Topic: Taldren Forum Bios

[Chris Jones]

I thought it would be a nice idea if the people that frequent the forums here post a biography of thier work/life etc.. whatever. I'd love to read who's done what.. Here's mine..


Chris Jones
Age: 44
Residence: Adirondacks of NY
2 Years of college majoring in Communications.

I spent roughly 10-15 years in the Radio business as an announcer/DJ. The goal with that was to meet my wife, which I did, married 1987, still married. From radio I ventured into retail, working at Radio Shack. It was there I started playing with computers and Windows 3.1. I was fond of 'Deskmate' at the time, Radio Shack's answer to 3.1. From Radio Shack I ventured into the Newspaper business as a pre-press operator. From there I gave up the media/retail stuff and worked in a foam manufacturing plant. The plant was sold and we were laid off, after which I obtained employment at my current job, that of a telephone rep.
Along the way I started playing the original Starfleet Command - that was in late 1999, and that is where I started modding games. My first mega-mod was for that 1st SFC game, still available on my site.

After SFC1 I took SFC2 to a new level. The Starfleet Command series, until 3, was based on Starfleet Battles and loosely on TMP era Star Trek. I was not satisfied with that. I played SFC for the Trek aspect of it, having never heard of Starfleet Battles at all. TMP was not my favorite, and lots of modelers were makiing TNG era models for the game. I put together several mods for SFC2. TOS, TMP, TNG and a Multi-Era Mod.

Not stopping with SFC2, I did the same things for Orion Pirates in 2001-2002 - TOS, TMP, TNG. The TNG Mod for OP was my pride and joy during the Summer of 2002. I had every TNG ship I could find in there and had some missions written for it - lots of people supported it on Gamespy. It was in its peak when SFC3 came out in November 2002.

It was in early 2002 that Bridge Commander was released, although I didn't immediately jump on it, as I was very heavy into OP at the time.
Eventually I released a mod of ships and systems for BC, but my concentration was on OP at the time.

SFC3 was fun - in the beginning. I immediately jumped into the modding aspect of it and came out with an early Dominion Wars Mod in Jan. 2003, which evolved into my TNG Mega Mod. In April of 2003 David Ferrell gave me a lifetime achievement award - consisting of an autographed copy SFC3, and several technical books on programming. By May 2003 I was burned out on SFC (mostly because of RL - real life) and announced a hiatus from anything Starfleet Command. In September I came back on the Taldren Forums, but do not (as of this moment) plan on releasing any more big mods for any Starfleet Command game. I am a member of SFC3 Files, and plan to support the community in other ways - such as file hosting if anyone needs it.

During my 'semi-retirement' from SFC I delved heavily into Bridge Commander - looking at the tutorials and what was out there. Making system maps caught my eye. I recall when I first got a planet to show up in the game. That was the coolest thing, I thought. Then I wanted ships in my systems - ships that were there as background activity. I made a post on BCU asking for help in that area and jwattsjr assisted me. Since then we have collaborated on many systems and ideas, and I feel we work very well together. I've released several system mods of my own, along with adaptations of Dasher 42's Sol System and some of Banzai Zap's creations. I feel I have the ability to look at what already exists, and adapt it to do other things I would like it to do.... I adapted a script someone (NxDefiant) wrote to control the allied fleet and applied it to enemy ships, and neutral ships. Yes - you can tell the enemy to stop firing and sit in space, or follow you, lol. Same with the neutrals. They can attack and enemy or an ally.  
I am also playing a key role in the 'BC2' project.

Something I was quite proud of was the conversion of the Bridge Commander CG Sovereign Class from SFC2 format to SFC3. DarkMatrix had converted it from BC to SFC2/OP - and I took it to SFC3. It is still in the top 10 downloads on SFC3 Files.

I still chime into the Taldren Forums here to see what's up. There is/was an incomplete OP Multi-Era Mod sitting on my hard drive...

 

[Dogmatix!]

I always like this idea.  It's always cool to learn more about the people in this community.  

It seems to me we did a round of bios right around the time Crimmy got temporarily banned about a month or more ago.  I wonder if that thread is still around here, somewhere.  I can't remember if it was in this forum or the OT forum.  

Anyone remember?

[Sirgod]

I think It was in the OT forums Doggy, Didn't Tracy start that one? It might be in the OT archived forum though now.

Stephen

[vsfedwards]

I'm Andrew and I'm an alcoholic...<runs away crying>

[762]

That was in the DIP forum Doggy.

[NuclearWessels]

<steps up to podium>
<coughs>

Hi, I'm Dave, and I have a problem ...

Lessee .. I'm a software prof in BC, 40ish (ok, way more ish than 40) and I've spent the last 10 years or so torturing students in Townsville Australia, Fayetteville Arkansas, and here on Vancouver Island.

I've been playing the SFC series since about 2 weeks after SFC1 came out, though I didn't try playing online until EAW's dynaverse went live (been a dynasaur ever since though). I still remember my first PvP (as a Rom KRC vs Alfman's G-DNE) and that first rush of servers. Actually I still have written logs from that first month, which are kinda cool to review once in awhile.

I've been playing SFB since '79, and a friend and I actually started writing an SFB program in my final year as an undergrad ( '89 or so). Of course that collapsed over graphics problems and underestimating the complexity of the beastie. When the SFC series came out I was an instant addict, and started fighting with mission scripts about 2 years ago.

These days I'm still getting in a mix of playing/scripting/testing for OP, but not as much as I'd like.   (Enough to keep me from jonesing but without provoking the missus   )

dave      

[FireSoul]

Hi. I'm Luc, and I'm fine. I don't feel that I have a problem...  (denial?)


I'm 28 years old, and am a Sysadmin working at TransGaming, here in Ottawa, Canada. The times have been hard in the IT industry, so that's just one of the many Linux-related jobs I've been doing in the past 8 years.

The SFC story itself really starts with SFB. I've been playing since my highschool days. In fact, I remember when , as a kid, Module R5 came out (BattleShips) and the guy who bought it (later known here as Lt. Cmdr. Saavik, btw) didn't bother to tell us until he popped a G-BB on the board. guh.

When I heard they were actually making a SFB for the PC (called SFC due to differences between realtime and turn based games), I *had* to go and get the Demo. Hell, the very night the demo was made available, I pounced on it, and knew how to play it right away, noting all the missing things in SFB that weren't present still, but having a blast).

We actually ran SFC lan-parties, mostly to participate to those 2v2 Mplayer matches. Saavik and I were constantly on, on what he adoringly calls MPig. Well.
..then SFC2 came out. W00T! .. rotating tractors, and the ability to create WWs and SPs and SSs in-game (instead of buying them), and .. and.. well! .. W00T! I applied to become a beta-tester and DOUBLE-W00T!
By that point, I had joined a fleet: ICoP. It was great.. .. but I found the whole SL thing laking.
.. later on, SFC:OP came out, andI relished the ability to play with yet more races and ships. But it was hard going. There was something missing. It lacked a distinct flavour, compared to EAW.. so it was hardpressed to find someone to play with me.


Now this is important, because this is where I got active.
.. so I asked MagnumMan if it was OK if I could take some code of his (he released the sources to the CoopAce scripts) and work on it. The idea was that the SFC:OP API offered a few more features of EAW's API, mainly the ability to set the fighters on a ship, and simple things like that. But I wanted to push things as far along as I could.

So I took over the CoopAce on my own time, and worked it.. and reworked it.. and worked it some more. I turned it into this little slow-ass monster that could generate random fleets against you. For me, doing this was very rewarding since I have spent many LAN parties with other SFB/SFC friends with this cool little script, and we just kept killing things..
Until it got boring again.


Well.. we needed something.. 'new'.
First thing that came to mind was to add the real Xships to the game. It was great under coopace.. So it kept on going from there. Every LAN party added something new to test, something new to play against. We were all SFBers, so we wanted SFB ships. Me, I wanted a bit more focus yet, so I concentrated on the published materials.
At first it was just about 50 ships..
.. then some other type of ship was added.. .. the heavy war destroyers.. etc..

Soon enough, I was looking through all my SFB materials, just like in the old days, and adding anything and everything that was missing. You can probably guess: that was OP+ being born.


Aaaand that's pretty much where I stand today. I played a lot. I did SL. I did some scripting. I did some testing. I did some models too lately. I'm a probably a true SFB/SFC freak.


-- Luc

[CubCarson]

Cub Carson
37
Colledge Student
Forest fire fighter
Rent a cop
Soldier
Electronics Technition
Pallitive care attendant
Rent a cop
Assembly line worker
Rent a cop
Student
Gotta get me a real job!
 

[vsfedwards]

Hi I'm Andrew,

I am very young. I am a college student and havn't really done much with my life as of yet. If I go for any sort of career its going to have to involve some sort of computing. I enjoy using photoshop and reading in my spare time (boring git formy age) Apart from that theres not much to me..... Oh! I live in Wales  

[Reptor7]

Name: Jim Hurst
Age: 47
Residence: North Carolina for a few years, but am from Calif.
Work: Copier Tech

I started out about midway through SFC1 and joined a SL fleet called Klingon War Gods, and later Klingon Wolf Pack.

I left the SL fleet when I was accepted into Taldrens outer circle to test EAW's D2. Upon release, I joined the GFL and flew mainly ISC.  I created the ISC Theater at the time and had a lot of fun sharing it with everyone. I'm not a coder, but I helped test OP & SFC3 (made great cannon fodder) before release.

I fly mainly OP now, but had serious gaming burnout and have cut down, hence my lack of activity recently. Right now I am concentrating on my art and painting: http://embark.to/paint and a recent urge to check out flight sims got me flying Falcon 4.0 as a change (some great patches/mods has come out since its release 4 yrs ago or so).

It's been a great 4 yrs here at the Taldren forum.  
 

[ghostrider]

Hi Everyone

Steve Batio (aka GhostRider)
Age:45
Utah
 Retired
married to a sweet lady,6 grown kids,3 grandchildren

 

Well i  started long ago and far away  with my first startrek game 25th Anivesary i think it was on 720 floppys or was it 5 1/4 and a old 286 cpu. the game was fun but slow to load so it took me forever to win the game.From there i played sfb.sfc1
came along so i played it singleplayer and dyna and some online.same with sfc2,op,BC,armada1-2 and now sfc3.
                                     
                                                                                                                                                               Along the way i downloaded alot of mods,ect to make the games more fun and challenging (chris jones mods),and many more to test and play them they were all  great fun and i learned from them what you could and could not to to the games.about 2 years ago i started my first atempt at modding which resulted in sfc2 expansion at http://www.stcd.sgnonline.com/ and then made a singleplayer mod for sfcop.i have just finished my last mod for the sfc2-sfcop series OrionsBelt for sfcop and is at stcd.
             
And i want to thank all the people in the sfc community for there super talents in all areas for the materials to make my mods without them the sfc series would not be as fun and exciting.

As for sfc3 i expected alot more from the game than was produced dont get me wrong it is way fun even in stock mode but somewhat lacking.I have downloaded many new mods for sfc3 and i must say im impressed with all of them there fun and challenging.

As for me producing  a new mod for sfc3? lol humm maybe.

sfc4? i would like to see it made the only thing  thing i would think would be fun is a multi era for sfc3 i dont mean when you pick a era you get the same everytthing but lets say you pick fed early era the map ships,textures ect would lets say be from the tmp era,ect. middle era tng,advanced tnz ect you get the idea. its not fun when you lets say pick early era and see the same ships,ect as in advanced mode except for the map has changed lol.

                                                                                                                           P.S Once again thanks to all in the sfc community your a very talented and inovative brand of people.GhostRider  

[Dogmatix!]

Quote:
That was in the DIP forum Doggy.  

Nah..I could swear we started one here.  I'll have to go look for it.


Looks like this one is taking off all on it's own, so it's academic, at this point...


 

[Dogmatix!]

This is the thread I was thinking of:

 Other Bios



 

[Dogmatix!]

My name is Shawn. I'm 35 (perilously close to 36). I live in Phoenix, AZ. I have a wonderful wife named Judie, an awesome 18-month old daughter named Jessica and we're expecting our second daughter around the middle of December (due date is the 25th, but this one's going by planned caesarean). Her name will be Alyson.  Looks like the big day will either be the 16th or 17th of December.


I was born in Tucson, AZ. I've lived in Arizona for most of my life, though I spent my formative teenage years living in (then) West Germany (state of Bavaria). That was one of the best times of my life. I traveled all over Europe and learned two additional languages (German and Italian), though I'm super rusty at both (been back to the states for about 17 years). My Deutsch is much better than my Italiano, at this point, but I remember all the good Italian cusswords and curses. No one cusses like the Italians!


I got a B.S. in Political Science at Arizona State University (emphasis on international relations) and minored in German, as well. I was on the Dean's list (of course!  ). I've spent most of my adult working life in and around the securities brokerage industry, thouhg now I'm in the managerial accounting side of things, not retail. The highest position I've ever held was corporate V.P. and financial operations officer. Nowadays, I'm just a Financial Analyst for the brokerage unit of a major U.S. corporation.


My hobbies are military history, geopolitics, debating, science fiction, music and movies. I used to be an avid watcher of sports (hockey, soccer, tennis, football (American and Aussie Rules --- Go Geelong!), but I hardly have time to watch any games anymore...not with Jessica the Destroyer monopolizing the TV.


I started playing SFB in the early 80's. Klingon was the first race I tried. While I've dabbled in others, playing Klingon is nearest and dearest to my heart. Anyone who has ever played SFB for long likely always dreamed of a computerized version. SFC1 and what has followed was the realization of that dream for me. I've pre-ordered each and every SFC title and I've been here since the SFC1 beta days. To date, I've provided over 15 free copies of Orion Pirates to members of this community living as far afield as the UK, Holland and Australia. I did it to give back to a community that has given me so much enjoyment over the years. I love this game and I love this community.



Oh yeah....and chicks dig me!    
 

[Mog]

Real name is Andy, from England. Turned 39 last week, my brain thinks I'm half that. Single, although my waistline is getting to be double hehe.

I see lots of people with degrees here. Well, I failed mine, which set the pattern for the remainder of my life. Dead end, low paid jobs. Least I can be an example of what NOT to do to our younger members hehe.

Been interested in wargaming since before I was 10, love Greek mythology, read the English translation of the Iliad before I was 10, expanded into WW2, playing with 1/300 scale miniatures. Played SFB in the 80s, at uni I got into fantasy role-playing (started on AD&D but quickly found that system too simplified and unsatisfying, eventually settled upon Rolemaster, and even then my friend and I have revised much of that to our liking, including adapting the Runequest combat system into it, hehe).

Spotted SFC late '99. Didn't venture online till August 2000. Preferred to play Romulan back then. Was in a big fleet called AQL. When SFC2 came out, that's when I started trying other races. Mostly Klingon, Lyran, ISC, Gorn, and dabbled with the others. Dabbled in SL and GZ with various fleets, HoZ, HMT, RaK and CB. Oh and I think Raven even persuaded me to join GE for a little while. Prefer OP to EAW. Have met some wonderful people online over the last 3 years. And friends here call me Moggy, usually, for short

[MrCue]

Age: 20
Status: Retired
Location: England

Yeh, im retired because im sick of being unemployed. I code battleclinic in my spare time, and several other sites under development.
I bought the first SFC, modded it, skiped the next few & bought the third, modded it. highly dissapointed until KoraH came along and provided TNZ.
Currently playing Diablo2: LoD with the majority of the IRN.

Finished High school with average qualifications, hate written tests. Worked for a company called Kasbah as their DbA & web designer, got merged with Deckchair, got made redundant, havent worked properly since. Taking a course to get a Qualification for a Web Design Manager hopefuly that will open some doors out of retirement for me.

Getting married in April to MrsCue (38), I have 6 Step Daughters (17, 14, 11, 7, 7, 4) yes that is twins, with one of my own due in May.

Very interested in History.
Army Cadet for 5 years & left as a 4* SGT. then did 1 year as an Adult Instructor, but left due to moving 360miles to be with my future wife & kids.

[SghnDubh]

You said "code battleclinic in your spare time" but what you really mean is CODE THE BEST DAMN SITE THIS SIDE OF THE SPIRAL ARM. Functionality-wise anyway. God knows its founder needs help with the rest of it  

What? oh, me? Aw shucks. Well, sit back, here goes.

Chris "SghnDubh" Condon
36, Married 16+ years, no kids by choice, 3 cats so that makes up for it.
Born in the 'States, spend a few early years in Scotland, came back to the 'States.
US Army gulf war vet
B.Sc. Education, Masters Business Administration, both from UNLV, home of the Runnin' Rebels!
Currently a training director for a pretty decent internet company whose name you can yodel to. Been a corporate training guy (leadership & management) for 13 years. And no, I look nothing like the poor sod who had to run that training class in BBC's "The Office" ... although I've had a few students like the boss...!

Stood in stark awe when SFC1 came out, and somehow found my way to the Taldren forums, where I lurked for a few months before getting up the nerve to actually join an on-line community. I've played steadily since, and count quite a few people in this little cyber-corner of the world as friends.

Not much time these days to play, though. Just bought a new boat which is consuming much money and time. Funny thing that a land-lubber would want to turn squidly, but I'm having an inordinate amount of fun sailing up and down the San Francisco bay. If anyone can teach me to dock the boat in the slip without scraping the hull, though, I'd be much obliged.

Really like reading about the other folks on these boards...helps remind me we're all...well...actual people!  
 

[J. Carney]

Well, it's been a long while since I've been on, so here goes...

Age: 24
Current Occupation: Nat'l Guard MP, active - Iraq
Rank: Specialist 4th Class (full bird private)
Normal Occupation: Student
Normal Residence: Auburn, AL

Reason for 9 month absence from forums: Army is yet to include dial-up internet access on fieldphones.

Right now I'm working over here in the sand, waiting on 26 MAR when I can go back to livin the good life of barhopping, cute chicks in Wranglers and Ropers, and late night SFC if I didn't get lucky. My SFB circle thought that I had died- or stated so in my first E-Mail to them from over here; unfortunately, the Student Loans board hasn't forgotten I'm alive. My Humvee is a peice of crap and my dad sold himself my truck (using the power of attorney I left them... not really an issue, he needs it more than me right now) so i don't even have a vehicle for when I go home on leave on 18 DEC.

Basicly, Life just called and told me that I was on hold waiting for the next available customer service opperator to help me with my needs.

[SSCF Hooch]

Still 40 something (for now)

My name is Byron, I live in Ohio. When I was in USAF boot camp my instructors could not say my name right and it came out ?Hoochins?, finally shortened to Hooch, ergo my nickname and it has followed me for the last 22 years. I play music, play these SFC games and run FOH Sound for my church of over 6000. ( I have left Active Duty and I am finishing up my military career as a Air National Guardsmen for the next 18 months)

I have been a gamer since high school. SPI, Avalon Hill, TRS, West End, SSI you name it I have played it. Sadly I thought SFB was a snore back in the day and knew that someday the game would make it to PC so I decided to wait for it to come to me.

About two and a half years ago I caught one of my troops playing SCF I while on duty and tore him a new one for breaking regulations and told him to take it home. Well the little rodent said ?naaa Sarg, I don?t care for it that much, you want it?? I had just gotten a new PC and so I said thanks and took it home. I played for 14 hours and went to the base the next day having gotten no sleep at all.

Shortly after that EAW came out, OP, and III and I have loved playing them all ever since. ( I am a SFC junkie now )  

I ran into the SSCF folks during that time and have been playing ever since.

Not sure how I ended up as RM, seemed like a good idea at the time.  

 BTW Doggy, I am looking at Tactics II right now...Gads I seem to have more in common with you than I know.
 
Hooch
 
     

[SSCF Hooch]

 

Quote:
 Current Occupation: Nat'l Guard MP, active - Iraq  

Keep your head down Bro, come home soon. <S>