thing about Sci-fi. On such days I feel like a realist avoiding everything that's only theory. When not flying hypothetical stuff I enjoy state of the art ingame vehicles like Ships, U-Boats, Airplanes and almost real Spaceships. Back in time, I would have called myself a Trekkie (I've been playing STO a long time but the recent two movies hindered me from login-in again). Nowadays other Merchandisings play a bigger role to me, like Stargate or BSG (SG is fascinating but I don't really like the look, same with BSG). Andromeda is a too strange and ugly but a interessting story setting. I even was once into Babylon 5 when I was a teenager. Oh and Star Wars was something I called fantasy, even the assets part was nice enough to be liked. Firefly had to little spaceships for me to be recognized with proper attention, same as others (forgotten Sagas). Theres a easy way to determine the issue by simply looking at the fact that Star Trek Federation Ships are too futuristic to be placed near every other Sci-fi. It's sad but it differs entirely.

"Having all of my favorite Spaceships in one place was once very important to me".

No doubt, Steampunk!
Sometimes I can't relate to any of my once beloved Fan Sagas. I'm starting to fan-like independant open source Spaceships, since they offer a lot of the, to me very important "realism" and provide space for my own kind of Storylines. The fun fact is, that one could Mod such ships to however he wanna end-up with, be it a Star Drive or A Wormhole Drive, a cap of coffee on that cockpits texture or whatever. In this case we should have a good base, means a good detail quality (to avoid wasting time with Low-Res sources). Anyway, a Rendevouz Manuever of a BSG Ship with a Star Trek Ship is something fun to watch, in case the beam transporter is offline, which we, for fun, try to expect in such a scenario. This should explain why there are even more things that could play a main role in the confusion:

"Colonial One to Delta Glider NX-425. Wheres your docking port?".
"DG NX-425 to Colonial One. Nope, no such thing, uhm, ..."

Details, details, details:
Lot's of Mods have a great level of detail, others not. Mixing HiRes with Low-Res is always a bad thing to do in the name of immersion. Here comes another tricky problem, should one leave a mighty spaceship alone, even when his Star X/Y fleet is almost complete. Or should he add the Comic-Lookalikes, too? That's another question and the reason I stopped creating overfilled Fps-killing full scale scenarios because things did not even fit. I sure would love to have them all in one place, but all from the same source or with at least a min. on details, most importantly on the mesh and / or texture and besides that on the overall compability (see the Docking Port example above).

"It's like comparing apples and oranges".

A matter of taste OR quality
Well, most would say, why play with Low-Res stuff. I wish I could agree but I learned that many old games offer more assets or gameplay features than state of the art releases. A lot of HiRes Mods come from common games like BF3 and for non-commercial creators it's a matter of time consuming work to create HiRes Mods by themselves. Maybe that's the reason why we don't see them everyday.

"Size also matters a lot - choose your favorite vehicle wisely. Too big means no steering fun. Too small means it wont fit your dreams".

Diving for Pearls
I think a good summary on this complex nerd topic is picking the best and leaving out the rest. Some Sci-fi Spaceships are awesome and some Mods feature those Spaceships. But this topic is not only about spaceships. It's about the best Mods around and good things are like the saying hard to find. So I say no matter what it looks, if it's realistic and full of details it's worth a ride. This way we can create virtual parking lots with things that could be real one day or reflect the future instead of playing with the things we used to like when we were kids and which don't fit our adult needs for authenticity anymore.

"In the end, I only need one personal virtual ultra mega awesome super ride, right?
A Stargate should be enough anyway!".



This topic is not done yet. I will write a bit more on it asap. 

WIP UNIVERSAL CARGO BOX

WIP WIP WIP UNDER CONSTRUCTION

Features:
– Note: the texture part is just for fun, no real labels so far but I provided "room" for them. Theres also space for a logo and the "funny wrong placed QR-Code". Also misses some serious scratches
– The usual OLED-Screen (will run a texture of "Linux on steroids"). The Xpad2 is gone (maybe a UMMU will hold it in his hands)
– The red LED-backgrounded 'drag-slide-to-open' mechanism
– Input / Output vents
– The retro control module (now with USB-Connector and XY-Hardware-Slot) + even with some lil' LED system status indicators
– Covered modules (8 possible): Coolant, Electronics, Refrigerator, Pressurizer, whatever (could also count as extra cargo space, e.g. just in case)
– Case study as eye-candy: Somebody forgot to put a module cover back again (might be part of a random box out of +200 planned cargos with little individualization gimmicks)
– The usefull 'LED-Sheeter' also likes to be part of it
– Has Handles, oh yeah baby – Fork lift bottom access
– Space Fork connectors (4 for now, maybe more will be added)
– LED light stripes on each side help locate the box
– The body of the box is made to be sturdy to avoid collision with the soft-parts (but so far it's only plastic)
– At the back: Coolant for integrated computation + old fashion coolant vent
– A little solar collector
– A Gesture Detection Sensor (for the Touchpad)
– Invisible but included: Ambient light sensor, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and duno what
– Other things might be added, too

Preview: WIP MagShield + a little review

Flight log: Critical radiation bombardment | Test pilot: d2k "visualdude"
Classified report | For your eyes only | MagShield Initiative 

Heres what the cam drone recorded:

I did not concentrate on my job, had only a couple of seconds left or I would have been fried. I guess space pioneer's have a dangerous job. I quickly played with the setup to lower the magnetic bubble to a maximum of 400 ms/Av because I started to feel dizzy. Then it happened – the Pegasus effect was visible to the blank eye [right after I had to find myself sitting inside some 70's optical colour illusion with over 1200 ms/Av]. I survived only by luck, I'm not used to fly the Delta Glider, neither to press it's buttons. nd now the magnetic fields values are nominal and as expected. I hope I soon can use one of my private ships to test the XXL MagShield module.

RisingFury and Loru, the two project managers, did outstanding work. The shields cover the whole ship from radiation. I cant describe my feelings, it looks so relaxing when keeping in mind space travel can be called save. The future of space colonization is awating us. No more hidding underground, behind stone or inches of plump platings.

--- End of message ---

Note: This is a WIP, a proof of concept. I only did the Texture file that creates this effect! This has only little do to with non-sci-fi shields but the colourplay reflects are those you could see when using it in reality. 

FUTURAMA Take 3 [Gamma]

See also:

Futurama Take two
Futurama Take 1

The Flight of the Navigator – The hottest ship in store!

What a movie, awesome how it reflects a little boys dreams. 

Remember this one? I can't forget that ship, decades later it's the still the hottest one around. It has been my biggest inspiration source ever – the shiny chrome semi-liquid shape shifting hull, what more should I say!? Rewatching this movie as a grown up uncovers a lot of ununderstood turns in the storyline. I found out that the ships AI Computer is evil and that it's not the kids friend at all. I found out that the ship comes from some dark side and is trying to make Anakin Skywalker out of him. Anyway, Hollywood, if you ever want to make me feel like a kid again, do a revival of this merchandise but keep the ship as it is (or update it a little, I say slightly to be even more awesome). Theres not many look alike Sci-fi ship designs around, trust me, only one or two or three. This one is the KING!

Illustration (could have been me)

Pick me up, handsome!

Yeah, that would be my vehicle of choice:

wheres my keys? (made by circuit5389.deviantart.com)

See, even it has futuristic look it's retro, just like:

It's a classic!

Random Inspiration: Inside the ISS at night

Inside the International Space Station. Looks very steampunk IMO.

WIP ShieldBox / MakerBox / UniBox

I just need a place to upload this image so I can link it. What you can't see yet is the handles for opening of the box. These are part of the mesh I use, below is just the texture.

Anyway, heres a little brief description:
Shielded from the inside against cosmic rays / misc radiation / EMP / sun flares. Also withstanding extreme high and low temperatures. Pressurized and unpressurized, depending on the content.

– wears a shield grid (a.k.a. Faraday cage).
– has a OLED-Screen.
– the enteriy box tries to imitate a composite material look (unfornutaly,you can't really see it)
– the Xpad2 with lefty mini-joystick and usb/whatever (sorry FoodDivPack users, you run the Xpad1 for now).
– some retro control module as seen with FoodDivPack.
– one guidance text block.
– a funny wrong aslope QR-Code sticker.

                                                                  V 1.2:

            

                                V 1.1 ingame (sneak):

Replicator-X Early-WIP:

Draft Universal-Cargo-Box-1 (inspired by STO Lock Box):

^WIP 2D, WIP 3D>

Contains many bugs, under constuction. I'm not happy with couple of details!

Wing Commander Saga – The LOLCATS strike back! Most epic game ever!

A true Hall of Fame entry:
The LOLCATS strike back! The Most epic game ever: Wing Commander Saga!



Cat's are fun: A Cat on the ISS would be the most ever clicked YouTube video I guess.
I don't know how, but cat's somehow appeared in space, they call themselves Kilrathi now.
And they evolved to be lovely monsters. Yep and we and them became equal so watch it, they fly spaceships. BTW: The cute angry cat on the left actually ain't a Kilrah (those look more like tigers).


Oh yeah, so linear story based gameplay can be big fun, entertaining and thrilling. It's about atmosphere and you can feel it even theres no atmosphere in the vast of space. The storyline is like this: A Squadron, Carriers that house you, lot's of cat's everywhere. They call us furless freaks (maybe because we freaked out on funny cat-vids, yeah no doubt). They have CapShips / BigShips and lot's or medium and catsize support crafts. They fight hard but they don't risk too much. They entirely blame your flight skills (at least till right before you finished all campaign missions) + they hit hard.

The seven lifes thing works for cat's even in space, be it as if you need to restart a certain mission or because they can eject their ship just like you could. You pathetic descendant of monkeys! ...that's one of the more gentle things they said to me. Since they really make you want to find arguments (because of their flight skills or what they say) you can enjoy listening to what your taff wing mates have to counter. Fly in groups of 8 or more or do a recon mission with only one wingman. Play all those "I always wanted to" things. De-stabilize the Kilrathi presence at different sectors of space, get them away from any resources, aim for their Carriers and whatever (try damage it part by part, if they let you).

Having a great time:
Do two atmospheric flights, safe people, safe your Carriers. Encounter a loyal Monarchy of cat's following their Kings / independant leaders and say miaow to many high society cat's. A couple of the interesting stories and sceneries know from the various Wing Commander releases await you behind the ingame part where you have to stand them while you and they play hide and seek. This is no old-to-new: It has been made from A-Z for it's pilots. This also means the storyline introduces you the the world of Wing Commander. It's a tribute to Chris Robert's Wing Commander (which many of you might played before as it was the first top seller PC games, had movies and merchandising decades ago). WC Saga is made by fans for fans. Unlike Battlestar Galactica Diaspora – which also is a very epic game based on the FreeSpace2 Engine – Wing Commander Saga feels a bit more comfortable. I recommend flying only with "Glide Mode ON" (adds fun and simulator charecteristics). Meet famous cat's (you will get to know them). Have a little dogfight, the cat's have awesome ships (absolutely). Now they don't just look frightening sweet – unfortunately they are your target's (oh behave, cute cat's) . You will experience stunning briefing sequences, great music, voice-speech and radio-comms. the AI's will become your friends. Even the graphics are not state of the art the visuals have been all over raised to the maximum possible that the FS2 engine can master! If you haven't played it yet, trust me, everybody is saying this is trully thrilling and totally entertaining.

One or two pictures:

Download it here for free – have some fun:
http://wcsaga.com

Notes:
– Play it or never even think of calling it wack (it's Open Source, it was meant for something)
– This ain't a Multiplayer but they're working on such a thing at the moment
– I can't wait till we can pilot the cat's ships ourselves. They're on it, too!


This entry has been written by Simulator Miaow, meet her, she is here on this blog (on the right side), she wants to play a bit and she is a cute non-monster cat. 

Off-Topic: The most sophisticated Billard Multiplayer-Browsergame around (with 3D graphics)

Sometimes I go play billard with the local billard club guys. With one of them I play some online Billard. I can say, unless this ain't the "Billard Simulator" it matches a real Billard simulation (four stars rating).
The physics are very accurate for a browser game. Unlike other Billard Browsergames it's 3D environment is the only one around, very unique I guess. It can even harm your FPS so let's say it has good graphics. Every time I login it's hard to be afk, the match invitations appear one after another, a crowded place. This game now received my 5 Stars rating, it levelled up by one because recently I've been able to play it like real Billard, it simulates perfectly!

Features:
– has Leagues and Championships
– strong community (hundrets of players online, no matter what the clock says)
– lots of pro-level players
– player profiles (Gender, registration date, you can even be visible with your own image [facebook based login] or without it by regular login)
– Player ratings (current rank, matches counter, wins/looses, ratio wins/looses)
– Skill indicator / Current Reputation
– Chat system
– Top players list
– many different Rooms
– has an observer mode
– Bar/Lounge background (can be activited to enhance visuals)
– Game preferences (a couple things can be set)
– a Forum + a help function

Disciplines:
– Blackball Pool
– 8-Ball Pool
– 9-Ball Pool
– 14/1e
– Bank Pool
– Snooker
– Quick Snooker
– Snokker Lite
– Power Snooker
– Sinuca

Notes:
– After you added / started it it's way more comfortable to select the game type
– It needs a registration but it's a really good multiplayer game
– In you want to keep your ranking you should play this on the regular basis because if not your Highscore will be resetted
– Works with all major browsers, especially with Google Chrome (as an App)
– You need the Java Plug-In in order to play it (but most PC's have it)

You can play it here:
http://www.flyordie.com/pool


If you wanna know about serious pro-level Simulators explore this blog! SimTech2k ain't about agrar simulation and stuff. 

FUTURAMA Take two

Thanks to: http://www.corandal.com/flowsnake/hypnofrog.html for Hypnofrog