TBT

[Jarhead0331]

With our Friday's already covered and social media fads being all the craze, I figured I'd start our very own Throw Back Thursday here at Grogheads...Basically, its a weekly thread to discuss older games you may be planning on revisiting, or just to talk about fond memories of passed glory days in gaming.

I've been spending a lot of time again playing with MOO3, heavily modded, of course.

In my present game, I have a large interstellar Human empire with fairly advanced technology. I am allied with the Sillicoids, who themselves control approximately 25 worlds.  Recent incursions into the far eastern fringes of my space by a troublesome Harvester race known as the "Ithkul," have resulted in the bombardment of several of my frontier colonies and the loss of millions.  I have sent the 1st, 2nd and 3rd Expeditionary Squadrons, as well as the 1st and 2nd Attack Flotillas to destroy the attackers and fortify my systems.  I'm pleased that my vessels outclassed the invaders with relatively minor losses.  However, I did sustain heavy losses from planet based weaponry while attempting to reconnoiter the nearest Ithkul system.

I have mobilized the 1st Marine Expeditionary Unit and positioned them near Ithkul space. I just need to find someway to crack those planetary defenses before I send the transports in to invade.

Should be a tough fight...

Here is a shot of the Ithkul.



Repulsive looking bastards, indeed.

[PanzersEast]

It is currently December 1943 for the crew of the Mighty Mouse and Mission 2 of my B-17 Mighty Eighth historical campaign.  Unfortunately, my first mission we did only light damage to Brest Harbor but all B-17s managed to return home.  I had my navigator and waist gunner wounded so I will have some replacement crew members for the next mission.  An inexperienced navigator means a lot of course corrections!

JH, which mods are you using for MOO3?


PE

[Jarhead0331]

It is currently December 1943 for the crew of the Mighty Mouse and Mission 2 of my B-17 Mighty Eighth historical campaign.  Unfortunately, my first mission we did only light damage to Brest Harbor but all B-17s managed to return home.  I had my navigator and waist gunner wounded so I will have some replacement crew members for the next mission.  An inexperienced navigator means a lot of course corrections!

JH, which mods are you using for MOO3?


PE

Ahhhh...many good times playing Mighty Eighth.

I'm using Tropical 1.3.1 on MOO3.

[Grim.Reaper]

Jh, what is the max screen resolution for moo3?

[Jarhead0331]

Jh, what is the max screen resolution for moo3?

1024, unfortunately. Its still passable, though...believe it or not.  I'll post some screen shots a little later.

[Grim.Reaper]

Jh, what is the max screen resolution for moo3?

1024, unfortunately. Its still passable, though...believe it or not.  I'll post some screen shots a little later.

Great...thank you, would love screens...getting ready to pull the trigger:)

[mikeck]

I'm firing a game of MOO3 up as well. Unfortunately for the thread, the oldest game I play regularly is Rise of Prussia. I'm not one for games that ...OH LOOK...SHINY!!!

[Jarhead0331]

Hmmmm...fraps doesn't seem to work in MOO3.

[skeptical.platypus]

Great idea for a thread!

I am currently taking out my disappointment with Simcity 2013 by building a massively expensive underground transit system in Simcity4, linking Snohomish, King, and Pierce Counties, and the urban corridor from roughly Kent to Shoreline, WA.

Of course, when I want to make a turn with my massively expensive underground transit system in Simcity4, I get disappointed with straight lines, and load up Simcity 2013 and get irritated there's no streetcar avenues in Simcity4. <- but this is what Friday threads are for.

I will have to investigate MOO3 mods, although I'm also not convinced I know where my original game is. I fear that was pre-digital library, and I haven't been as kind to my cds as I should have been through the years.

[Nefaro]

I loaded up Enemy Engaged: Comanche v Hokum over the weekend, along with the AllMods mod.

Didn't take long to get set up because there are almost no key customization options in-game.   :-\  So aside from the gun trigger and the stick/throttle axes, I could see that I'd be using the keyboard for pretty much everything.  Which is a good amount of hotkeys.  So not being able to map the most-used ones to my HOTAS buttons kinda hurt.  Fortunately it has active pause IIRC.

Jumped straight into a free-fly mission with an AH-64D.  Was easy enough to fly around at 100+ mph at under 100ft but definitely requires concentration when flying over ridges and such, as any attack helo sim should.  But the blocky terrain looks pretty rough these days, even with the mod pack.  While the textures have been improved enough to be passable, the sharp corners on the terrain can be a immersion-jarring when you're used to more modern sims.  The actual aircraft textures look surprisingly good for such an old game but the ground 3D modelling is showing it's age. 

At this point, I'll probably wait and see what the reportedly upcoming mod pack update holds before getting into it.  If I feel the need to sneak around down in the bushes, I'll just revisit Black Shark 2 instead - if the damned 'Upgrade Pack' would stop occasionally asking me to reactivate the damn thing on DCS World!  >:(  And even though it only has individual randomized missions (better than having to rely on canned ones I suppose.)


On another note, I've played a couple missions in Over The Reich recently.  Haven't achieved good kill ratios at all yet, on full realism, but the difficulty keeps me motivated and it's a nice casual turn-based substitute for use on the notebook when I don't want to don all my flight sim hardware on the desktop PC.

[Kushan]

With all the MOO3 talk, I'm going to be starting a game as well. Never played any of the MOO series, so I'm looking forward to seeing how it compares to newer games like DW.

I am currently taking out my disappointment with Simcity 2013 by building a massively expensive underground transit system in Simcity4, linking Snohomish, King, and Pierce Counties, and the urban corridor from roughly Kent to Shoreline, WA.

Is your underground system going better then the real Alaskan Way viaduct replacement project is going?

[GDS_Starfury]

TBT...

ok



oh wait... that might be the new one.  :P

[undercovergeek]

great thread idea - my oldest 2 are CKII and EUIV though, but ill certainly watch and read - i suppose its here what with the throwback theme that the thread title should have all those 70s song titles MD puts up!

i do like the rock, paper, scissors strategic elements games like MOO3 provide - have a great space fleet, but no planet busters, go back to research to create a bombardment fleet, then transport in the marines - im not sure i could manage the 1024 graphics though

[Nefaro]

i do like the rock, paper, scissors strategic elements games like MOO3 provide - have a great space fleet, but no planet busters, go back to research to create a bombardment fleet, then transport in the marines - im not sure i could manage the 1024 graphics though

This would probably be my biggest issue with playing a modded MOO3 these days.  Though I'm pretty sure there was some mod that could raise it to 1280x1024, IIRC, but I think it also had some screwy side-effects. 

I suppose playing it on the lower-res laptop might be an option, but:
1) I'd have to dig out my ancient MOO3 disk, and if I'm gonna dig it will probably be for SW: Rebellion first.  There's a chance I may not even find it.
and
2) I already have MOO2 installed on it.  Been wanting to start a new game for awhile after my first revisit quickly ended in disaster a few months ago.  Hell.. I have a few 4X games installed that I've not played as much as I'd like to.  :-[  Just gotta be in the 4X mood, which hasn't hit me in awhile.

[Martok]

I've been playing a lot of Birth of the Federation this last week or so.  Not that that comes as a surprise -- I think most here know of my long love affair with the game -- but I've been playing it even more than usual as of late.  There are two reasons for that: 


1.)  I finally got the MPR++ program to work properly with the Balance of Power (BOP) mod, which essentially replaces most of the older ship models with ones that are a lot sexier-looking (see last week's Friday thread for examples).  Also, I installed the 1024x768 version of MPR, which improves the overall appearance of the game as well (vanilla BOTF is unfortunately locked in at 800x600 resolution); it's obviously still an old game, but at least it looks crisper and cleaner now.  So I can now play one of my favorite old games, with my favorite mod (gameplay-wise), and now it looks a lot LOT better.  :D

2.)  Dafedz has just released the fifth iteration of his Ultimate Mod series (link), something that is probably long overdue.  It's obviously too early to say at this point, but it may be that UM5 could end up competing with BOP as my favorite mod.  There's a lot to like in this one.