So I've been getting back into Crimson Skies. Someone turned me onto using the Warbirds RPG (since CS is more a tabletop then an RPG) and I'm liking what I am reading so far.
Does any elegan/tg/entleman have the sourcebook Pride of the Republic for Crimson Skies? It is the only one I am missing in PDF form at the moment.
Share for the people's collective Comrade!
I always felt the Tunnan would fit in Crimson Skies.
I dig warbirds, but Crimson Skies has a far superior setting. The Fractured states and air piracy is just so much cooler.
> He doesn't make his own settings
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How many kinds of aces are there in your games?
>so many pushprops
Enjoy being turned into a cloud of chili when it comes time to bail out.
Nah, your engine is probably shot to hell by that time, you're good.
With a setting as good as Crimson Skies, you don't need to make your own.
The world is huge, well though out, with great characters while still having room for custom elements of your own design.
Who else Firebrand here?
Never was a huge fan of it. Bloodhawk is much nicer, fits my style more. If I want a big fuck off plane, I'll take a Sanderson Vampire.
You're a good man, mate, a good man. Wedgeplane is best plane.
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Pushers have their advantages, and the disadvantages matter less when you're launching off of a zepplin most of the time.
I always found the Bloodhawk the most fun to fly.
So damn fast, small target so hard to hit, decently maneuverable. I loved baiting an enemy onto my tail, gunning it straight up and hitting the turbo, letting them stall out then dropping in behind them with a Hammerhead stall.
Shame I can't get the game to run properly on my modern computer.
Pushers are a bad idea for a fighter plane. most planes are shot down from behind. Having your prop and engine in the back reduces survivability in dog fights.
I could care about that
Or I could fly a kickass push-prop X-wing
>well though out
None of the Canadian nations are well thought out. Why isn't Quebec a fascist state under Duplessis' Union Nationale? Why is Ontario's capital Ottawa, the most vulnurable city with regard to Quebecker aggression? Why doesn't the People's Collective have a substantial part of CCF membership? Why isn't Alberta a thing? What about Newfoundland, which was its own Dominion until the great depression, when it reverted back to colony status?
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I love retro-diesel fighter and aeroplanes.
because no one care about Canada?
But it's not realistic.
Devastator-bro.
Let me look through my stuff when I get home. Tech rehearsal is about to let out (started at 7:30 last night, is quarter to 8 now.)
Post fictional aircraft that would be at home in the Crimson Skies setting.
But it's cool.
I apologize, user. I thought I had it and I do not.
> Tractors
Enjoy your drag, interrupter gears, un-concentrated fire, and lower roll rate due to guns in the wings.
You can always have something that detaches the blades, or just roll over and fall out.
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> Fictional
Nah, how about a maritime patrol aircraft that shows up on sonar, deafens intercepting fighter pilots at high altitude, and is the noisiest thing EVER due to four sets of contra-rotating props?
Oh fuck yes, Crimson Skies! That game was my goddamn childhood, pretty much my first "proper" PC game. Shame about High Road to Revenge, though.
I think I've got one of the novels lying somewhere around here...
Did anyone else besides me read this? It's an anthology of three stories set in Crimson Skies.
The first one featuring Paladin Blake is good.
The second one, with Johnathan "Genghis" Khan, is GREAT and would make for an awesome movie.
The third one, with Nathan Drake, is not so good. Actually it's pretty weak.
No one is playing in a setting where the United States dissolved due to Prohibition because they care about realism, user.
Ottawa because the infrastructure is already there. The Prairies are part of the Peoples Collective by the time the gazette rolled around. Alberta is disputed territories, BC is Pacifica.
Newfoundland I think joined the maritime nations/provinces, if not, it's still loyal to the crown.
>Nathan Drake
Bwuh?
But yeah, I read them. I don't remember that much about the plots, but I did like that Thibodeaux showed up in the third story just to do Nathan a favour. One of my favourite bits about the PC game was the cheerful rivalry between most of the aces, and HRtR was sorely lacking in that.
WHAT!?? I CAN'T HEAR YOU BECAUSE I'M IN A KICKASS PLANE WITH A REAR MOUNTED ENGINE.
>One of my favourite bits about the PC game was the cheerful rivalry between most of the aces
"When you hit the ground, tell them Nathan Zachary sent you!"
---
"You and your little Floosy can scram Nathan, this claim is for the Medusas."
"Your treasure?! Nice try sister, but this claim is mine, Pirate's code, fair is fair. You tell Justine that spending a night with me does not mean she gets to spend my loot."
"Yeah? Well maybe a little swim will change your mind."
You are 100% correct, the amazing voiceacting/dialog added so much to the PC game. Some of the only 'briefings' that I listened to, because they opened up so much more story.
God damn it user, now I'm binge watching briefings.
So as many of you may or may not know, Crimson Skies was in the middle of producing a new supplement, "Zeppelins and Bombers" that included campaign rules and much expanded Zep rules, along with super heavy aircraft construction (upwards of 50,000 lb aircraft!) when wizkids pulled the plug because they are a bunch of dicks. Anyway, a group of us met the supplement designer at Gencon, and we talked him into finishing up the english language version of the supplement.
It's not super pretty, but it is 100% in line with where the supp was going, and has been play tested.
So here you are fellow Air Pirates, the Zepp and Bomber UN-OFFICIAL (Official) pdf.
Have fun.
Me too.
Also, the most crimson skies screenshot I could find of IL-2.
>rebel flag
cool
two cockpits?!
Pilot/Navigator.
Also, the rebel flag is because they actually split off from the union to become the Confederation of Dixie.
There's precedent
When they designed the base aircraft for the game, they used a lot of ideas from real life.
Pardon me, Rolling Coal through your dieselpunk.
My favorite flight sim of all of the great PC era... for good reason.
Who could ever forget the horrors of hollywood stunt flying, or rescuing the train damsel?
Diesel is very unlikely
w00t thanks!
>we talked him into finishing up the english language version of the supplement.
You're a good person and you should feel good, user.
Just spreading the Crimson Skies love.
Diesel aircraft engines have actually been around since the 20s. They've never been very common due to poor power to weight ratios but they do exist.
>weld two planes together and try to pass it off as a new design
You can't trick me.
Howabout one where the "two planes" were never apart to begin with
I remember playing this as a little shit of what, 10 or 11? I wonder if you can still get the PC game somewhere?
It always bugged the hell out of me that Lockheed had the flying wings, instead of Northrop.
Jack Northrop was a legend for having flying wings in the air while everyone else thought he was nuts.
I only ever played the Xbox game. Is the pc one a different enough experience to be worth a look?
Abso-fucking-lutely.
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The PC game was dozens of times better than the XBOX one. It was full of character, a solid and fun flight model, and really creative missions and production value.
My only problem with the PC game, which I utterly adore, is that even on max difficulty I tended to cheese the missions to the point where I was wiping out the enemies so fast that sometimes I'd be left flying around for a minute or two waiting for some event to trigger.
The only mission I hated was probably that Autogyro one with the stock gyro. Those planes were awful.
Taking out enemy zeppelins with aerial torpedos is sex though.
What was wrong with High Road to Revenge? I liked it.
Has anyone managed to get this game to work flawlessly on a modern machine?
I have a Windows 7 computer and I can get the game to run almost right, graphics are fine, text is fine, but my plane rubber bands noticeably, it slows down, then surges forward, then slows down again, constantly, without airspeed indicators actually changing.
It's driving me mad, this was my favorite game as a kid and I just can't get it to work right.
It seems that the whole game just constantly speeds up and slows down. Anyone know what might cause this?
Thank you, you magical fucking awesome person.
It's a fine game. It's just a big step down from the perfection that was PC Crimson Skies earlier, which was one of the best arcadeish flight sims of it's era. TIE fighter level legendary for those who loved it.
>someone turned me on to warbirds
Good man.
I have that as light reading. I dunno, I like the last story the most/
Pride of the Republic
m3di@fyr3
/file/1dvchv08mm88oz2/FASA_8007_-_Pride_of_the_Republic.pdf
Nice.
I want to preface this small rant by saying that I did enjoy HRtR well enough when I first got it, and that it's a perfectly okay stand-alone game. Just not a good follow-up to the PC game.
First of all, it's a MASSIVE tone shift. The first game is about a fairly grounded criminal conspiracy with a lot of swashbuckling hijinks on the way there, while HRtR is about a Nazi scientist who wants to destroy Chicago (and then THE WORLD!). The pseudoscience in the first game is mostly just making certain planes work more efficiently than they would in real life, the second one has giant robots, tesla rays and zeppelins that literally eat other zeppelins.
The cast is barely half the size, if that. Your crew seems to consist of two other people. No more mission briefings full of character interactions. Fassenbinder got turned from a chubby, jovial guy into a stock neurotic Hollywood Scientist (tm). No more scrapbook full of mementos that fill out the lore.
Gameplay-wise they made a few innovations, but they also removed a lot. No more plane customization, no more selecting your own loadout. You get a list of planes, press Y to upgrade them, that's it. You can't even paint them yourself.
But really, just compare the intros:
youtu.be/GdmgKXVWV9g
youtu.be/i23KRvtWLx8
Come to think of it, I'm not sure anyone other than Lucas Miles was shown to actually die for realsies in the PC game.
Here's what drives me nuts about the supplement books. Of all the supplements, the aircraft manual should be the one that is pure pornography for us pilots/fans. But that book has the worst art, and worst designs of any of the supplements. I don't know what happened there, but the art shift is dramatic. Compared to the good looking drawings and designs, now every plane has a massive 1930s hotrod grille. Tails are too small, fuselages too short, props not big enough. Most of the planes in the original game looked plausible. Ditto PoTR and Behind the crimson veil. But the aircraft manual, they all look fake, save for a very small select few. Really ticks me off, I'd love to find out what happened with that shitty release.
No not really, everyone else gets to bail out.
Part of why the game has such a wonderfully light tone I think, it's just such a fun experience on every level, lets you be a dashing gentleman pirate without actually killing anybody, just breaking lots of stuff.
One thing I thought was great about the PC game was how well it's aged.
All of the interactions are just voiced, you never actually see any people, so you never get any old ass 12 polygon character models trying to emote at each other. Just the occasional black and white photo of actual actors and dialogue recordings that sound as good now as they ever did.
>But that book has the worst art, and worst designs of any of the supplements. I don't know what happened there, but the art shift is dramatic.
>I'd like to find out what happened.
Microsoft and FASA worked together to make the PC game and the first boxed set designs. FASA did the rest of the stuff in-house. Check the credits. Matt Plog did the Behind the Crimson Veil designs, and Plog and Wohwinkle did "Pride". They both had a full development and art cycle to work with, and clear art direction from a professional. Most of the planes in "Pride", "Veil" and the Gazetteer were also based on RL experimental aircraft from the era.
Meanwhile, FASA was in the middle of shutting down in 99-2000. Jordan bailed and sold the company after Mage Knight made him ALL THE DOLLARYDOOS. FASA Interactive is technically owned by Microsoft even though it employed mostly folks from FASA (Jordan is an idiot when it comes to assigning rights..), and the ARM was rushed out the door. Battletech artists at the time were complaining that their initial sketches just got put into books without further review or input. I suspect much the same happened here.
The ARM was made by a rookie artist, in a company falling faster than the House of Usher in a sharknado, under a Line Dev we >know< was sloppy with his art at the time. Some of the sillier->looking< ones were still based on RL birds - the Fairchild Brigand is totally a Gee Bee - but a lot are just crayon scribbles.
"High Road to Revenge", meanwhile, went back to Microsoft's in-house team of artists, and so the new designs are a little more.. grounded?
I hate myself for that..
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Plog doing Behind the crimson veil makes sense, can see a lot of his style in those planes.
I wonder if he could be convinced to redraw some of the planes in the AC manual. Namely, the GM Intrepid, since it is supposed to be a Valiant/Bloodhawk hybrid, the book even describes 'smooth flowing lines, and yet we end up with pic related.
>I wonder if he could be convinced to redraw some of the planes in the AC manual.
He takes commissions, and actually pretty cheaply for a pro in his field. Another user commissioned him to redo a bunch of Doug Chaffee's starship designs for AeroTech, and the results were pretty impressive. I've spoken to him at conventions before, as well as talked a good bit with people who've commissioned him, and he seems to be decent sort to work with.
Matt's not the greatest at depth-of-field or color work, but his linework is excellent - and he's had the better part of two decades to improve since "Veil".
Well that's good to know, it might legitimately be possible to fix the aircraft manual.
Greek Pre-WWI Zeppelin adventures, I can dig it.
Wasn't there a US X-plane that had a supersonic propeller that nearly killed people on the runway just from the sound?
No, it gave them massive diarrhea.
That honestly just looks like it's gonna break.
Or are you talking about the XF-84H thunderscreech?
Ah yes, that's the one. I remember reading that someone had to be rushed to a hospital at one point and that it was discontinued because the test pilot refused to fly it any more or something.
"Ground crew reported minor intestinal discomfort at certain power settings, due to the low frequency sound emitted by the UDF."
Best line in an engine report ever.
Wait'll you see what it's for.
SpaceX never ceases to amuse.
Stop for a moment and think about what happens to unpowered propellers in strong winds.
They feather the prop, so it stops moving.
That's precisely why the AT guys hired him, so..
I'm personally fond of :
>Gripe: Engines 1,2,4 leaking fuel and oil on runway.
> Maintainer response: "Engine 3 lacks normal leakage, explosion hazard. R&R"
Aviation maintenance is basically handing over you beloved barely-functioning deathtraps to the complete fucking idiots who fly them, and then unfucking the things said idiots did to them in the three hours your baby was out of your sight.
3, the only correct answer
You feather the props and/or lock the hub before bailing. If the engine is seized, as it usually is when it's time to hit the silk, it's even less of a problem.
Yeah. It'd never fly in real life
youtu.be
Mr Plog has been contacted concerning re-doing some designs, if he says yes, which would you like re-done from the aircraft manual?
(Yes I am paying for it)
Northrop ZF-2 Black Bat (Jack Northrop would never let that abomniation out of his workshop)
North American A-2 Thunderbird (three engines, two of which are too small, and attached to an unsupported tailframe)
Curtiss/Wright J-2C Nemesis. (The company that made a plane as sex as the fury would never release this turd. Also, the outboard guns are so close to the engines, the propblades are shorter then the diamter of the prop hub. Fuck me this is a bad one.)
That's Virgin Galactic, not SpaceX. Musk is working on pure rocket designs that will work on Mars.
Sikorsky "Seer"
Me/GM "Intrepid"
FB-99 "Phalanx"
All of them seem chopped and blobby, with wings too short and bodied too deep. Also the huge stupid Star Wars gun-tips just make them look stupid as Hell.
>Northrop ZF-2 Black Bat (Jack Northrop would never let that abomniation out of his workshop)
Uh, I hate to tell you this, user..