David Hingtgen

While we're here: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewI...8112813570&rd=1 Paasche H+compressor setup. The "TC 20" compressor is advertised as better/quieter than the el cheapo central pneumatic many places sell, but I'm wondering if that's still not all that good. Might as well get off of air cans as soon as possible! Better airbrush demands better air. PS--would it be stupid to buy a Badger 200 just because it's a neat shade of blue?

Actually I've never tried gravity feed. I think a big part of the reason why is the whole "I have to spray outdoors" thing, and I basically need to mix paint/thinner, and bottles, and everything out on the deck. Having nice heavy flat-bottomed jars help a lot, as I can set things down, screw on lids, etc. I keep quite a few jars on hand to mix, etc. Also, I often model big things. I have concerns about color cup size. I have been known to use multiple bottles of the same color in a single airbrush session. (As in, if I'm painting a whole ship's main color that day). I'd have to refill most color cups a LOT. Heck, I've also looked at the Badger 250 sprayer-gun thing for some purposed. They say it goes down to 3/4 inch, that'd work for most of my airbrushing. Cheap too, worth it if for no other reason than "mass spraying" like 1/32 planes and large ships, when I literally need several square feet covered. And those things need like utterly no cleaning/disassembly. I've considered having one of them for most of my spraying, and using a nicer one only when absolutely necessary (like wheel wells and small bits, and canopies)

But how easy is it to clean? PS--I prefer siphon-feed. PPS--I also model large ships, and don't free-hand camo. My line-width range would primarily be maybe 1/4in to 2 or 3 in.

Yes, external mix. Nothing is as important to me than quick and easy to clean, and external mix beats everything else AFAIK. (Hey, I'm mainly used to hand-brushing and spray cans, even my $18 sprayer blows them away, a "real" airbrush could only be even better) I'll go to a double-action Iwata when I have to skill to justify it. Unless someone knows a single-action internal mix that puts out a WAY smoother finish that is only SLIGHTLY harder to clean than an external mix, I plan to go with one of these. So, any comments on either one, I do I just buy whichever one is most "supported" in my area? (Which looks like Badger). If it affects the suggestions: I plan to spray acrylics through it. Mostly MM acryl, maybe some Tamiya, maybe Gunze (maybe a lot of Gunze, am going to try it soon). I spray fairly 'wet and heavy' coats. I have to spray outdoors, so a brush that's more "forgiving" of the weather would be nice. 90% of what I spray will be medium and light shades of grey onto 1/72 jets.

Testor's acryl is said to be good for vinyl I think, as it dries more flexible than most. It's glycol-based, pretty unique among hobby paints.

At the moment they're going too slow to have XG be Episode 5. They either have to skip big chunks, or will need like 7 games... Still, the story (XS) isn't deviating at all about what needs to happen to get to XG. Though IMHO they could have just skipped about 95% of what happened in XS, if they want to tell "the big story". The opening FMV of XS is exactly what it "should" be, to be the very beginning of XG. And transporting Zohar in a ship through space---heck, that's what the 'key' part of the story is, IMHO. KOS-MOS, transparent noncorporeal bug aliens, etc are all secondary, unless they're going to tie it in some way. (A billion theories would work) And we'll need all-new characters and a big time-line jump pretty soon. Like, XS 3. The Eldridge needs to be launched soon, not 3 games from now... As it is, it looks like they're spending all their time on the 1 paragraph summary of the very beginning of XG's story, and not all the "good stuff" which immediately precedes the game which makes up 90% of the "history" of XG. (Eldrige, Zeboim, Nisan/Solaris war, Diabolos war). :;edit:: last bit removed to avoid potentially spoiling XS2, just in case I'm right.

XS is just like LOTR, ending-wise. Each one is just going to "stop" until you get to the last one. XS doesn't have an ending, it's just waiting for XS2 which will pick up about 30 secs after the last scene in XS. Of course, the "original" XG still blows it away story/music/character-wise, XS's purple-haired chick has nothing on Miang.

Lots of "convertible" planes out there. F/A-18D and F/A-18F are best examples. The vast majority are set up for pilot/RIO, but they can be converted to be pilot/pilot for training duty. (The newbie is usually up front, actually). Removable control sticks are about the only thing you need to make it happen, and the right "mode" button for all the computer displays. And for planes like the F-15E, you don't need to do anything at all. Despite the back seat always being for a WSO, they all have controls and basic flight instruments in the back. Since the newbie goes up front, he's got all the instruments, as the experienced F-15 instructor in the back doesn't need anything besides stick+rudder, and the basic T of instruments. PS:

The last few paragraphs talk about what IMHO is the real reason--speed/range. The DDX will likely be even "fatter" than the Burke class, which will cause severe problems if it retains the Sprue/Tico/Burker propulsion system. Fat ships=good for carrying lots of ammo, systems, and weapons, but bad for speed and range. Of course, if you just make nuclear ships, you've got all the power you could want. One of the big "likely" uses for electromagnetic stuff is for catapults. Steam catapults take a lot of steam from the main plant, and are easily damaged in battle (break a steam pipe, and it's done). It's much easier to repair/reroute electrical power. If a railgun can fling a shell, an EM captapult can fling a plane off the deck.

Original link says McGhee-Tyson ANG Base. http://www.airliners.net/open.file/601307/L

http://s96920072.onlinehome.us/tnt1/101-20...kham/tnt122.htm BTW, http://www.aircraftresourcecenter.com is THE place for aicraft modeling. Of course, I still think all panel-lines are over-done. I prefer his "non pre-scribed" A-4 actually. It's one of those "looks better if done, but impossible to truly do to scale" things. I myself have yet to accent panel lines on a model, will try someday though.

Exactly, and that's how I have some. I found out that if you "overload" blue, it changes to the green of formation lights. But I'm pretty sure the military uses inherently green. Only problem (aka expense) is getting the converter/driver, and the only one I have is inside my light-up USS Lakota.

Still interested in a -19. Would be neat to see it next to the resin 1/48 YF-23 I plan to buy some day...

They're lights. They have an on/off switch, and use electricity. I have some of the stuff myself. If they simply glowed/reflected, the military wouldn't use them, for you couldn't turn them off. Bad idea to fly over Iraq/Bosnia/Afghanistan all lit up. They're electroluminescent lights, specifically. Neat stuff.

I ran out of frame HP stuff REAL fast. Used AGWS for like 3 fights in the whole game, and that used up the entire game's worth of frame healing stuff I'd found. Of course, I had wussy AGWS because I couldn't afford to upgrade. Guard cleanser--yeah, if you had the money. I remember heading back to the sewers/forest for an hour to kill stuff to get fangs to trade for money to buy like 1 full set of armor... You know, it all comes down to money. I remember that for the last 10 hours of the game, I didn't earn 1 cent. Only RPG I know of where killing monsters for a few hours won't give you any cash. Levelling up is slow, as is learning techs. There's really no point in fighting enemies, benefits are few and far between. Add to the fact that most fights take WAY too many rounds... I liked the story, but the battles just took forever, because everything was too weak and too slow, and everything else cost too much to upgrade because you never had any money.

Oh yeah, AGWS. So utterly totally completely useless. KOS-MOS was as good as 3 of them put together. Techs--that relates to my "never have the right one" problem. You have them all set up for say, fire and lightning and maybe gravity, (which took like 10 levels to learn, and 20 mins arranging your party) then some ice/holy guys show up. You can't swap characters, your chosen magic/techs won't work, your quick techs are useless, and you MIGHT have an appropriate "slow" tech available that one character can use every other round... That always happened to me at the end, as Jr and chaos were the only ones with decent holy attacks. I used Moonlight Sonata until I was deathly sick of it. If I could just have ALL techs be quick, or be able to select ALL the "magic" ones. Having quick access to only like 25% of your techs is worthless. Especially with 4 basic elements and only 3 characters... Money--well the fact that beating enemies didn't give you any money was the main problem! Yes, it's more realistic, but it's just accepted in RPG's that killing monsters gives gold. I bought new stuff for KOS-MOS and Ziggy, and that's all I could afford. If I was lucky. Story--I actually like Cmdr Cherenkoff's (sp?) story more than anything. And my sig relates to it even.

XS 2 only adds a few new costumes, and like 1 small "extra treasure dungeon" if you have a XS 1 save. It's nothing compared to hack, or even Suikoden. And Suik 3 didn't get much from Suik 2, it's Suik 2 that REALLY got some great stuff from Suik 1. A long time ago I heard techs might be carried over, but nothing since. It'd make sense though, as it'd probably take a whole 'nother game to get all the ones from the first. My #1 complaint with XS 1 was the battle system, and the implementation of FFX-style character-switching will help quite a bit. Won't solve all my gripes, but'll help. (Biggest gripe: Techs. Techs are slow to learn, not that much better than a normal attack, the whole slow/fast version thing, and you never have the one you need) XG had perfect techs, they rocked. Quick, unlimited access, many choices. Fei's 2nd-to-last is still my all-time fave. For me, I only play the series in the hope that XS 5 actually will be Xenogears. (Of course, XS 4 should be the Solarian-Nisan war, and the Diabolos war--which'll be fine so long as I can use Alpha-Weltall)

Famitsu scores out of 40. 33 is a pretty high score, 37+ is super-exceedingly rare. Though IMHO, after reading translations of their reviews, I place absolutely no faith in them. While it seems half the gaming world (and all of Japan) treats their reviews as gospel, they seem to me like it's four 12 year olds who care about graphics, graphics, coolness, and how many big explosions there are.

AFAIK the E-2 will still be around for a LONG time. S-3 is gone along with the Tomcat, as in very few years left. F-14B/D operational speed limit is Mach 1.88 AFAIK, don't know what the A's is at the moment. Of course, that's still faster than a Bug in a dive.

Kinda depends. Most of their 1/72 sheets include all the stencil data/generic markings, including formation lights. I know their 1/48 F-14 squadron markings sheets don't have any. (you have to buy data sheets separately for the 1/48 F-14's). I think all of their F-18's include them regardless of scale. I have some 1/32 sheets coming soon, will let you know. I'm pretty sure all their separate F-14 stencil/data sheets include them. And of course, there's the "Formation Lights" sheets, which'd definitely have them. http://www.camdecals.com/main.asp?action=72 About 10 spots up from the bottom. They don't specifically say the 1/72 are glow-in-the-dark, (the 1/32 and 1/48 do), but since my 1/72 F-18 and F-14 sheets have glow-in-the-dark ones, I'd be very surprised if the separate ones didn't. I mean, why else would they sell them? Nobody's going to order non-glowing lights, since every other decal sheet on Earth already has non-glowing ones. And especially since they're known as "the guys with the glowing decals". For some reason CAM's own site can never seem to display their stencil decals (only squadron markings), so here's a pic of the 1/48 set for F-14/18's: http://greatmodels.com/cgi/display.cgi?item_num=cam48a001 PS--I've ordered decals direct from CAM's own site several times, they're very fast, and are in Cali. And if you only order a few decals, they only charge like 2 bucks to ship in the US. The order will go through Brookhurst Hobbies, their main distributor. Answer to a soon-to-be-asked FAQ: Stencils are the generic warning markings painted all over planes. Most famous being "No Step" "Rescue" and "Jet Intake". So called because they're quickly spray-painted on over the camoflage with a stencil.

I think this is more along the lines of "outline break-up" rather than disruptive/confusing. It's only disruptive at a range of like 10 yards, pointless for even the closest air-to-air. Look at it from far away----overall effect (especially considering the colors) isn't too far off from current F-15C camo. I think digital camo is supposed to be like "perfectly random" so that the eye can't really make a pattern or shape out of it. Because even the best "hand-drawn" patterns still have some sort of shape or pattern, or are identifiable as camo. I mean, if you see swoops of green/tan/brown, you think "standard jungle camo". This is so "nothing" that you can't really "see" anything. At least, I think that's how it's supposed to work. PS--people over at the jet modelling forums are collectively groaning at the masking job this'd take to do.

I can't remember--did someone already try this on a VF-1? I know I've seen Gundams like this.

You'll just have to trust me, as I absolutely cannot photograph it no matter how hard I try, but anyways: The formation-light decals from CAM actually glow bright green. They are the EXACT color of say an F-14's lights glowing at night. Very, very, very, cool. And since they're just decals, they're 1,000x easier but just as impressive as those guys who put tiny LED's in their planes to flash the navigation lights. The F-18 ones also have the missile launch rails glow. http://www.camdecals.com The effect is like this, just a bit greener and not as bright:

Coota---all F-14's (except a few) are being replaced with F-18F's. Most F-14 RIO's will become F-18 RIO's. The Navy really likes 2-seaters for their "high-end" fighters.

It's almost completely gone, but this is the only squadron left anyone really cares about. Current last Tomcat date is Fall 2006. But it keeps getting bumped up.