Operation Flashpoint Cold War Crisis

The following after-action report covers a spur of the moment mission created in Bohemia Interactive’s game Operation Flashpoint Cold War Crisis that was played in Windows XP earlier this evening. I hadn't done anything in this oldie but goodie for quite some time, so I decided to brush away the cobwebs and take it for a spin. Using the mission editor in this game is seriously like riding a bicycle, I was able to create the most rudimentary mission and play it through the editor with just a few clicks.

Flashpoint Germany Soviet Main Force Attack

The following after-action report details the final scenario from the US V Corps mission set. In this effort I will be playing as the NATO Force Commander during the fifth day of the war May 11th, 1989 at 04:00. The basic premise of this scenario is an all-out effort by the Soviets to clear the area of operations of any enemy units. Having been alerted to this massive strike through intelligence assets, NATO decides to make a stand near Norderfurt with a mixed bag of US and German forces.

Highway to the Reich Dutch Delay at Deest

The following after-action report is of a hypothetical scenario taking place on September 27, 1944 in which the Dutch Princess Irene Brigade is ordered to move from guarding the bridge crossing between Grave and Nederasselt north to Deest in order to delay a German assault expected to come eastward along the Deest-Weurt roadway running into Nijmegen. The German plan is to strike from the west into the exhausted 30th Corps holding the bridge; a vital link to Model’s planned counter-attack towards Antwerp.

Highway to the Reich PI on the Popenberg

The following scenario takes place on September 5, 1944 in what is present day Bisselt, Netherlands and lasts for 14 hours. The Princess Irene Brigade is ordered to defend the heights at DZ N between Mook and Groesbeek overlooking the road running north into Nijmegen, a critical resupply corridor for the forces fighting for control of that vital crossing point.

Forward to the Past

Given the myriad of issues that I am having with some games in the Windows 7 environment (as well as AMD video card specific game issues), this weekend I began the process of rebuilding my Windows XP computer. I had tried a dual boot option with my Gateway however it didn’t work, and even if it did in hindsight it would not have resolved the scaling issue with Command Operations (and other Airborne Assault games) as I would still have been playing off of the same GPU and drivers.

Madden 08 Berlin Thunder Season 1

Today I started a new league franchise in Madden 08, the last official NFL game to see the light of day on PC, thanks to the unholy alliance between the NFL and EA Sports. I have owned and played the console games and they suck in comparison to what can be accomplished on a PC platform. It has been over 6 ½ years since PC gamers have been given a new game since the release of Madden 08 on 8/14/2007.

This effort will utilize the OzWolf’s Madden Tools & Utilities application to mod a game roster into creating a new league. While I have spent untold hours over the years creating my own custom teams to bring into the league, this time I am just going to replace several NFL disappointments with NFL Europe Teams, which will be based out of Los Angeles, CA for reporting purposes but play in their overseas venues.

Deadliest Catch King Crab Season II

The second season of the Shellfish or “Green Machine” as I refer to her starts in Dutch Harbor on Wednesday, November 8^th. I begin this season with an account balance of $188,897. This amount is derived by taking the amount I left harbor with at the start of last season, $67,511 and adding to it the profits earned of $191,983 for a balance of $259,494 (less the forced automatic deduction for Structural Maintenance and Upgrades of $70,000 and $597 in miscellaneous expenses).

On top of the forced structural charge (from prior experience with this game it cannot be avoided) I add  upgraded hydraulics for $60,000, a large tank pump for $15,000, kitchen amenities for $4,000, crane maintenance for $24,000 and finally $5,000 for electrical work. This $108,000 in additional costs for the boat drops my account balance down to $80,897.

Battlefield Bad Company 2 Vietnam

I am not very good at first-person shooters. Truth be told I am actually pretty lousy at them at my age given the fact that slowing reflexes and a 2 GB RAM Windows XP gaming rigs makes me the bitch of any snot nosed nine year old kid running the latest gear. I do have a newer gaming machine that is up to the task but strangely the only shooters I have on it I play against the AI (I wonder why).

Back in the day (sometime around 2002-2007) I was in a variety of clans, squads, groups (insert your preferred designation here) that played shooters religiously and used Ventrilo communications. The heaviest incarnation of this was during the Raven Shield phase where we were in gaming leagues and performed weekly matches against other groups in the hopes of climbing some virtual ladder.

Deadliest Catch Opilio Crab Season I

This outing is the second of my career on the Shellfish, and the first opie crab season to go in the books. I started my career with $100,000 equity in the company and netted $293,257 in profits at the end of the last season. Less $10,352 in expeditures prior to getting underway (fuel, pots and bait) this gave me a season ending balance forward of $382,905.

Starting the first opie season of my career (the second season overall) brings me to the Maintenance and Upgrades menu for the first time. This will be a feature between seasons from this point forward and represents the largest expenditures a boat captain/owner will experience during a career. In this section many items can be selected which directly affect the game play.

Deadliest Catch King Crab Season I

This post will be the first entry in my new career in the game Deadliest Catch: Alaskan Storm. If you are unfamiliar with this life simulation, I suggest that you read my previous blog post in which I got back into the game after an absence of over a year. I learned a great deal in that dry run (no pun intended) as well as a subsequent test season that told me some important things about how to handle the game.

For this effort I started the career on intermediate difficulty which encompasses the following: pots payload and ice buildup have a reduced effect, chances of breakdown are slightly reduced, crab schools move and deplete at a slower rate, chances of crew injury are reduced and crew morale and fatigue go down slower. Based on previous experience with this game, this is enough of a challenge.

King Crab Season One (Career Abandoned)

Sometime yesterday I jumped over to my Windows XP gaming rig and when there I started a fresh career in Deadliest Catch: Alaskan Storm by developer Liquid Dragon Studios and designer Greenwave Games. The game was released in the summer of 2008; however I did not stumble across it until some three years later. After spending a ton of time in this life simulation, I hung it up out of frustration.

That frustration was/is born from the absolute monotony of the game: I have never been (and never will be) a Bering Sea fisherman, however if the show is even the slightest indication of how things go along in a day-in day-out basis, then this game fairly nails it. Completing just a single season of King Crab or Opilio Crab can take several hours of game play even if cruising in “Fast Time” to your next string.

Martinsville Speedway

Ridgeway, Virginia: The Goody’s Pain Relief 500 was run at Martinsville Speedway in Henry County, Virginia. The 0.526 mile oval is paved with a mix of asphalt and concrete, and is banked 12° in the turns and is relatively flat on the straights.

My version of this event based on a 25% race length and a 4X pit stop frequency is a 125 lap race with a full fuel load providing an estimated 47 laps under green flag conditions. This would result in approximately 2.65 pit stops during the event, more with the inevitable yellow flags.

Bristol Motor Speedway

Bristol, Tennessee: The Food City 500 was run at Bristol Motor Speedway in Sullivan County, Tennessee. The 0.533 oval is paved with concrete and is banked at 26°-30° in the turns and 6°-10° in the straights. Although I would largely solve my controller issues from the race before, the result was the same.

My version of this event based on a 25% race length and a 4X pit stop frequency is a 125 lap race with a full fuel load providing an estimated 47 laps under green flag conditions (yeah, right). This would result in approximately 2.65 pit stops during the event.

Atlanta Motor Speedway

Hampton, Georgia: The Kobalt Tools 500 was run at Atlanta Motor Speedway in Henry County, Georgia. The 1.54 mile quad-oval is paved with asphalt and is banked at 24° in the turns and 5° in the straights. This would be a horrible track for me to begin to experience controller issues on.

My version of this event based on a 25% race length and a 4X pit stop frequency is an 82 lap race with a full fuel load providing an estimated 17 laps under green flag conditions. This would result in approximately 4.82 pit stops during the event.

Las Vegas

Las Vegas, Nevada: The Shelby 427 was run at Las Vegas Motor Speedway in Clark County, Nevada. The 1.5 mile tri-oval superspeedway is paved with asphalt, has four turns banked at 20 degrees (however this change occurred in 2007, and I believe the game is modeled at the then 12 degrees).

My version of this event based on a 25% race length and a 4X pit stop frequency is a 67 lap race with a full fuel load providing an estimated 17 laps under green flag racing conditions. This would result in approximately 3.94 pit stops during the event.

California

Fontana, California: The Auto Club 500 was run at the 2 mile D-shaped oval which is paved with asphalt, has four turns banked at 14 degrees, a front stretch banked at 11 degrees and a back stretch that is relatively flat at 3 degrees. The circuit is smooth and wide and a pleasure to race on if you have a setup that will allow you to move between multiple racing lines.

My version of this event based on a 25% race length and a 4X pit stop frequency is a 63 lap race with a full fuel load providing an estimated 13 laps under green flag racing conditions. This would result in an approximately 4.85 pit stops during the event.

Daytona

Daytona, Florida: On 12/6 I had started a new NASCAR Racing 2003 Season Championship using The BullRing 2011 Sprint Cup modification at 95% AI strength and Adaptive Speed Control (ASC) set. I finished second in that race having been passed by Bill Elliot in the trial oval when I thought I had the race won.

During the event I had some concerns about how ASC was working. There were some times where I would pass whole lines of cars without the draft (a bad sign at a restrictor plate track) just to be passed by them later, in what seemed as if the game was adjusting to my driving ability.

Company of Heroes - Egletons - Victory

In the continuation of my Americans vs. Germans 1V1 Skirmish effort, today's episode saw Able Company face off against the Wehrmacht at Egletons, a map that seemed as if it was cobbled together from Semois and some other stock map to produce a community made map, of which this one won a Gamereplays.org mapping contest.

This skirmish was testing my resolve early on as things were not going my way. I cranked out some Engineer units to take the +16 Munition and the +5 Fuel Resource Points outside the enemy base only to have them pushed back and decimated. The only Jeep I churned out of the Barracks was ripped to shreds.

Company of Heroes - Duclair - Victory

In the continuation of my Americans vs. Germans 1V1 Skirmish effort, today's episode saw Able Company face off against the Wehrmacht at Duclair, an interesting map that contains several different terrain features and approaches that could affect the outcome of an advance towards the enemy base.

Having the previous skirmishes at Best (cakewalk) and Carpiquet (challenging) being so different from each other, I was unsure what to expect from the AI. Would they sit back like at Best and make some quilts, or be like Carpiquet where they attacked and attacked, and then seemingly quit to make quilts?

Company of Heroes - Carpiquet - Victory

In the continuation of my Americans vs. Germans 1V1 Skirmish effort, today's episode saw Able Company face off against the Wehrmacht at Carpiquet, a user made that was evenly balanced and featured a wide center road that ran from the Allied base to the Axis base.

For the second week in a row, the transition from Dawn to Dusk was sudden and severe, suggesting that the map designers did not fully understand how to implement the simulated day night cycle that is featured in the game.