LOL "Fireball Island!" We had that game when I was a kid!

Hell it'd be cool if you could have a program that would let you drag and drop stuff onto a field, doesn't even have to be particularly pretty. But it needs to effect the sound, so you could create a beach with waves.....a windy day....a gentle shower.....raging storm...stream that's steady, stream that has a waterfall or two in it. Those sound generators and recorded nature sounds are cool and all, but they all have something that is not quite right about them.

I think overall I'd prefer some awesome sound fields associated with games, awesome gameplay, tolerable graphics, but massive real time and realistic reactions both visually and via sound. It's neat to shoot fireballs at stuff, but what if you could whip up a tornado and unleash it on the enemy? I'd like to be able to watch that thing do it's damage in real time instead of scripted everything we have now. Big earthquakes, avalanches, volcanic eruptions.....without scripts....it does what it does based on the factors present in the game which can be changed via player involvement.

Graphics are great and all, but.......great graphics aren't really creating virtual worlds you can believe in. One day they might make a virtual world still frames might look "right", but everything else will be "You can't do this because ...".

I thought those sorts of maneuvers weren't really possible without thrust vectoring, and I don't believe F-18's have thrust vectoring (though it may have been added in an update or later models). Anyways, it's kind of a good thing he ejected while facing away from where the giant fireball was going to be a couple seconds later.

edit:

In repsonse to Throbbin: See?! This is why we need thrust vectoring in our jet planes! It's godless commie terrorists like you who don't get a hardon watching hundred million dollar war machines at airshows as god intended, like real red-blooded [insert nationality] citizens, that are the reason we're in this predicament.

Common misconception is that when a flamethower is shot and punctured that it will explode. It doesn't explode, but it can cause a large fireball. Which often looks like an explosion....

Read this Discovery forum post on the Myth of exploding flamethowers.

http://community.discovery.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/9741919888/m/2291905779

The quoted person below can explain what I mean far better than I can.

Not to split hairs - oh heck, yes, let's do that.

The word explosion is what's wrong. Used here it's a pardonable exaggeration, but an inaccurate statement nonetheless.

I'm going to use a US WWII M2 series flamethrower for discussion purposes. In it's original form, it used hydrogen for its compressed gas element. Hydrogen can explode when exposed to air and flame. However, they quickly switched to nitrogen, which is generally inert. If a bullet hit the nitrogen tank, no explosion.

As for the fuel, it's a thickened gas, just like napalm. It doesn't explode in its liquid state, and it doesn't vaporize to any degree worth mentioing here, so no explosion there, either. It burns. Period.

The pressurized nitrogen tank provided the 'push' for the fuel to be projected. If the pressure valve was turned off, and the thickened fuel tank was hit by a bullet, no fire or explosion, for the same reason a gas tank doesn't burn when shot. It needs to be exposed to air before burning, and there is none inside the tank. With an unpressurized tank, you'll get a slow leak (it IS thickened fuel, remember) which may eventually find an ignition source. The result: a fire, not an explosion.

If a fuel tank is hit when the pressure valve is on, still no explosion for the very same reasons. However . . . the thickened fuel is under pressure and will spray all over and is VERY likely to find an ignition source very quickly in combat. You still don't get an explosion, but you do get a big, spectacularly horrible fireball.

For purposes of conveying the horror involved, it may be understandable to misuse the term explosion. But for the purpose here of understanding the mechanics, explosion is not the correct word.
-binthere from discovery forums.

In reply to this comment by redyellowblue:
S.T.A.L.K.E.R anomaly. Bet there's so good artifacts hopping around down there that will sell for good money.I was thinking the same thing. Lemmee equip a fireball first before I jump down there.

Tsar Bomba's fireball alone was five fucking miles in diameter, wouldve burned everything in a 62 mile radius to the third degree, and caused blast damage up to 620 miles away. In all that, the test bomb had half the yield of its original design (to reduce fallout)

so yes

it would be that bad

>> ^raverman:

If thousands of nukes over 50 years didnt cause the end of the world... would a nuclear war be as bad as they said?

>> ^ponceleon:

And just so we are clear: Jesus is a total Asshole.
See for proof:
http://videosift.com/video/Jesus-Nukes-The-Earth-with-Fireballs


* Opens up the Encyclopaedia Britannica and looks up the definition of total Asshole *
OYG (Oh Your God) you are right!

And that video was awesome!

>> ^DonanFear:

You people (and the guy in the video) have been watching too many movies.
Gas cans/tanks don't explode unless you put explosives inside, most of the time they don't even want to burn because gas needs oxygen to burn. Even if the can is almost empty it's mostly fumes inside and what little air is there is used up pretty quickly and nothing happens, it's when they panic and they start pouring the stuff all over the place that it gets dangerous.


When liquid is poured out of a mostly-sealed container it sucks in air to equalize the pressure from the missing liquid (usually through a second vent). The more liquid that is poured out, the richer* the air mixture inside becomes.

An "explosion" isn't out of the question in that case. It might not be a huge fireball like in movies, but it can be enough to rupture a plastic container and spread flaming gasoline on anyone nearby.


*Edit: I meant "less rich".

Tags for this video have been changed from 'Robot, Catapult, Fireball, Bowling Ball, RV' to 'Robot, Fireball, Bowling Ball, RV, trebuchet' - edited by therealblankman

And just so we are clear: Jesus is a total Asshole.

See for proof:
http://videosift.com/video/Jesus-Nukes-The-Earth-with-Fireballs

I remember the rolling fireball scene, and I don't think the red robot's ruthlessness has aged, so I must give the movie some credit for visuals. It certainly spooked me as a child.

well, the smoke from the 'fireball' is obviously reversed... i've never seen plumes of smoke coming off an object advance towards the object creating it...

If you look at the plume closely and how it develops you'll see that the video is played backwards. This gives the impression it's getting larger (and closer) as time passes. I wouldn't be surprised if it had been turned upside down. Therefore my money is on a rocket too, like Lodurr said.

Yup, that's a fireball.

According to this article, I think that's a rocket launch video that was released because that's what the meteor would've looked like to witnesses. The slow rate of descent and the white smoke plume aren't characteristic of meteors.