I'd say being a man who seemingly resents having to make an instruction manual would be somewhat of a barrier to an FS-style game, too. I mean, accessibility isn't his byeword, is it?

Bingo. First, Derek would have to deal with two separate codebases - the UC code and the Freespace code. Building FS3 off his UC code would look like total shit, and you'd need a keyboard chart that would put War and Peace to shame due to its length.
If he tried to put his neural network bullshit into the FS code it would probably take 10 years and 50 patches just to get it to work right. He would brag about the 30 unique features he plans on adding to the game (AMAZING ASTEROID AI!) but in the end only 2 will make it into the final product. Then he would put 2 of the previously planned features into the "Gold/Platinum/Silver/Uranium" version and charge you another $30 (unless you're a "loyal fan" i.e. bootlicker - then you only have to pay $20).

Then FS3 would need some semblance of a storyline, and I seriously doubt Derek could handle that. UC/BCM/BC3K has no story - you're some Starfleet bozo flying around in space with a bad attitude and a 30,000 metric ton nuclear powderkeg at your disposal. Period. That's less plot than a porno movie.

Could you imagine if Derek had to deal with the FreeSpace customers and fans? BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

In summary, if Derek Smart touched the Freespace license, it would end up a bigger disaster then the first release of BC3K. I'd rather the franchise stayed dead.

-----
Blue's Post Enhancer Greasemonkey script:
http://camaro76.web.aplus.net/bluesnewspostenhancer.user.js
Blue's Punk Buster (Troll-B-Gone) Greasemonkey script:
http://camaro76.web.aplus.net/punkbuster.user.js

- NPC fight AI improved

Uh oh... although the only real challenge was fighting Novas with that damn rear turret (although pirate ships with the Ion Disruptor or Shockwave Cannon are a pain in the ass too)

- Ship collision-avoidance AI improved

Yay! Less time straightening the dents in my hull.

- GOD engine rebalanced and enhanced to affect economy

Yay! Hopefully the AI will start trading at equipment docks now.

- Kha'ak fighters rebalanced (don't say we didn't warn you)

Well, they were pushovers before, so this sounds good. The Xenon are still a bunch of pussies though.

- Captured ship-speed bug fixed

Not sure what this one is about. I assumed capped ships were slow because I blew the hell out of their equipment...

- Decreasing numbers of AI ships over time fixed

Well, if the AI would stay the hell out of pirate or Xenon sectors that would help. But I heard this respawns more AI when they get destroyed.

- Astronauts filling up docking slots fixed

Heard about this one, and it sorely needed fixing.

- Fixes to several autosave and savegame CTD problems

Yay! I hit this one many many times.

Thank you, Egosoft!

-----
Blue's Post Enhancer Greasemonkey script:
http://camaro76.web.aplus.net/bluesnewspostenhancer.user.js
Blue's Punk Buster (Troll-B-Gone) Greasemonkey script:
http://camaro76.web.aplus.net/punkbuster.user.js

With all these new restrictions on digital content, I wonder who Hollywood is going to blame when their sales go swirling down the crapper?

-----
Blue's Post Enhancer Greasemonkey script:
http://camaro76.web.aplus.net/bluesnewspostenhancer.user.js
Blue's Punk Buster (Troll-B-Gone) Greasemonkey script:
http://camaro76.web.aplus.net/punkbuster.user.js

Thanks for letting me express that. Hopefully this won't start another flame war.

You know what makes bacon great? STEAM! Steam makes EVERY bacon great!

-----
Blue's Post Enhancer Greasemonkey script:
http://camaro76.web.aplus.net/bluesnewspostenhancer.user.js
Blue's Punk Buster (Troll-B-Gone) Greasemonkey script:
http://camaro76.web.aplus.net/punkbuster.user.js

I mentioned that story to a friend who is a paramedic tonight, and she said it's actually a very common way to die up here in Canada.

So if you want to bump someone off, just have them shovel your walkway? Sweet!

-----
Blue's Post Enhancer Greasemonkey script:
http://camaro76.web.aplus.net/bluesnewspostenhancer.user.js
Blue's Punk Buster (Troll-B-Gone) Greasemonkey script:
http://camaro76.web.aplus.net/punkbuster.user.js

Well, that's us now.... fucked. A quarter to a third of our music library has been deleted by the piece of shit known as iTunes

Damn, Z, that sucks. How about trying some sort of data recovery program (if the data on the drive hasn't been written over)?

http://www.majorgeeks.com/downloads38.html

And I agree, that's some stupid software design, especially coming from Apple.

-----
Blue's Post Enhancer Greasemonkey script:
http://camaro76.web.aplus.net/bluesnewspostenhancer.user.js
Blue's Punk Buster (Troll-B-Gone) Greasemonkey script:
http://camaro76.web.aplus.net/punkbuster.user.js

You know what would make this game great? If they offered it on STEAM! Steam makes EVERY game great!

-----
Blue's Post Enhancer Greasemonkey script:
http://camaro76.web.aplus.net/bluesnewspostenhancer.user.js
Blue's Punk Buster (Troll-B-Gone) Greasemonkey script:
http://camaro76.web.aplus.net/punkbuster.user.js

The mod scene has a hold of it, so maybe good things are yet to come. I have yet to make my first movie... and I'm still thinking of what I want to make (I'd rather not get "sued" by a certain shitty space game developer if you know what I mean...)


-----
Blue's Post Enhancer Greasemonkey script:
http://camaro76.web.aplus.net/bluesnewspostenhancer.user.js
Blue's Punk Buster (Troll-B-Gone) Greasemonkey script:
http://camaro76.web.aplus.net/punkbuster.user.js
This comment was edited on Dec 13, 20:01.

Never mind, just found the StarForce drivers on my system. Funny thing is, I installed and play the game with my DVD burner (Pioneer DVR 106-D). I suppose I should do a test burn of some stuff jsut to see what happens...

-----
Blue's Post Enhancer Greasemonkey script:
http://camaro76.web.aplus.net/bluesnewspostenhancer.user.js
Blue's Punk Buster (Troll-B-Gone) Greasemonkey script:
http://camaro76.web.aplus.net/punkbuster.user.js
This comment was edited on Dec 13, 20:16.

Oh, c'mon Bats! Every team needs some canon fodder!

Actually I think the term you're looking for is "meatshield".

-----
Blue's Post Enhancer Greasemonkey script:
http://camaro76.web.aplus.net/bluesnewspostenhancer.user.js
Blue's Punk Buster (Troll-B-Gone) Greasemonkey script:
http://camaro76.web.aplus.net/punkbuster.user.js

Maybe Santa will bring me a shiny GeForce 6800GS for Christmas... I went into a sector with some Xenon, and with everything shooting at me it turned into a slideshow right quick. Thank goodness I have a fast ship (Split Mamba), and the frame rate improves once most of the little peons are wiped out. I like to do crazy shit like getting the Xenon fighters to shoot at me while I'm flying around one of their big capital ships (which helps me take it out faster). My only problem is trying to get my race relations to a point where I can start buying space stations.

Anyway, hopefully this patch will swat the most annoying of the bugs and make a great game even better.

-----
Blue's Post Enhancer Greasemonkey script:
http://camaro76.web.aplus.net/bluesnewspostenhancer.user.js
Blue's Punk Buster (Troll-B-Gone) Greasemonkey script:
http://camaro76.web.aplus.net/punkbuster.user.js

The patch for X3 has been delayed, and I have no idea WTF is up with the patch for The Movies. I've been digging X3 so far but sometimes I get a CTD after loading a savegame a few times in a row.

-----
Blue's Post Enhancer Greasemonkey script:
http://camaro76.web.aplus.net/bluesnewspostenhancer.user.js
Blue's Punk Buster (Troll-B-Gone) Greasemonkey script:
http://camaro76.web.aplus.net/punkbuster.user.js

Ok...popup adds here on Blues News are getting really old. First, when you visit Blues News, you have to click a link to get to the main page. Then you are presented with "http://ad.yieldmanager.com" that pops up in a seperate IE browser window (I have tried Opera, Firefox, etc). Then you have the zillion "floating" adds on the main page. I am about to start visiting other sites because of all the excessive ads, popups, etc here on Blues News. Man....the Blue household must be one wealthy household based on all the ads here.

<Z>*sigh*</Z>

Yeah, I don't see how this is constructive, either.

It's real simple:

Don't want to view ads? Firefox's Adblocker extension will block most of them by default, and you can add more things to block and even set up a "white list" for things you want it to allow.
http://adblock.mozdev.org/

Or you can use a Hosts file:
http://www.mvps.org/winhelp2002/hosts.htm

Or you can try this:
http://www.mozilla.org/support/firefox/adblock.html

Still need to use IE? There are 2 separate Firefox extensions for this, one uses the right-click-context menu to fire up a link in IE and one puts IE right in a FF tab.
http://ieview.mozdev.org/
http://ietab.mozdev.org/

Still annoyed? http://www.shacknews.com/

THAT is being constructive.

[edit: forgot the IE view links]
-----
Blue's Post Enhancer Greasemonkey script:
http://camaro76.web.aplus.net/bluesnewspostenhancer.user.js
Blue's Punk Buster (Troll-B-Gone) Greasemonkey script:
http://camaro76.web.aplus.net/punkbuster.user.js
This comment was edited on Dec 12, 02:49.

I can blow up some ricers? SOLD! (If I could blow up some Fords it would be icing on the cake... heh heh heh)

Awesome GFX. This looks like a cross between Trackmania, Interstate 76, and Live For Speed.

Just give me a demo to check this out, please! WITH NO BUGS!

-----
Blue's Post Enhancer Greasemonkey script:
http://camaro76.web.aplus.net/bluesnewspostenhancer.user.js
Blue's Punk Buster (Troll-B-Gone) Greasemonkey script:
http://camaro76.web.aplus.net/punkbuster.user.js

UT2K4 is $12.90 at GoGamer, $17.90 for the DVD edition. I'd buy it, but I already have 2k3, and I don't bother with multiplayer games anymore. Too many idiots online.

-----
Blue's Post Enhancer Greasemonkey script:
http://camaro76.web.aplus.net/bluesnewspostenhancer.user.js
Blue's Punk Buster (Troll-B-Gone) Greasemonkey script:
http://camaro76.web.aplus.net/punkbuster.user.js

I want a heatpipe that runs to the top of the case, so I can keep a mug of coffee warm. Why waste all that heat?

-----
Blue's Post Enhancer Greasemonkey script:
http://camaro76.web.aplus.net/bluesnewspostenhancer.user.js
Blue's Punk Buster (Troll-B-Gone) Greasemonkey script:
http://camaro76.web.aplus.net/punkbuster.user.js

I also like the fact that you can download mods to check gmail, hotmail, and all those free mail services.

Actually you don't need a mod to check Gmail anymore. Just configure you Gmail account to use POP and you're all set.

http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=13285&topic=1556

-----
Blue's Post Enhancer Greasemonkey script:
http://camaro76.web.aplus.net/bluesnewspostenhancer.user.js
Blue's Punk Buster (Troll-B-Gone) Greasemonkey script:
http://camaro76.web.aplus.net/punkbuster.user.js

Well if there can be a call for "Deus Ex 2" then I want "Tribes 3" done by Dynamix (the original developers).

Tribes: Vengeance does not exist IMHO.

-----
Blue's Post Enhancer Greasemonkey script:
http://camaro76.web.aplus.net/bluesnewspostenhancer.user.js
Blue's Punk Buster (Troll-B-Gone) Greasemonkey script:
http://camaro76.web.aplus.net/punkbuster.user.js

I can top that!

Damn, now I really feel old. Good one!

-----
Blue's Post Enhancer Greasemonkey script:
http://camaro76.web.aplus.net/bluesnewspostenhancer.user.js
Blue's Punk Buster (Troll-B-Gone) Greasemonkey script:
http://camaro76.web.aplus.net/punkbuster.user.js

Welcome to 1999...

You know, it just doesn't seem right when you don't add the *sigh*
hey, it's tradition
Signing off like Ray,
Camaro76

-----
Blue's Post Enhancer Greasemonkey script:
http://camaro76.web.aplus.net/bluesnewspostenhancer.user.js
Blue's Punk Buster (Troll-B-Gone) Greasemonkey script:
http://camaro76.web.aplus.net/punkbuster.user.js