The Trek Discussion Thread (Sponsored by Chris & Jong) non-ultra Trekies welcome.
POSTED BY: chrisisall
UPDATED: Wednesday, June 14, 2017 05:53
VIEWED: 17126
PAGE 5 of 10
My review of Art Asylum/Diamond & Playmates Enterprises:
http://www.amazon.com/Classic-Enterprise-NCC-1701-Diamond-Comics/dp/B0
00GPYWIA/ref=pd_sim_t_15
NCC 1701. Classic. Awesome.
At $24 every fan should own it. I do *silent yet manly squee*.
http://www.amazon.com/Star-Trek-Enterprise-NCC-1701-Definition/dp/B002
BH4U56/ref=pd_sim_t_3
$44. NCC 1701 from the HD Remasterd series.
Not bad, but the upper saucer detail is a little sketchy IMHO.
http://www.amazon.com/Star-Trek-II-Anniversary-Enterprise/dp/B000REOEB
K/ref=pd_bxgy_t_img_c
Refit.
$38. They call it the "Khan" one, but it more closely resembles TMP E. I got me one.
NCC 1701A seems to be currently unavailable, but it is excellent. Wish I'd gotten one. Oh well. Maybe E-Bay?
http://www.amazon.com/Star-Trek-Enterprise-Iconic-Vehicle/dp/B001KPKMK
W/ref=pd_sim_t_3
The JJPrise.
At $16 it's not bad at all. Lights up real nice. Paint detail is more lacking than in the Asylum/Diamond E's, but I figure we gotta do our own thing to 'em all at any rate. More solid stand than the others too.
There are also battle damaged refits, mirror universe & 2nd pilot E's, but you have to be WAAAY more into this stuff than I am to care.
The laughing Chrisisall
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Well, there's a story with me and that game, and I think you'd enjoy it.
That was after the accident, right around the time I managed to drag the system into court and finally thrash thier ass, I had all but "won" - pyrric victory that it was since it had cost me everything but my life and at the time even that was kind of a toss-up, but I had just had a crapload of reconstructive work done and was under orders to limit activity and try to scrounge as much food as possible till my new crackbrained mad-docs would clobber the system by pointing out that if I starved all the work was kinda wasted.
So, nothin much to do, right ?
And my new place - unfinished basement, concrete floor, cinder block walls, conduits and insulation for a (very low) ceiling, kinda homey... for a dwarf, but it was cheap.
Most of my furniture was computer enclosures, as the only income I had was PC repair, and considering what it cost back then, I could throw in the price of tools and such and they still considered it a bargain, you know ?
Hell, my "bed" was a futon laid over a bunch of 286/386 casings.
Mostly though, I slept in the chair - this huge overstuffed recliner with a broken handle someone gave me rather than bother hauling to the dump, it was big and comfy, a regular archie bunker special.
Up against the far wall was a busted console TV left by the previous occupant, the tube was blown but the speakers still worked, and I laid a board on that and set my 19" Zenith Dynacolor on top, the board had kind of shelfie thing under it just perfect for my keyboard, and provided a handy place to mount my CH Products flight yoke pro w/throttle, with the rudder pedals on the floor underneath, naturally.
Beside that, on the right, an old monochrome 14" with RCA inputs, and a color 13" on the left from a bunch of C-64 kit, and mid grade PC speakers behind them.
Behind the chair a stereo tower someone left for the trash pickup, and a second set of little speakers on the side walls a bit behind the chair.
And all of it wired into a booster and plugged via some hackery into an original Soundblaster16, resulting in a kind of ad-hoc surround sound effect.
The computer it was in was a miracle of string-budget engineering, and like everything else I have built from the ground up by hand, durable as a boulder and insanely overbuilt - due to the insane cost of drives, I was having to use castoffs from folks I had upgraded, and I had six of em crammed in that case every which way, all of which spun at different RPMs resulting in a multi-whine resonant sound - got that to work by convincing the machine 1E8 IRQ 11/12 was a tetiary IDE bus and a chopped CD rom controller card.
It was also using VESA/VLB architechure - PCI was out, but so friggin expensive it was mostly server use, and most folk were still running ISA.
The vid card was ported via an AiTech scan converter to the 19" TV, and the "windows" were ported to the side monitors - and it gave me an edge on frame rate too, while most folk had machines that struggled with it, my FPS was rock steady no matter how ugly it got.
And of course, it had dual power supplies and multiple cooling fans, some of which were actually just blowers stripped from the 286/386 power supplies when they were left over from upgrades.
Heh, when you turned it on, there was this "BUMP!" noise outta the speakers, followed by the churning whine of them drives spinning up and it was almost like being *IN* the damn Vertigo-1.
And I had nothing to do all damn day but play that game, for MONTHS.
I had the machine to do it, and the reflexes - and one cool thing about it that made it almost like art, was that the system which ran the bots had a kind of rythym to it, so it added a kind of dancebeat quality to the thing, you see ?
I was often accused of being a bot, simply cause it was so damnably hard to take me out, especially if I was armed with a Gauss cannon, cause that not only did not give your position away when fired, the impact would make it hard as hell for anyone being spattered with
NOTIFY: N | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Finished. Needed to make about a hundred little touch ups on the paint job, but three days later, I'm done. Last *LAST* thing was the light over the shuttle bay doors.
I COULD go crazy now & start taping & painting ever-so-slightly different shades of gray all over it to simulate the paneling... but... I won't. It's only 16" long, no call for that kind of nuts.
Okay, I'm 'modeled-out' for this year.
*collapses*
The laughing Chrisisall
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by Fremdfirma:
Yo Frem, I thought this looked cool, but Sonisall wants to extend his utmost thanks- he downloaded it & is playing it constantly!!!
OMGisall....
The laughing Chrisisall
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
He is most welcome - entertainment value aside, it's also a really good way to develop and round out your 3D spatial sense.
You wanna see him snarl though, just mention the Thiefbot - I didn't warn ya about that, hehehe.
That little creep is kill-on-sight with me, moment I see him, he's *MINE* - I'll chase him right off and deliver the beatdown from hell, spreadfire/helix gun for that, since he does a lotta vertical bounce, just pin him to the wall with it and hold the trigger back till he DIES, screaming.
(Yes, he is killable, and yes, he does actually scream, that sound is on my top ten happy sounds right next to the extra-life ditty from Centipede)
You can get extra maps for D2, they're all over the net, with all kinda toys and editors, and there's also Descent III/Mercenary combo pack, but D2 is the king, really.
Made by the same people, damn good and available for cheap (and YOU might like this one better, Chris) is Descent: Freespace.
The graphics are actually pretty damn good, and the physics more realistic, but what sells it is that for once your wingmen are actually quite smart, useful, and you *need* them, plus some smarts yourself - or you're just meat on a plate.
I use the GTB Athena as a command ship rather than try a headfirst rush, works out pretty well.
Freespace 2 was either not released or didn't sell all that well, and as a gesture of kindness to the fans, the company released the source code and it's technically abandonware - so there's a lot of really good variations on it.
That'd be the one (instead of Freelancer) I would pick to do a Star Trek mod to, as it'd be more accurate world-wise - and I'd lay good odds someone already has, if you can find it.
And people wonder why imma retrogamer - pretty graphics and clobbered code robbed from a hundred prior games does not entertainment make.
The real butt kickers are all retro now, Mechwarrior, Descent II, Carmageddon...
-F
NOTIFY: N | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:He just said "Those are SO annoying!!!!"
Originally posted by Fremdfirma:
You wanna see him snarl though, just mention the Thiefbot - I didn't warn ya about that, hehehe.
The laughing Chrisisall
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by chrisisall:
Finished. Needed to make about a hundred little touch ups on the paint job, but three days later, I'm done. Last *LAST* thing was the light over the shuttle bay doors.
I COULD go crazy now & start taping & painting ever-so-slightly different shades of gray all over it to simulate the paneling... but... I won't. It's only 16" long, no call for that kind of nuts.
Okay, I'm 'modeled-out' for this year.
*collapses*
The laughing Chrisisall
Nice work Chris. My son is an ultra trekker also, but I don't believe he has any models as nice as this one.
Your Trek posts are bringing up some good memories for me. My son and I used to go to Trek conference together. He would dress up as a Klingon security guard and I would go undercover as a regular human. :) He'd make me wear a communication device though.
He has the Klingon symbol tattooed on his back and yes, he speaks Klingon. I bought a Klingon/human dictionary but still don't understand him when he goes off into the language.
He's busy with other things right now, but his Trek roots are never far away. Meeting Shatner was a high point for us. good times. :)
I don't know why I can't get him into Firefly. He is making a Zombie Western video though.
Anyway, good work.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:Thanks!!
Originally posted by Littlebird:
Nice work Chris.
Quote:
My son is an ultra trekker also, but I don't believe he has any models as nice as this one.
Here it is on the cheap:
http://www.amazon.com/Classic-Enterprise-NCC-1701-Diamond-Comics/dp/B0
00GPYWIA/ref=pd_sim_t_15
Quote:I was a Vulcan Ambassador once...
Your Trek posts are bringing up some good memories for me. My son and I used to go to Trek conference together. He would dress up as a Klingon security guard and I would go undercover as a regular human. :) He'd make me wear a communication device though.
Quote:I only know it from the movies, but I understand Andrew from Buffy feels it is a simple language to learn.
He has the Klingon symbol tattooed on his back and yes, he speaks Klingon.
Quote:Really.
I don't know why I can't get him into Firefly.
My best Trek friend also resists.
But I feel prolonged resistance is futile....
The laughing Chrisisall
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
I have something that might open some disscusion, i have for a few days ago seen most of Startrek-NG series, and well after seeing how Jean Luc Picard vented at Wesley Crusher over the stunt gone bad in the episode at the academy, about the truth(any kind of it, be it moral, ethic, or some other truth) is so very important for Starfleet officers and starfleet Cadettes.
Then seeing the episode later on about the indians that was to be forced of from there home because of the peace treaty made between the Federation and the Cardassian Union, I thought that Wesley should have reminded Jean Luc Picard of what he told wes at the academy, about the relationship between Starfleet officers/Caddettes and truths, during the talk with Jean Luc Picard after Wesley had warned the indians about the teleportation thingies(thought the whole story about the traveler thing was abit strange, and could have been without it) and Jean Luc Picard should react positively to this, and get into talk with Admiral Nechayev about it.
just some thoughts
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Ah yes, good ole Finn - one of my favorite characters, and the problem of the dimensional transporter slowly killing the people using it.
Not a real good job of handling the moral of that story, not towards the end, no.
But I think you have those folk also confused with the Maquis, who had about as valid a beef with Starfleet as there could ever possibly be, and yet in the story context we're supposed to be rooting for them to just roll over and die - that never sat well with me, never, especially what with Sisko's hypocrisy about it.
http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/Maquis
Quote:
"I know you. I was like you once, but then I opened my eyes. Open your eyes, Captain. Why is the Federation so obsessed with the Maquis? We've never harmed you. And yet we're constantly arrested and charged with terrorism. Starships chase us through the Badlands and our supporters are harassed and ridiculed. Why? Because we've left the Federation, and that's the one thing you can't accept. Nobody leaves paradise. Everyone should want to be in the Federation. Hell, you even want the Cardassians to join. You're only sending them replicators because one day they can take their "rightful place" on the Federation Council. You know In some ways you're even worse than the Borg. At least they tell you about their plans for assimilation. You're more insidious. You assimilate people and they don't even know it."
- Michael Eddington
One of the few times the moral cowardice of Starfleet was ever called into question, something few were ever brave enough to do.
-F
NOTIFY: N | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME