David Hingtgen

Doesn't look anything like the Super Hornet's IMHO. This is a Shornet's radar blocker--you can't see anything behind it, that's the point. Everything overlaps, there's no gaps exposed from the front--just curved slots where the air can "slip around behind". The PAK-FA seems to have inlet guide vanes, and you can see 2, maybe 3 stages through the gaps. Photo credit: Me

IMHO it was clear early on that it wasn't going to be as "epic" of a story.

Ooooh, I just read something interesting that may affect people's "starting" paradigms: A successful debuff apparently counts the same as a commando hit, with regards to preventing the stagger bar from draining. Hmmmn. Gotta try it out.

I don't think I've seen one, certainly not a good pic that I recall.

I don't think I've used him since I got a 4th segment for him. Will have to see. Fang's 4th was most unexpected though. (or maybe it's her 5th?) PS--I really hate how the game won't remember paradigms for your party. Surely it couldn't take up that much space in the save file to remember your combinations. Even if it wouldn't allow every combination to be saved, it should allow 2 or 3 "favorite parties and their paradigms". It'd save a lot of time re-assigning things.

This may help people who want some battle system stuff. Having gone through most of the game and tried just about everything, I almost always have the following paradigms now, in this order, assuming Light/HopeOrVan/Fang: rav/rav/com com/med/sen com/rav/com com/rav/sen com/rav/sab com/***/sab *** will depend on if it's Hope or Van. Syn or Sab goes there. General plan of attack: My default paradigm that I start battles with will be one of the two bottom ones. If it's an obvious "tough" enemy I'll go with max debuff/buff, otherwise I'll just have one sabotuer with everyone else attacking. After the first round, switch to relentless assault (rav/rav/com). When down to just one enemy, switch to agression (com/rav/com). Van and Fang do pair fairly well as dual sabotuers, as they tend to cast different spells. While now both of them can cast most of the spells, AI Fang always prefers to do slow/curse/imperil etc, while AI Van does deprotect/deshell/poison. If they're both lucky, you'll find enemies have a half-dozen debuffs by the time Lightning's ending her first round of attacks.

150K is more than I ever had. I honestly don't know how much you need---really, the main need for money at the moment is: 1. Rare minerals for transforming weapons. 2. Accessories. 3. Phoenix downs. You can buy components, but generally find enough good ones for free that it's not worth it, except for some cheap organic ones to help ensure you've got 3x bonuses all the time. PS---upgrading accessories is fairly pointless. They cost much more than weapon upgrades and have smaller benefits. They should be near the bottom of your priority list.

Whoops, forgot to watch. Have to wait for Syfy.com to put it up.

I'd suspect there will eventually be more pale grey hinges available, but it may have to wait until Yamato makes another batch--could be a couple weeks, could be a couple months.

I'm still waiting for a Vajra-girl.

2 bucks is about as cheap as DLC ever gets. That said I will definitely be passing on these, as they're my least-used characters. I'll just wait for a pack with Samara/Morinth costumes (it'd be neat if they made a Morinth-only one). (no matter what a new Tali costume will still just be an environment suit--they can't change it much)

Yup, Nora is the only good female pilot mold so far for a valk toy.

Ack, that won't work for ch 11----that waystone's not one of the *teleporting* ones. Ah well, the area around the tower is still good for CP farming.

All weapons end up at the same ultimate weapon---however, the ultimate weapon's stats ARE heavily influenced by what weapon was evolved into the ultimate weapon. In short---the final weapon for a given character always looks the same with the same name, but it will "act like" what it came from. First tier weapons go to 25, THEN to star, then can be evolved. An evolved weapon starts at lvl 10 or so, then goes to 60 I think, then star, then is the "ultimate weapon". chen---don't waste stuff at this point upgrading all 6 weapons. You can't afford to, and probably won't be able to until end-game. Pick your faves. I'll tell you now that Sazh is rapidly decreasing in usefullness, and Snow's not much better. My final party (barring any weird quirks of the final boss) will be either Light/Hope/Fang or Light/Van/Fang. And Belladonna is pretty much universally considered Van's best weapon, so go ahead and upgrade the heck out of it--nothing better will come along. Also----grind in ch 9! You want to snag as many credit/incentive chips from the soldiers as possible. MONEY is hard to find in this game. To everyone, for ch 11: I'd personally suggest doing only small amounts of grinding in the first main area---head right, find the flans in the fog, get some CP. Scout around the area just to fill out the map, and do a few easy hunts/missions. BE CERTAIN TO COMPLETE AT LEAST ONE HUNT. Then go and further the story. Keep going. Pick up an eidolon, etc. After a while, you will be at a tower. You'll definitely know which one I mean when you get there. The jouney itself will give you just as much CP and items as grinding would, only it's a lot less boring. Just before the tower, there's a cie'th stone that'll activate. Do its mission immediately---it shouldn't be hard. Now, you should be able to teleport between there, and the beginning part of ch 11, so you can alternate between grinding and the tower to your heart's content, and you'll have acquired some nifty things (like summons and weapons) on the journey. (many people try to WALK back to the beginning of 11 once they get a ways in and are finding 11 hard---that takes forever and then you'll have to walk all the way forward again to where you were---it's much better to just keep pressing forward until you can start teleporting between the beginning and the tower)

Ah, I hadn't gotten around to reading his review yet. Strange--I'd suspect that if anyone knew about this it'd be Graham, but he's not said a word AFAIK.

Ok, did I miss some big thread where a Yamato-Bandai collaborative effort was revealed and we learn that the first result was the VF-27? Or is this all speculation/tongue-in-cheek?

Sorry, but with BSG's callsigns and the like, all I could think of while reading the last post was a Viper with "Gubby" painted under the canopy.

Ah yes. Freaked me out the first time too---but you gotta admit it works and they're kinda catchy. (really, half the songs in the game have lyrics, but they're usually ethereal/background)

Was the battle system even finalized then? If you go back and look at some older footage, even though the areas and characters seem finalized, the battle system was definitely overhauled. (it seemed like different abilities have different costs, like 40/50/60, not raw "ATB segments" like currently---I kind of like the idea of more subtle differences)

Looking at Mindwipe again, I completely figured out the transformation once I tried to do so, which generally means "pass" for me. (My #1 rule for most any TF purchase is for something innovative/complex---which means that if I can look at it, think for 30 secs, and be 99% sure I know exactly how it transforms---then it's a waste of money to me) Exceptions are made for fave characters of course. Though I've wanted a bigger/better Barricade since the first movie, HA Barricade really doesn't look any better to me. Mainly--they still aren't doing ANYTHING with the chest/grill. I mean c'mon, Deluxe first-wave BB from 07 had a multi-part chest---not totally accurate, but at least they tried. And we STILL can't get a Barricade with some sort of v-shaped/indented chest? I expect "more complex than G1 Prowl" for the chest transformation after all this time/budget. I still have not ever bought a movie Barricade toy. And I doubt we'll get a leader-class.

How can it be delayed? They can't be tweaking the paint scheme...

Lately I've been going Light/Van/Fang, so I can double-sabotuer enemies. Sab is inherently better than syn IMHO, as say you're up against a single tough enemy (which is often)----casting deshell once on the enemy is basically the same as casting faith three times on your party members. Casting slow is as good as 3 hastes. Debrave is worth 3 protects. It's simply faster, and thus you have a bit more time for healing etc. After the opening round 2 sabotuers could have accomplished what would take a synergist like a dozen spells to achieve. If hastega/braveryga/faithga exist, they're a long ways away. Hope is very close to having EVERY syn spell though, might bring him back in when that happens.

Seconded. He was perfect for that character. (does a good Anakin too IMHO Personally, I love FFX. One of my all-time faves in nearly every category.

wolfx----exp carries over. I mean, I've taken a lvl 1 weapon, tossed a 5,000 EXP component at it, and gotten it to go straight to lvl 6. You don't get lvl 2 with 4,400 "missing" exp points. You don't have to worry about "wasting" experience. The only exception is when you're close to a "*". Also---some enemies are hyper-vulnerable to being lucky/having just the right attack. I took out a group on the plains in just about 50 secs. The target time was 12 mins. I was kind of annoyed there was no "amazingly good battle" bonus. Behemoths are a good example of this---if you take them down quickly, they have no chance to do their "near-death buffs"---if they do, it'll take 3-5x longer to kill them. Ghost Train--I never played FFO, but Dragoons in every other FF game have rocked IMHO. And Fang is very good, but I keep being annoyed by the fact that her mere presence pretty much forces Lightning to be a ravager much of the time, which is a waste of Light's skills. Only when you're down to one enemy can you switch to com/com. Com/sab is only useful for short periods of time, same for com/sen. Fang/Hope/Van or Fang/Sazh/Van would probably be an awesome party, but I'm never kicking Light out of the party. Still, I do often have Fang in the party as her innately high damage makes up for the periods when Light's a ravager. (and is part of the reason I'm going for a more balanced Light). I keep trying to find reasons to put Snow in the party--but I can't. He pretty much sucks as a Ravager, Light is a superior Commando, Fang is just as good a Commando if not better and can be a saboteur and can almost match his sent abilities. Same for Sazh---Sazh is just not a good enough commando. Sazh was an awesome match for Van when it was just the 2 of them, but when I have free reign for a 3-person party---nothing of his stands out. I'm thinking Snow is going to end up being a mark-hunting-only specialist, when I need uber-Sent and uber-HP to survive million-HP monsters.

Yes, he's got a few more typos than some (I think he tries to type too fast), but he's a good dealer.