Re: [Official!] Project Horizons Comment Crew Chat thread.

[Harmony Ltd.]

10 months? Geez, time sure does fly.

Almost one year in the institution, now.

[Frost]

You and me joined up about the same time, didn't we? How much longer is your specialist training supposed to last? Like, another couple months? I remember it's stupid-long.

[Harmony Ltd.]

It's supposed to end on late may - early june 2015. But I might still need to follow something like a month after that of supplementary English training *laugh bitterly because he nearly aced the english skill-test already*

Or not. We're still kinda fuzzy on the details: the month of english training may be included in the schedule already, we don't know for sure.

[Harmony Ltd.]

So yeah, if my calculation is correct, I'll have spent 18 month in training before being "operational"

And THEN, I'll have to spend 6 more month being constantly supervised and evaluated before being judged as not being a danger for myself and others, and a few more month before I'll actually be somewhat competent at my actual job and assignation.


Well, at least we have it better than the translators. The ones working on Arabic or Slavic language have 102 weeks of specialist training.

[Frost]

Jesus, you're an aviation mechanic? That's, like, fucking 18B training here. Special Forces goddamn Weapons Sergeant (given, the two-year course is the shortest of all 18-series training)

They were offering me a Blackhawk mechanic position with, like 6 months total training, both Basic and AIT.

[Harmony Ltd.]

More specifically, aviation mechanics working on all the electronics and avionics on-board these birds (2217). The messy-greasy mechanical stuff is handled by some other of my colleagues (2115).

[Frost]

Damn. Longest AIT I know of in the Army is EOD, with over a year of training.

I guess with well over a decade of constant and rather intense ongoing war, all of our training's been focused on cramming everything before sending us. 

Not to say the French aren't also there, it's just (not to my knowledge) to the same degree of everyone constantly rotating through deployments. 

Even now, with Afghanistan winding down, Africa is the new hotspot and another surge into Iraq might be looking.

[Harmony Ltd.]

Well, like we discussed before, our problematic is that we just don't have enough people, and we have to do more and more with less and less, so of course we'll need to cram more "competences" per pair of boots on the ground, which will require more training time.

It doesn't help that things have become so shitty for the military that a large part of those enlisting choose to return to civilian life after their first 6-year contract, and even less go for a second 6-year contract or choose to do career. So there's kind of a crazy high turnover rate.

You can imagine how this constrain our employment policies.

[Harmony Ltd.]

Like, back in basic, our Company started at something like 85 trainees. Five month later, we were only 53. The rest had either preferred to return to civilian life, or had been recycled to other, more recent companies, for medical reasons or insufficient results.

And in Specialist training, we were 17 at the start in my class, and over two month later we're 15, and we'll probably be 14 or 13 soon, as 2 chose to return to the civilian world (good riddance), and several other have difficulties obtaining the necessary results to pass the next period (there's 7 six-week-long of them during this particular formation).

[Harmony Ltd.]

To give you an idea, Basic for French Army NCOs (the mud army one, not the fart or piss ones) is 8 month long, for everyone. Then you need to add specialist training to that.

[Frost]

Damn. And I thought losing 20 of our original 240 trainees was crazy. Contracts are only 3 years for infantry, so that probably helps--it's less of a massive commitment to reenlist, so folks feel more comfortable doing it.

And you can't enlist as an NCO. You do your time as a shit-kicking Private, and after a few years of proving yourself, you get your chevrons.

[Frost]

Anywho, I'm apparently impressing my PL and PSG so much that I'm up for Soldier of The Month next time that's up. And I got to go home early today.

[Tytan]

I just realized something Frost.

If Katt could speak with a southern accent she'd have a VERY promising career with FOX news.

[RoboRed]

Swickedlulz: http://evil-dec0y.deviantart.com/art/Crushed-to-Death-471547240

[Downloaded Skill]

I just realized something Frost.

If Katt could speak with a southern accent she'd have a VERY promising career with FOX news.

Ehh I don't think so. Fox news is republican to the extreme and given their uh... "track record" with women, rape, and female concerns I think it would be far more probable for her to burn their studios to the ground.

[Tytan]

I just realized something Frost.

If Katt could speak with a southern accent she'd have a VERY promising career with FOX news.

Ehh I don't think so. Fox news is republican to the extreme and given their uh... "track record" with women, rape, and female concerns I think it would be far more probable for her to burn their studios to the ground.

She could be their new 'liberal' corespondent.

[OneMoreDaySK]

@Last
Again, this would be in an ideal MMO, where there are players who want to actually play Recettear rather than go adventuring. Quest givers would be instructed / coded to ignore players who are trying to rush things by breaking the immersion running around screaming "LFQ!" If they wanted that, a bulletin would be set up for bounties / requests.

At this point I think we can agree that we have vastly different opinions on what constitutes as an MMORPG. The way I see it, current ones have more or less been clones of WoW with terrible quest design focused on grinding, with hub towns featuring NPCs in the hubs with '!'. All I see quests doing nowadays is to funnel players to the next zone. There is no discovery. There is no exploration. Everything needed to be premapped for player convenience. When's the last time an MMORPG had you go exploring just to see the world created, rather than tunnel-visioning players from quest to quest?

I think I am finished discussing this topic. Oh and by the way,

I can't see a world in which the company gives a player control over strangers being anything related to fun to those strangers.

EVE Online, the game of business majors and spreadsheet enthusiasts.

[Harmony Ltd.]

@Last
Again, this would be in an ideal MMO, where there are players who want to actually play Recettear rather  than go adventuring. Quest givers would be instructed / coded to ignore players who are trying to rush things by breaking the immersion running around screaming "LFQ!" If they wanted that, a bulletin would be set up for bounties / requests.

At this point I think we can agree that we have vastly different opinions on what constitutes as an MMORPG. The way I see it, current ones have more or less been clones of WoW with terrible quest design focused on grinding, with hub towns featuring NPCs in the hubs with '!'. All I see quests doing nowadays is to funnel players to the next zone. There is no discovery. There is no exploration. Everything needed to be premapped for player convenience. When's the last time an MMORPG had you go exploring just to see the world created, rather than tunnel-visioning players from quest to quest?

I think I am finished discussing this topic. Oh and by the way,

I can't see a world in which the company gives a player control over strangers being anything related to fun to those strangers.

EVE Online, the game of business majors and spreadsheet enthusiasts.

Star Citizen looks like it'll be player-driven.

[RoboRed]

Swickedbait:
http://vector-brony.deviantart.com/art/To-the-pool-471642580
http://alexis25.deviantart.com/art/The-water-s-rising-Trixie-471566830
http://tsand106.deviantart.com/art/The-Lonely-Princess-471573856?q=favby%3ACrelyous%2F46069965&qo=0
http://dreatos.deviantart.com/art/Cybertronian-Equestrian-471540740
http://xwhitedreamsx.deviantart.com/art/Memories-of-the-time-471626398
http://gregan811.deviantart.com/art/MLP-fim-HOT-Earl-Grey-471685101 (dat face)

Lastbait:
http://wilvarin-liadon.deviantart.com/art/Fluffy-Happiness-471674499

Derpmindbait:
http://king-kakapo.deviantart.com/art/Derpy-Alexis-Rhodes-cosplay-471457489
http://secret-pony.deviantart.com/art/Chibi-Derpy-471582130

[OneMoreDaySK]

@Harmony
At this point, "Early Access" only makes my skeptical of the game. Waiting for devs to do a bit more work before I get back on DayZ, for example. No idea where Starbound is at currently. Only playing 7Days on Adder's Server, but ran out of things to do except stock his cabinets full of tea.

[Guest]

@SK

Spoiler:

You don't have to read that SK. You said you're done, That's why I put it in spoilers. You don't even have to look at it if you don't want to.

[Frost]

Anywho, I'm apparently impressing my PL and PSG so much that I'm up for Soldier of The Month next time that's up. And I got to go home early today.

Soldier of the Month? That's a thing?

Yeah. The reward's a mix between being the LT's concubine and being the PSG's detail bitch.

[Stringtheory]

Someone finally did it, they combined the speed of torrents with the slick interface of a streaming program and it's the best thing ever: Popcorn Time. And since it's an open source program that runs on your computer and relies on torrents it'll be nearly impossible to shut down   

[iLateralGX]

Someone finally did it, they combined the speed of torrents with the slick interface of a streaming program and it's the best thing ever: Popcorn Time. And since it's an open source program that runs on your computer and relies on torrents it'll be nearly impossible to shut down   

Didn't Netflix at one point say something about wanting to try peer to peer?

[Harmony Ltd.]

@Swicked: Don't get surprised that people grow more and more defiant of the whole Nuclear industry, when shit like that keep happening, again and again.

[Harmony Ltd.]

Meanwhile, we keep looking for intelligent extra-terrestrial life...

[Harmony Ltd.]

Well, doesn't change the fact that without Big Daddy watching them, the "industry" let shit happen that endangered the life of a number of people, and led to a (broad term) nuclear incident.

I think this may speak more about the guarded than the guardian.

Not that this absolve the DoE from his fuck ups, of course.


All I'm saying is that this doesn't help in any people getting more confidence in the nuclear industry, by which I mean the sector as a whole.

[Harmony Ltd.]

And just so we're clear, I'm pro-Nuclear Weapons, while encouraging the dismantling of the old French nuclear reactors, which are becoming quite hazardous (the differential to be compensated through a mix of renewable energy and energy savings).

My biggest concern in the domain is what to do with the nuclear waste.

Everyone seems to want to get rid of them forever by burying a big hole in the ground and dumping it there.

I think a more responsible approach would be to stock them on a surface site, and constantly monitor them. Because at least it would give more incentives to be responsible with the stuff in the long term, and make it easier to get back the waste once we finally find a mean to turn the wastes back into fuel.

[Frost]

Spoiler:

[Harmony Ltd.]

@Swicked: Well, derp, I hadn't caught on the fact the site wasn't related to the civilian use of nuclear power.

Oh well. You can't let a perfectly good, serviceable outrage just go to waste like that. I guess we'll just settle on "incompetent government officials" and call it a day.

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