semiconductor

This just in: computer games are about having a great time, not about being "welcoming" or catering to desires of Gender Studies graduates and similar "researchers". Stay tuned for more on this story at eleven.

Oh, I knew it was something on my part. Sorry, don't know how did I managed to overlook trigger's settings. I've fixed it and everything works like magic now. Thank you very much for your help! :)

It appears that if you have set recruitment e-mail address and then changed it later, the system starts to send application messages to both emails instead of sending them only to the new one.

Sure, here it is: https://www.dropbox.com/s/gg7r3k6h0iq97po/dac_custom_waypoints.Stratis.zip?dl=0 Thanks for your help.

Hey guys, I've run into a problem with custom waypoints. For some reason I can't get them to work and I have no idea what exactly I am doing wrong because I follow the manual to a word. What I'm trying to achieve is this: a zone that spawns AI civilian vehicles that move from town to town using roads. Here's my situation: I have a DAC zone in usual rectangle trigger named "z1", with activation condition "time > 1" and following OnActivation code: 0 = ["z1",[1,0,0,0],[ ],[5, 5, 0, 5],[ ],[ ],[3,3,0,0]] spawn DAC_Zone; In this zone I also have a nameless GameLogic with 10 "AND"-type waypoints liked to it. It has "this setDir 2" in it's init field. Both logic and its waypoints are inside the zone. When I launch the mission DAC instantly reports that there is no waypoints assigned "z1" and that's it. I even tried to explicitly link the GameLogic to the zone by adding "this setVariable["Link", z1]" into Logic's init field with no luck. If I change the third value in wheeled array (that corresponds to DAC-generated waypoints), the system just generates them in random positions without taking into account predefined waypoints. In the actual mission that big civilian zone overlaps with several smaller "combat" zones (that's why I tired to link GameLogic to a specific zone) but I've just created a simple mission on Stratis with clean DAC package and got the same results. I'm using scripted version of DAC. Any help will be greatly appreciated.

Well, it seems that many new players will get to experience Arma 2's damage system in upcoming weeks. :D Thanks for your reply, Varanon.

Hey guys, do you have any information on how last update affected CUP? Are uniforms/vests working as usual or they need to be fixed?

Congratulations on creating the useless rant thread #1587413887 * 1085! Bonus points for not even trying to explain what exactly you don't like about new stamina system!

These morons aren't the problem though. The problem is someone making profit off somebody else's work in direct violation of the author's will.

So what does Turkey's general public thinks about Erdogan's motives? I mean, no matter how I look on the situation it seems that he won nothing and might lose much.

Well, we're still discussing Syria's future in the light of ISIS threat so I think that we're more or less within the topic's bounds. I was implying that while I won't go into paragraph-by-paragraph reply like I did in previous posts, I'm nevertheless not ignoring everything you wrote so put your sarcasm aside please. I see that you have again missed my main point that FSA will not be able to hold power over Syria and barely mentioned that "everybody has the resources to make problems for eachother". I explicitly adduced the approximate numbers of all three major sides and the FSA is the weakest of them all. It doesn't really matter whether they are "good guys"or not when they're outnumbered and outgeared by ISIS alone; not to mention Assad with literally millions of people in reserve. How doy you think they will be able to retain control over the country when the main reasons they haven't been wiped out in the first years of their existence is American support and Assad's hesitation? Just because US wants to have an another weak puppet government does not mean that this is a good idea to actually create one especially considering the circumstances. Why don't we find a solution that will be good for everybody? Because such solution does not exist. It never had. As vilas has said, you can't put foxes and chickens in the same barn and expect them to go along nicely. The problem with the Middle East is that everybody there is the chicken and the fox in the same time and therefore some group's victory will mean everybody else's defeat. Democracy will not work in clan-based society in which everybody is in a constant, centuries-long war with everyone. Yes, we have one or two irrelevant countries where democracy seems to work so far but they are minority. In your post you have said numerous times that one of the reasons you support FSA is because you're used to western values, you have grown with them, you saw that they did many great things to the Western civilization and you don't really understand why these will not work in the Middle East. In the end you've asked a very interestingly phrased question: are they doomed? Here's the funny thing: all not-so-moderate muslims think exactly in the same vein but they just use different nouns. Consider the following: they're used to Islamic values, they have grown with them, they saw that they did many great things to the Middle Eastern civilization and they don't really understand why these values will not work in the West. Just like we're thinking "How could someone refuse the ideals of freedom and pursuit of happiness?!", they are thinking "How could somebody refuse an afterlife full with joys and hot women in favor of mundane pleasures?!". Just like we're thinking "How could someone prefer bunch of old clerics over the rule of law?!" they're thinking "How could someone spit upon the will of God?!". Just like we're want to rescue them from the poverty and oppression, they want to rescue us from the life of sin and Hell's eternal flames. And they literally think that we're doomed just because we won't accept their system of government. So just like the major part of European population isn't exactly fond of Sharia Law, the major part of Middle Eastern population isn't exactly in awe from the ideals of democracy. That's why democracy can't work there. And that's something we have to accept because the times of Crusades are long gone and we can't just roll into the mosque on our M1A2 TUSK and demand from locals to abandon their culture and became a democratic atheists overnight. We have to accept that democracy is not a universal concept and it can't really work everywhere for everyone.

S-400 has been deployed somewhere near Latakia more than eight hours ago. That's surprisingly fast if you ask me.

@dontknowhow I've read your entire post and I think that I have finally understood your position. Indeed, our point of disagreement seems to be the question whether FSA's rule (optimistic scenario) is more desirable than restoration of Assad's regime (not-so-optimistic). For the record, I'm not a great expert neither in history nor in politics but here's how I see the situation regarding "Who's Gonna Be The Next Syrian Ruler" championship: we have three main contestants: Assad, FSA, ISIS. I've hid a somewhat lengthy armchair analysis of all three sides under this spoiler: FSA is weak and full of inner conflicts, ISIS is literally reincarnation of the Middle Ages in the Middle East (pun intended) so there's only Assad left. He's not a great leader, he's not a great politician but he's the best option we have without US sending their troops in a deliberately failed attempt to bring peace. While he's not fond of human rights (or finds them applicable to current Syria), he's not fond of religious extremism and covert struggle between ethnic groups either. I'm pretty sure that before the civil war under his rule people in general were enjoying a peaceful and relatively prosperous life, they were able to learn, to create, to dress as they like, to behave as they like* and were living overall happy life and it's unlikely that their future under Assad will be any different (taking into account the consequences of the war, of course). He's also backed by Russians who will provide military and humanitarian aid in case of things with ISIS going south. Here's the bonus thing: since Russians and Kurds are apparently Best Friends Forever thanks to Turkey, Kurds finally might receive a wide autonomy or even their own little state they so eagerly fighting for. I'm not being argumentative here, as I said, I'm not an expert in this subject and I could be wrong about certain aspects or the entire thing; I'm just explaining how I perceive the situation in Syria. In conclusion, while I understand your idea of FSA and Syrian opposition achieving the democracy they (initially, at least) fought for, I'd like to note that democracy is not the thing in itself. We value the democracy because it allows us to achieve a certain degree of freedom, peace and prosperity therefore there is really no point in a democratic rule at expense of those things. The problem with Syria in particular and Middle East in general is that democracy in this region will - in my opinion - mean precisely that. * with obvious limitations of a semi-authoritarian regime.

I'm talking about Assad, ISIS and the situation at hand. While I agree that theoretically, in some other, better version of our universe Syria could be a democracy, I don't really see a point in thought experiments set in a ideal world of Gummy Bears. Yes, reality is not pretty but it's the only thing we can deal with. I believe that more or less pure "Good vs. Evil" confrontation exists in three things: fairy tales, holy books and propaganda materials. If we, however, apply this binary system to the real world, especially the international relations, then everybody would be evil. Simply because every country/nation/group tries to advance their own interests at expense of somebody else. I'm not playing a blame game. I'm saying that we should learn form the history in order to not to step on the same rake twice. Isn't ISIS a direct result of chaos and lawlessness caused by the American intervention back in 2003? You kinda can't just roll around in your Honda murdering people if there is a strong government and especially if there is a authoritarian regime, only if country is weak and/or has a useless puppet authority. While some kind of Islamic extermist movement would certainly exist anyway, I'm pertty sure that it wouldn't have been even remotely as powerful, as ISIS now simple due to the fact that it would have faces a much more serious resistance The problem with your solution is that FSA will not be able to prevent country's further descent into chaos and Islamic extremism. They consist from varous groups with different goals, they have no strong and charizmatic leader, they have no stiong support among general population but they have a very motivated, excellently armed and powerful enemy not just at their dorstep but at their kitchen eagerly ransaking throught their fridge. Mind you, even Iraq with US support utterly failed to stop ISIS from gaining substantional power, what makes you think that bunch of guys without tanks but with dozens of centuries-old feuds among them will somehow manage to stop al-Baghdadi? Assad wouldn't fix the problem and frankly the problem is too old and too deep to be fixed by one leader. But that's not expected from him - all he should do is bring a relative peace and stability to the country, i.e. something that majority of the locals want. If you think that Assad, an average and somewhat clumsy dictator might be as bad or even worse than a bunch of Islamic extremists that literally proclaimed the destruction of any non-Islamic civilization, abolishment of every law system and pretty much every human right imaginable as their ultimate and sacred goal, then someone somewhere makes a very good propaganda. There is one thing I can't really understand though: you don't want to send some people to die but you're somehow totally ok with all of those people (an incomparably bigger amount compared even to hundred of refugees) dying somewhere else for some kind of higher good, literally just because you or the guy in charge of your country don't like the guy in charge of theirs. Apparently it's morally unacceptable to sink couple of boats with refugees but it's totally acceptable and even desirable to sentence millions of exactly the same people to decades of bloodshed, violence, slavery, rape and hopelessness. I just don't get it. Concerning the situation in Europe, then, in my opinion, the problem with refugees is that we're not living in the fairytale, resources of even the richest countries aren't limitless and so there might not be a humane solution at all. Quite often in the history of humankind it was either "us" or "them". European politicians can't have the cake and eat it and eventually they will have to decide who's more important - their own citizens or foreign immigrants. And the longer they put off this question, the smaller amount of options they will have and the harder that decision will be. It's not pretty but nature sure loves that "survival of the fittest" thing and it doesn't seems like it getting tired of it yet, whether we like it or not. And that's the point. But if US would have militarily intervened in the USSR or funded some serious anti-USSR group I'm pretty sure it would have existed even today. Well, given that world wouldn't have turned into the nuclear wasteland in the first year of Hot War. Indeed, people think that wars are fought with weapons and it's obvious to everyone on the Middle East that there's a war going on against them. And wars tend to suspend any political progress. As oxmox have said, fifty years is actually an understatement but I don't know Middle Eastern history prior to WWII very well. I'm not blaming the West, the actions of western governments are completely understandable and were justified by their national interests, I'm just pointing out to the problems that arose because constant western interference into the Middle Eastern affairs. I'm doing that because you propose yet another intervention as a solution that will be somehow beneficial to Syrian people but it had never worked in the past for huge and important Middle Eastern countries and I can't really see a reason why it sould work now. I hope you're wrong but in the same time I'm afraid you could be right. And with all those foreign military powers taking sides and slowly drowning in region's neverending conflicts... nothing good can come out of it.

Gee, good thing that everything is black and white in the Middle East. "Many good people" vs. "few bad people", like it's always been, uh-huh. And yeah, Assad's "badness" is not related to his anti-US position in any way. It's not related to Syria's strategic position in region and its friendship with Russia either. Sure. Sarcasm aside, the point being that Syria is not some small, poor and generally inconsequential country, there are many powers and covert interests fighting for control over it and none of them with the obvious exception of Assad, wants Syria to be peaceful and prosperous. Assad is not an angel either, far from it, but he's the only one who will lose everything if Syria go down in flames so he is interested in actually preserving it. The thing is, all of this had happened precisely because certain western countries decided to push forward their interests. Precisely because they thought that this is "their major concern". Now they reap what they sow and slowly approach to the understanding that Assad is their best bet in order to bring stability to the region, whether they like it or not. Without a strong authoritarian leader or full-scale western intervention Syria will became ISIL territory in a matter of months with with all the ensuing consequences. As the saying goes, of two evils choose the less and I think we both agree that Assad is the lesser evil compared to ISIL both to syrian people and international community. Not to mention that if FSA would have been left without external support in the first place, Assad would have crushed it years ago and the syrian people would have been able to enjoy peaceful lives. Yeah, under an authoritarian rule but peaceful and relatively prosperous nonetheless. Hold on for a second, I wasn't saying that it would be easy or even exactly humane. I assume that you live in a western, democratic country, right? Then it's completely up to you to decide who you want to see in your country. You don't want to see refugees? Then write a letter to your representative, join a rally, vote for the guy in suit that promises to kick them out, do something. That's how democracy works. The influx of the refugees in the Europe is the direct result of European policy towards them, not Assad's policy towards protesters. How come you're advocating democracy in other countries but apparently don't want to use it in your own? And your country might not even need to resort to ethically questionable measures. Just cut those social benefits and welfare and see how the flow of so-called refugees shrink considerably. It might be a strong statement but in the end neither you nor your country owe anything to these people. And that is not how democracy works. It they woted for an idiot in a democractic elections then it's completely and undeniably their fault. The ability to make decisions always comes with responsibility for them. Maybe it wasn't completely immune but the point is that external intervention never happened. Yes, the dissolution of SU and loss of an authoritarian leader caused certain old-aged frozen conflicts to activate again but all of them happened in the Middle Eastern republics, most of them entered in the phase of passive confrontation by the end of the decade and none of them are really comparable with Syrian or Iraq crysis. Well, after more than a 50 years of constant western intervention in the Middle East that resulted in non-stopping conflicts everywhere in the region I think there is a good reason to leave them alone for some time and see what happens. Because, again, western attempts to fix Middle East up and install a semi-puppet governments didn't worked very well with the exception of two small and irrelevant countries.

I think he just keeps Russia's options open while Moscow evaluates the situation and decides upon the best course of action. Meanwhile S-400 systems and additional Su-30 fighters are being prepared for Syrian deployment, so much for the coalition.

Turkey might be considered as an unreliable and undesirable member of the alliance. Erdogan used NATO membership as an instrument to be able to flex the muscle Putin-style, he basically screwed the interests of all other NATO countries, gave Russia a formal reason to retaliate against the whole alliance, accidentally gave FSA a very bad publicity (there is no "moderate war crimes" in Geneva convention) and then ran to the NATO with his tail between his legs begging for protection. Not to mention that he allegedly did all this to protect his son's oil business that is heavily reliant on ISIL convoys.

No wonder, interesting and captivating plot have never been Bethesda's strong point. On a serious note, I'm sure neither the rest of NATO countries nor Russia want to wipe eachother out of existence over a stupid action of Turkish government. So unless someone makes another very dumb move I think it's safe to assume that Bethesda will be able to release a couple of boring DLCs.

And yet again it's the West (specifically the US) who decides who's "bad" and "good". As I said, that approach didn't do much good to the Middle East up to the present moment. Interestingly enough, Assad needs Russians because the rebels somehow got themselves a shiny western weapons, especially anti-tank ones. Makes me wonder, what if there is some another country involved in all this and involved from the very beginning? But not getting involved in the conflicts that doesn't concern you is a good idea actually. Yes, brutal suppression of protests by police is not a great show but it's way better than drowning a nation in blood (not just protesters, mind you, but literally everyone, men, women, children, elderly, teachers, policemen, army, doctors, everyone). Yes, the dictator in this case kinda holds the rest of his nation as a hostages, and yes, it's "not a great show" but I think it's better than killing or destroying the lives of all of them. If it wasn't, you wouldn't have found all those refugees on your doorstep. So, you're saying that your country is powerless against the people who come into it using certain means of transportation? Don't be funny. I'm sure shipping them back to whatever country they have come from on a ferry will be way cheaper than having them on a welfare or funding a group that bears half of the responsibility for forcing them to flee. The question is - for what purpose? To allow some foreign country to secure juicy contracts, extract resources cheaply or prove to the world its military might? Just to someone sitting in the big office could put a checkmark on his mental List of Destroyed Dictatorships (conveniently forgetting about all the terror that followed)? I believe that if we leave those countries alone they will eventually (in 20-30 yers time maybe) relatively peacefully became if not democratic, then not so authoritarian at least. Recent history has a great example - the Soviet Union. It was immune for any external agression involvement but as the time marched on people realized that CPSU's regime have long outlived its usefulness and so in 1991 it dissolved without any major conflicts and most of the new independent states were able to peacefully develop on their own. While USSR was a "western nation" in a sense that most of its population have shared European culture, I think the similar scenario is also possible for Middle Eastern nations sometime in the future.

The question is - who's "they"? The people who participated in the demonstrations? That's just a minor part of Syrian population. If everybody except Assad wanted a democracy, he would have lose his power almost instantly but that's not the case, there is many people who fight and die for him and his vision of Syria's future. The situation is not as simple as "Bad Assad vs. All Syrians" so I think it's not a good idea to join the conflict and make it even more complicated. So instead of demanding from the politicians you personally and consciously elected to close your own country's borders for refugees you want the other country to drown itself in blood? I'm afraid that is not the most effective or humane solution. :D If the majority of population will not be satisfied with the government, then the dictatorship will be eventually demolished one way or another, just like it has happened many times in western history. External intervention, however, will only cause various groups to put aside their differences and unite against the common enemy thus prolonging the existence of regime.

[X] did that first, so it's completely justified for [Z] to do that now, huh? Humanity wont last a week with that approach.

Well, while a direct military response is indeed unlikely there are couple of ways Russia in which can retaliate. Some of them political and economical, one of them is... uhm... humanitarian support to certain oppressed nationality (Russia is notoriously good at it). Turkey might not be little and poor but it certainly doesn't have the brightest leaders either. Apart from feeling of national pride Turkey got nothing from this attack and will most likely suffer a substantional damage to its reputation, political and economical interests. The only party that have gained from this incident is ISIL.

Russian MoD apparently reported that according to the Khmeimim Airbase radar data, one of the Turkey's F-16 allegedly violated Syria's airspace in connection to the Su-24 shoot down. It's not clear whether fighter violated airspace immediately during the attack or prior/after it. It seems that things are getting even more complicated.

So, to help people in Somecountrystan we need to enforce on them a system of government that will inevitably fail and thus condemn millions of the people we're helping, almost entire Somecountrystan population, to decades of civil war, massacre, extremism, crime, abuse, slavery, lost generations and no hope for the future? Well, if we truly want to help them, not murder them and steal their country resources, then yes, I think that means we should not do it. As long as they're not a direct threat to us, we probably should give them a chance to be masters of their own country and their own fate. Exactly. It's time to understand that West is not a universal model for all societies to follow and that there is no point in forcefully imposing on a country a model of government that wasn't a product of its continuous and natural evolution because the problems each society faces during its development and answers to those problems are unique to it. Maybe in time Syria will became a democracy but now it's simply not ready to it and we should not intervene. Today's mess is a direct result of western attempts to fix the Middle East and if after 50 years of "repairs" it still can't stand on it's own then we're pretty bad mechanicians and it's time to allow Middle Eastern nations to find a solution to their problems by themselves.

Well, the democracy literally means "rule of the people" and the problem with ME is that They The People actually don't have a problem with beheadings, religious crusades, extreme violence and radical branches of certain religions. Best case scenario, the democratic reforms would result in a helpless state with constant inner fight for power between various groups (Iraq), in the worst case the ISIL-alike organization would have took the power over the entire county without firing a bullet (like Muslim Brotherhood tried in Egypt but was stopped by military). It seems that democracy is not a universal solution and the Middle Eastern countries cannot exist without an strong, authoritarian leader, at least for the time being. I'm afraid that removal of Assad will only result in a civil war that will eventually (after decades of fighting and thousands of dead) give birth to - if we're very lucky - yet another Assad.