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SchizophrenicMC

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  1. SchizophrenicMC
    I'd like the XJ more if it had more powerful engine options or if the manual transmission was more common, and if the unibody wasn't so delicate on it. Running with doors off is a serious reduction in structure on the XJ. I'm used to my ZJ, where the chassis is so stiff they managed to get a really good ride out of twin solid axles, and where the design specifically went out of its way to remain totally structurally sound without the doors attached. I'm also used to having a lot of V8 under the hood. In SRT news, Chrysler has recently trademarked the name, Trackhawk. I don't think they'd axe the Jeep SRT name for the sake of Trackhawk (in keeping with Trailhawk models) and the Charger Hellcat is a thing too now, so who else is hoping for a Hellcat-powered 707hp Grand Cherokee?
  2. SchizophrenicMC
    If pics were posted, thanks would be had.
  3. SchizophrenicMC
    I've owned 4 ZJs: a 1997 Laredo, a 1996 Limited, a 1997 Orvis Edition, and a 1998 5.9 Limited. The Laredo was the only 6-cylinder of the bunch, everything else has been 8-pot. Kanedas Bike isn't kidding when he says it's cramped. At least the Niners had e-fans. For a Dodge engine, there sure are a bunch of Jeep specific parts to make it fit, including ZJ-specific transmission castings that locate the starter on the passenger side, rather than the driver side, as on Dodge versions. (This requirement is why the later 545RFE came with provisions for a starter on either side) Fun fact: AMC intended the ZJ to replace the XJ, and when Chrysler picked up AMC, they decided to make it replace the FSJ instead. As a result, Chrysler wanted to give it a V8 option, which was initially supposed to be the in-development PowerTech 4.7l. Two years before the ZJ entered production, it became apparent the PowerTech was still way off from being done, so they changed directions and began developing the powertrain for the nearly-complete LA-based Magnum V8s. The initial ZJ brief was put out in 1983, so a finished product could be ready by 1990, at the end of the XJ's slotted life. Various snags meant by 1987, when Chrysler bought AMC, the ZJ's chassis and design were the only things that had been completed. The ZJ design is based on the 1987 XJC Concept, designed by none other than Larry Shinoda, famous for designing the Corvette Stingray and Mustang Boss 302. One of my goals in life is to gather the space and money to build my ideal collection of ZJs: 1993 Laredo 5-speed, 1993 Grand Wagoneer, 1997 Orvis Edition, 1997 Orvis Edition Driftwood Satin, 1997 TSi, 1998 5.9 Limited, 1997 Laredo (for heavy offroad modification). A WJ Overland would be nice, and I'd rock both SRT8s.
  4. SchizophrenicMC
    Ooh, somebody got sensitive. I'm a skeptic type. I say the burden of proof lies upon the claimant. So, I'm gonna tend to not believe somebody until they prove what they're saying. I went to high school with too many compulsive liars full of bravado. If you can't upload them from your iPhone, email them to yourself and up them on a PC or something. At least keep us posted while you figure out a solution, if you're gonna say you have pics. Anyway, I couldn't find any of this new color on any of the hobby sites that would normally have nabbed this up, and there's no sign of the publication they're in, at least in cursory searches. So I guess Shukenzero's all we got. I bet they still don't have an anime-accurate dull blue in mind.
  5. SchizophrenicMC
    If Chrysler had spent $10 more per ZJ on quality solder and wiring, it'd have cost them $10,000,000 and fixed a problem nobody would notice until the vehicle was out of production and warranty. So they didn't. Which is why the VIC in my minty 86,000 mile Orvis Edition just died. With that said, I've owned 4 ZJs, and a buddy's had a WJ, and having worked on the bunch of them, the assembly issues don't amount to much compared to a lot of other vehicles I've had. The design and engineering money was enough to take them a long way, especially since the ZJ's engineering was mostly done by AMC-Jeep, with only electronics and suspension tuning left to Chrysler, and even then they farmed out the suspension tuning to a pair of guys who worked at Lotus, and spent a good 2 years working that out in Arizona. Of course, I still have nightmares of a lot of the painful reassembly I've had to perform on my Jeeps. Still, interesting to note you worked on the line. You may have had a hand in building my Laredo, Orvis, and 5.9 Limited. That'd be some cool Six Degrees-type stuff.
  6. SchizophrenicMC
    I'm not sure I believe this guy claiming to have the new blue, considering it's been several days and no other source has appeared.
  7. SchizophrenicMC
    I think the VF-25 has the best-looking Gerwalk, and then the VF-0D.
  8. SchizophrenicMC
    I have money to spend on models in the same way that some people have money to spend on crack.
  9. SchizophrenicMC
    Somebody just needs to discover a magic particle that facilitates nuclear fusion. Preferably somebody with a Russian-sounding name.
  10. SchizophrenicMC
    While Israelis have bagged kills with the guns since then, for a US fighter, it doesn't make much sense. All the guns do are add weight to a craft that is often armed with highly-effective long-range missiles, kept within range of refueling craft, has long range as it is, and is rarely far from a forward operating base. The US has a LOT of money to spend on armaments, and it does spend that money. Which is why US fighters haven't been in a dogfight in forever. The fact is they just don't get close enough to engage in dogfighting maneuvers, and rarely have any other excuse to use their guns. Even in close escort duty, a dogfight is unlikely to erupt, and in the contingency that it does, American fighters are often faster and more capable of breaking off to missile range, even with the tiny wings of the F-35. Again, not that I like the F-35. The whole thing reeks of pork barrel spending, and it's still not even really production-ready, 20 years after the fact. The only thing with a track record this bad is Half Life 3. I just think lack of dogfighting ability is a poor argument to make. Blame cost, blame all the stumbling blocks to production, blame the multi-service requirements, blame the JSF concept as a whole, blame the poor stealth attributes being too high on the list, blame the V/STOL requirement, blame the elusive working powerplant. But don't say it's a bad plane because it lacks the wing area for dogfighting.
  11. SchizophrenicMC
    The simple fact is, American aircraft have exceedingly high-quality radar and support, and fire exceedingly high-quality ordinance. They can lock onto an enemy aircraft long before it's in visual range, fire missiles, and go home with as many splashed targets as missiles fired. I won't speak to European engineering or tactics, but for American fighters, it doesn't make a lot of sense to develop highly capable dogfighting ability. Look at the F-14 for example. It was a highly capable dogfighter, that was never used in a dogfight. Its capabilities and its design purpose were highly at odds. It was a plane that could theoretically out-maneuver and out-fly the F-15, but the whole point of its existence was to carry the AIM-54 Phoenix. The whole reason the F-14 was requested, was to perform long-range anti-fighter and anti-missile intercept, with a missile capable of mach 5 and a 150-mile flight range. Then, they gave it a gun and Sidewinder hardpoints. It's my opinion, given how useless dogfighting is as a tactic to US aircraft, that such capabilities are designed in as a way to increase unit cost, so some bureaucrats can get a kickback.
  12. SchizophrenicMC
    Coming back to the old guy, here's what I want to know: When was the last time dogfighting was a relevant air-to-air combat tactic? I don't like the F-35 either, but to raise dogfighting as a point, when air to air combat consists of locking on, firing long-range missiles, then breaking off, seems irrelevant.
  13. SchizophrenicMC
    GBBG exists as a show within the GBF timeline, so Mr Beargguy III is a modified Beargguy. With that said, the family is just another set of Beargguys, I was only joking about Sei and China. They are only 19 by this point, after all.
  14. SchizophrenicMC
    I still don't see how they can say they don't want the game to be about grinding, then they give tiny payouts and require lots of currency to get stuff. And then, the smallest stutter in my internet connection boots me from the game every time. I grow more and more discontent with this game as time goes on.
  15. SchizophrenicMC
    I'm still all blue. No purple or yellow for me. That said, there's a satisfaction that comes with punching a Wizard to death. Or a Captain, or a Knight, or a Minotaur. Or a Fallen Walker. Or Sepiks Prime. I'd say punching Phogoth the Untamed to death is satisfying, but there is nothing satisfying about The Summoning Pits.
  16. SchizophrenicMC
    No, I think the C7 is fantastic looking. I rubberneck every time I see one, which is the only Corvette I can say that about. When it was first announced, I saw a lot of Ferrari F12 Berlinetta, but the more I see it on the road, the more the front end looks like a Viper. From the side, it's all Corvette, but it's Corvette-Done-Right. I also have to appreciate that they made it a targa-top hatchback. Those are aesthetics I also enjoy.
  17. SchizophrenicMC
    Obviously, Sei and China are expecting. Or, more realistically, some other female gunpla enthusiast in universe made a big and small Beargguy because they thought it'd be cute.
  18. SchizophrenicMC
    I'm not a huge fan of Corvettes, or GMs in general, but I have to concede there is no better car in terms of bang for your buck. European reviewers are stuck saying the vette is "not quite as good as the 911" or "doesn't really have the same fit and finish as the Jaguar F-Type." But even in Europe, the car is far cheaper than any of its direct competition, and in America, it's significantly cheaper than all of its competition. And that's just the new car. The C6 is nowhere near as good as the C7, but you can have one for $20,000! That's less than a new Mustang, it's less than most family sedans, but it's still a 400hp sports car with low weight and amazing balance, and it's really not all that badly appointed for a Chevy. And none of this is to mention the insanely low price of keeping the car maintained. It is, after all, just a Chevy. Replacement parts are cheap, and aftermarket bolt-ons are nearly so. Most high-end sports cars, you have to ask not only if you can afford the sticker, but if you can afford the upkeep. With the Corvette, if your pockets are deep enough to pay for the car, they're plenty full of cash to keep it running. For example, an OE-equivalent clutch kit for a C6 costs $400. The Honda S2000's clutch kit is $600, and the 350Z's is $500. The Acura NSX clutch kit is $2000. The clutch for a Porsche is insanely expensive, and good luck if your PDK's clutch assembly fails. That's just one example. Myself, I'm more of a Mopar guy when it comes to American cars. While everyone is drooling over their Chevelles and Impalas, I'm lusting after a 426 Barracuda. And more Jeeps. I need me some more Grand Cherokee. I also like vintage Nissan. Pre-Renault. Nissan really is the Chrysler of the Japanese auto industry. I am selling my 240SX, though. Can't justify a canyon carver in a place where there are no canyons. Thinking about an SC400, but maybe I should just save up and buy a C6. Nah, that'd eat too much into my model kit budget.
  19. SchizophrenicMC
    I want to play high-level activities, but after you've beaten a strike once, you don't get rewarded all that well later, and well, I've beaten all the strikes it'll let me do at level 22. I'd like to play Queen's Wrath or Vault of Glass, but I'm still 4 levels away from either and there's no good way to get the gear you need to level up to that. And while Vanguard Playlist strikes give better rewards, they keep putting me into The Summoning Pits, which I've played 4 times already and I'm entirely sick of. And I still haven't found a single piece of exotic or legendary gear, despite playing as much of the game as a working man can, and even spending a bunch of time farming the cave. (Which was still fun for me in the hypnotizing way that blasting wave after wave of low-tier enemy can be) Destiny sits in a limbo between the two genres it shares most of its DNA with. As a shooter, it's fun, but the competitive multiplayer is so far out of balance, I can't play it. As an MMO, which it TOTALLY is, it's subpar, because its maker refuses to treat it like an MMO.* And I'm not really into the Warlock or Hunter gameplay. I've been playing too many run-around-sneaky-and-kill-things-that-way games lately to enjoy gameplay that doesn't involve tanking, so Hunter is right out, and Warlock doesn't conform to my highly-mobile punch-things-in-the-mouth sense of RECREATIONAL MURDERING. People are going to choose to play a game the way they want to play a game. Bungie is famous for treating its games like Lucas and patching and retconning in the name of their "dream". They make fun shooters, but come on, it's our game to break. You wouldn't be in the business of being that big a company, working under the first, then the second largest publishers in the industry, if it weren't at some high level about making money for it. If I have a preferred style of gameplay, and the game does offer that play style as a valid method, why should I be punished for choosing it above the play styles I don't care as much for? I'm not trying to sound like an entitled prick here, I'm just upset that the game balance sucks. *And it is an MMO. It's a consistent, always-online, multiplayer open-world game, where you're in-server with many other players simultaneously, working toward personal goals above a single, specific one, and where the primary force for play is cooperative and competitive missions with other players, and the method for telling the overarching story is via expansions and updates. It is massive, it is necessarily multiplayer, and it is always online. It's like GTAO, but that's because GTAO is an MMO as well.
  20. SchizophrenicMC
    Hyperspace travel speed is limited by the capacity of the hyperdrive to propel the ship through hyperspace, and that capacity is rated along an unclear numerical system. Many craft are equipped with a primary hyperdrive, which carries a low rating, granting greater speed, as well as a higher-rated backup. For example, the Lambda-class T4a shuttle has a Class 1 main hyperdrive, with Class 12 backup. That gives it a level of speed in hyperspace on par with Imperial-class star destroyers, unless for some reason the main hyperdrive is damaged or fails, at which point it can at least return to a berth in a safe place, albeit far more slowly than if it was working properly. With all that said, the actual speed of hyperdrives is never really clarified in any meaningful way. Regardless of anything, ships all move at the Speed of Plot. Which is why the Class 4 hyperdrive of the Death Star was able to reach Yavin IV mere hours after the Class .5 Millennium Falcon did, despite the latter being supposed to be many times faster than the Death Star.
  21. SchizophrenicMC
    I meant an opaque clear white, so it can diffuse whatever light the LED is. (Or be dull for poses like when the Banshee first appears) Red psychoframe parts means red psychoframe effect, regardless of LEDs. But yeah, a generally more stable Unicorn would be nice. I got my MG an action base because it has to sit very still, not supporting its own weight, for everything to stay put. Fortunately, I have a red lightning base, so I can make it do this:
  22. SchizophrenicMC
    These aren't regular black-powder firearms, they're science-magic guns. Everything in Destiny is science magic, you know. The hammer has some other purpose, or it's indirectly related to firing. Because science magic. As for comments about the game itself, it suffers from Bungie. A lot of the gameplay is terribly fun, because this is a Bungie game. They make really fun shooters. But a lot of the gameplay is terrible, full stop, because this is a Bungie game. They have no idea how to MMORPG. I'll let the lack of story campaign at the moment slide- we're not yet a month into this game. I can also deal with the level cap, despite higher-level enemies existing, because it is early on, and having a ton of people with a huge level advantage out of the gate isn't helpful to anybody. But I can't forgive Bungie's general misunderstanding of how MMO gaming works, and their enormous presumptuousness in saying "that isn't our dream for how Destiny will be played." I'm pretty sick of "Bungie's dream". No, screw your dream, I'm the one who bought the game. The most fun parts of Halo 3 and Halo Reach were had in Forge Mode, precisely where players went to say "forget the developers, let's make our own fun." Farming is an integral part of MMOs. So is level-grinding. These are oddly hypnotic parts of the fun of an MMO. If your continued success in the game is dependent upon items dropping from slain enemies, then of course you're going to want an efficient method to kill many bad guys and find that sweet, sweet loot. Drop rates suck, so farming is the only way to get anything cool. For Bungie to kill that for the sake of "their dream" is highly presumptuous. As if somehow Destiny, as an MMO game, is incredibly different from all other MMOs. And for that matter, where is trading? My buddy and I play as Titans, and we've each gotten several pieces of Warlock gear, which is COMPLETELY useless to us, because even when broken down it only gives Hadronic Essence, which isn't useful to Titans at all. And of course, we can't trade with our Warlock friend, who has gotten a couple pieces of Titan gear in his travels. If you're not going to allow trading, then make it so drops are always class-specific. There are also no good sinks for glimmer. I have well over 20,000 of the stuff, and nowhere to use it. All the gear sold for glimmer is inferior to what I've gotten out in the field just for shooting at things (which give me glimmer anyway) and there's not much draw to spend glimmer on things like ships or sparrows, which don't have any gameplay advantages and don't look cool enough to blow the credits on anyway. Shaders cost glimmer, but I'm not into any of the only four which have shown up on the market anyway, and the only one I really liked was an exclusive limited-time bonus for preordering the new Call of Booty game at Gamestop. And then there's the Crucible. It's supposed to nullify level advantages, but instead of it playing like Halo with standard-issue weapons and armor, in Destiny, higher-level players have more powerful abilities, regardless of whether they're in the co-op world, or the Crucible. This not only makes the game exceedingly uncompetitive for people nearer level 20 than 30 (and forget anyone below level 21) but it fails to address the poor game balance between Warlocks and Titans. (And forget being a Hunter) Warlock is far and away the most powerful class in Destiny. The improved defense and weapon-handling stats Titans get pale in comparison to the ranged abilities of Warlocks, as well as their quick recovery and ability cooldown effects. My super attack has an effective range of a few meters around me, and can't really be aimed until I'm in range of the target's shotgun. The Warlock supers can be aimed from afar, and are every bit as deadly. Plus they get two grenade uses once they reach a certain level. The only thing Titans have going for them is a slightly more powerful melee that, once you level way the hell up, can sometimes initiate health recovery. Beyond that, I'm really attached to some of the armor and weapons I've earned and fought with, despite having superior gear now. I'd still like to be able to appreciate the gear that got me where I am, but aside from dropping it in the vault and letting it sit, there's no way for me to do that. I'm not saying I want something like player housing, but I want something like player housing. That's a secondary concern, to be fair, but I just have to say, I had a lot of fun with Skyrim's Hearthfire DLC, and I always played Architect in Star Wars Galaxies, for very similar reasons. All in all, Destiny has made a fun shooter, but they have no idea what they're doing with an MMO. The only way this could be worse in that regard is if they hired John Smedley. Excuse me, the mere mention of his name has caused me to have an aneurysm. I'm going to seek medical treatment now.
  23. SchizophrenicMC
    To be honest, I was kind of hoping for a dull clear psychoframe with red-green LEDs, for awesome inactive poses. As long as they fix the stupid floppy knee armor in Destroy Mode for the PG version, I'm sold. At that scale and price, there should be no problems having a stable knee armor.
  24. SchizophrenicMC
    See my signature.
  25. SchizophrenicMC
    I was going to pre-order the Arcadia VF-0D, but PG Unicorn has always taken precedence, so there goes that idea. I NEED a PG Unicorn. I hardly even care if it lights up or not. It's a given that it's going to have perfect transformation (even the MG has that) and lots of psychoframe detail. And I think at that scale, they can make it so it's not so finnicky when transformed. (Owners of either MG version know what I mean) Given the cost on that LED kit, I expect pretty even and consistent lighting. I don't know how they plan on doing it, but knowing Bandai it'll likely be numerous localized LEDs dispersing light through specific areas. That's fine by me- they've done this generally well so far. I do hope the stock kit will at least have light-up main camera like all the other PGs before it. But yeah, I guess the money I was saving for the VF-0D, and probably for a few other projects, just found a new target. I just need this in my life, so much.
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