GO TEAM GEN CON!

You're right. It's more of a mental division in my head, based upon how we organize our projection spreadsheets, the fact that SOE isn't involved in this deal, etc. What seems a very clear line on the business side makes very little sense in terms of how the community works.

To answer some of your questions:

1) Server number - answer hazy, ask again next week.
2) Hosting location - the actual servers are in Seattle. The only difference is that they're on a different authentication system, and so appear to be separate. I would have loved to have one combined server group, but merging two authentication systems would be a bug farm, and screwing that up leads to law suits and such. :-) The other reason that I don't want to combine the groups of servers is because I'm looking into hosting options in Australia. I'd like to bring the servers over here, but the deal came together so late that we really don't have the ability to do this for launch. One of the cool things about our data storage system is we can set up replication between the US and Australia, so we can run servers in the US for Oz, deploy new servers in Australia, and when we're ready to switch over, we can turn off the server, wait a few hours for the replication to catch up, and then turn the server back on again. Down time should be less than 6 hours.
3) The plans for the initial economy hurdles are pre-seeding and the results of something i'm working on and hope to announce next week.
4) We're using the same GMs as we're using for the US.

I had exactly this conversation with Bigpond yesterday. And then I had an idea. I'll let you know how said idea works out next week.

I don't know how big yours is, but mine is 3 mm. I don't think it's all that big. For some reason, all of mine are 3 mm.

Fun thoughts: When this happened a year ago, the CAT scan revealed I had 14 at the time. "Are you in a stressful line of work?" asked the doctor. "Nah." I said.

Tut, tut, gentlemen! How quickly we forget that brigantines existed in the first half of the 18th century. They were primarily a British phenomenon though -- Jean Boudriot states with authority that they weren't made in France until the 1750's.

Of course, the term did not mean what we think of today. The rig was less a consideration than the fact that it was a small, agile ship that was handy under oar or sail. That usually dictated a maximum of two masts, and an easy-handling rig that incorporated fore-and-aft sails was a natural choice for such craft.

Finding appropriate plans, of course, is another challenge... and one I don't have good leads on at present.

It's really hard to gauge that from a render. Top on our list of things to look for is efficient use of polygons, and to get a sense of that, we need views with the edges turned on so we can see each and every triangle. From the first screenshots in this thread -- which come close to showing the information we need -- it looks like you might have some more work to do. Try reading through Faunalboy's original project thread -- it's practically a tutorial and would be a great place for you to start.

There's a great way for you to find out -- try modelling a hull from plans, e.g. a yacht or merchantman from Chapmannet. Study the deck structure and gun layout of several ships. You don't need to work on all the details at this point if you don't want to, but starting from a plan and really thinking about how the original ship "fit together" will really help you develop a sense of what worked historically and what didn't. To make a ship that's 100% your own work, that sense needs to be developed keenly, and there's no better way than to practice using historic examples.

Consider this a challenge, if you like. Is it one you'll choose to accept -- doing the research you need to grade your own work?

You know, lolcat threads always set off a signal to me.

Sorry gang, didn't see this sooner. I'm still playing catch up for taking a week's vacation. It be stickied.

Holy carp! Is this a Kettemoor thread?

Happy day gang!