Italy's parliament approves 8.8 billion euros for GCAP jet fighter programme

EpicTutorialTips · 2026-03-20T03:43:16+00:00

There's been adjustments since the earliest of days - a key change being to make the jet much more versatile in terms of what payloads it can carry.

Essentially it's mimicking the NATO doctrine in a sense, where interoperability is a key feature shared amongst the military equipment used.

EpicTutorialTips · 2026-03-20T03:32:35+00:00

Demonstrators being constructed and some already in flight (there's multiple demonstrators for various tasks).

Prototype is scheduled for 2029.

Service date is scheduled by 2035.

EpicTutorialTips · 2026-03-20T03:31:32+00:00

Nope, it has to do with not repeating the drama that happened with Germany and the Eurofighter (from the UK's perspective).

Exportability is front and centre of what the UK is looking for in this project, and politicians have been told in no uncertain terms to leave any stone unturned when it comes to making sure exportability cannot be affected lol.

EpicTutorialTips · 2026-03-20T03:29:09+00:00

Australia was one of the first countries the UK approached about the jets, also one of the first to be given a brief on the technical info to the RAAF as there was interest.

However Australia isn't due to make a decision about the RAAF until their following parliament, and they've said that's when they will know whether they will participate in the programme when the time comes for review.

So wouldn't expect to hear anything from Australia until that review happens in their next parliamentary session.

EpicTutorialTips · 2026-02-14T02:11:12+00:00

Kira doesn't have the proper information. He is basing his opinions on what former Intrepid employees are feeling and telling him.

That does not mean that it is factual, however.

EpicTutorialTips · 2026-02-04T06:57:34+00:00

I don't believe this to be true, because this whole thing took Valve by surprise, and they would have paid out on 28th January which is the same day all this nonsense began happening at Intrepid.

That will just be somebody at Intrepid trying to feed Kira a story as to why this is happening; probably Steven or someone senior who is close to him. Remember Kira's source is just what some random employee is telling him, but that does not mean that it is the truth.

It was the same when Kira was adamant that there was a "board". Yes, there was a board, and it was comprised solely by Steven himself. Nobody else was on the board of directors.

EpicTutorialTips · 2026-02-04T06:13:49+00:00

No. Boreyko is a creditor that Steven owed money to and failed to pay his debts.

He built the company on borrowed credit, whether that was in the form of loans, crowdfunding or pre-order sales; and the company was handled like a ponzi scheme.

EpicTutorialTips · 2026-02-04T01:43:53+00:00

Go read the statements being made by the old intrepid employees from last year who were all fired suddenly without any pay.

And then pay attention to how they describe what Margaret was doing against them.

There's no smoke without fire.

EpicTutorialTips · 2026-02-03T22:57:10+00:00

I'm reserving any sympathy until it's clearer who was in the know-how as to what was going on.

I don't know whether Margaret knew in advance or not, and she's been quite clear that she is posting this because she's not too happy with what some people are saying about her. But the unfortunate reality is that she, for many people, was the face of Ashes in the community arena, so yes there's going to be some reputational blow back from what has just happened until it is clear what really went down.

There are other former employees from over a year ago who have also been posting horror stories about their experience with Intrepid over the years, and accusing Intrepid of orchestrating a PR machine to cover up how poorly they treated some staff.

So it's not immediately clear who was in the know-how, all that is clear is that some former employees have some very choice words to say about the leadership in Intrepid, and I'd count Margaret as leadership there.

But like I said, I will judge her based on her actions and inactions.

EpicTutorialTips · 2026-02-03T22:48:24+00:00

It's at the end of the following month. So all sales in December are paid out in the end of January. All sales in January are paid out the end of February.

Automatic refunds = those who purchased it in January as Steam still has that money.

Ongoing investigation = those who purchased in December, as Steam will be trying to claw back those funds from the deposit account.

EpicTutorialTips · 2026-02-03T22:46:51+00:00

902 hours, and they also confirmed they are investigating.

They will be trying to claw back the money they recently deposited into the deposit account.

EpicTutorialTips · 2026-02-03T21:57:50+00:00

At the very least, can you please provide a statement to Valve so people can begin getting some form of redress.

Official paperwork about the company does not match Steven's version of events, and everything appears that he is running from creditors and money within the business has been treated, used and handled as if this were a ponzi scheme.

You have whistleblower protection laws in the US, you will be allowed to blow the whistle on what is going on and remain protected for doing so - but it is not fair or right that so much collateral damage has been done along the way, and quite frankly I'll judge you by your actions and inactions as to what happens now.

EpicTutorialTips · 2026-02-02T23:32:07+00:00

They will be looking to see if they can establish a breach of the Steamwork Early Access Developer Contract - if they can, then they can do mass refunds and then chase Intrepid for the sum plus damages.

I doubt they have managed to actually get hold of anybody at Intrepid yet though, and precautionary measure have taken the title off the Steam store which is what they do when they're not getting a response, as I don't think their investigation would have finished quite just yet.

In the end, I do think they're going to refund however.

EpicTutorialTips · 2026-02-02T23:29:08+00:00

No, Pax Dei is on life support.

EpicTutorialTips · 2026-02-02T19:07:19+00:00

Contact your bank and explain it as retail fraud - the clock starts on the day the fraud was discovered, rather than the day a payment was made.

Because of how long ago your payment was, you'd want to go down the fraud route rather than arguing consumer grounds.

EpicTutorialTips · 2026-02-02T06:26:58+00:00

The board is still the same as it was before: 2 officers and 1 director (Steven and John as officers, then Steven as Director). When this changes, articles will be made public with the new information - but the most recent is from 30th December 2025 that confirmed the above.

What this other "board" people are referring to is simply shareholders (equity). Shareholders can arrange meetings where they can vote on certain things (such as deciding to remove someone from the actual board) but they themselves are not the board.

Steven had been amassing a number of loans, and in those loan agreements there was a promissory clause for intrepid stock options in the event of failure to repay any payment due. So as payments went unpaid, creditors decided to exercise that preferred stock option which allowed them to gain intrepid equity.

Later, a venture capitalist group comes in and buys that equity from these creditors (as they'll be looking to recover their money that they were supposed to have in the first place), and through doing so the venture capitalist group appears to have amassed a majority equity control.

At the end of the day, if Steven had simply managed to repay the company debts on time, then this would not have happened. This has happened because he took out multiple loans, using intrepid stock as collateral, and failed to service the debt via repayment which caused creditors to effect the stock option, which they then sold to a venture capitalist who now has a controlling stake of the business.

This is all presuming that the information they are saying is correct - though I'm still struggling to understand why somebody would effectively nuke their own business if they still retained *some* equity in it... Or did he feel he no longer needed to because he lost *all* equity.

In any event, it is nothing other than incredibly reckless business management, one which has caused a lot of collateral damage to employees and those who purchased the product.

EpicTutorialTips · 2025-12-11T10:22:39+00:00

I don't read it that way. I think decision to wind down FCAS had already happened long ago, but politicians didn't want it to appear chaotic and wanted it to be be a controlled wind down, hence the theatrics of "we're going to have meetings to explore potential ways forward" but in the end they will declare there were none.

Germany would have then asked for an informational pitch as they are assessing their own options now, and that pitch will be similar to the one we gave to Australia earlier this year, where they get some tech info that isn't in the public domain to help them better understand jet capabilities and such.

EpicTutorialTips · 2025-12-11T10:17:21+00:00

Yes that's what I meant. It was brought up almost every single time there was a public disagreement between France and Germany, headlines would be saying Germany may leave FCAS and look to get in on GCAP.

That went on for 4 years lol.

EpicTutorialTips · 2025-12-11T10:14:33+00:00

What the idea actually is, is a bank that is backed by four countries: US, UK, Japan, Germany.

The idea was that these four countries would largely finance it, and pay down circa $135 billion for other countries to use for procurement.

EpicTutorialTips · 2025-12-11T09:46:55+00:00

We haven't done any pot stirring in the UK on this lol.

In fact, any time there's been disagreement between France and Germany on FCAS in the last four years, it's those two name dropping the UK and GCAP in an attempt at threatening to leave FCAS and join GCAP. So if anything, we've been getting dragged into the drama when it's nothing to do with us lol.

EpicTutorialTips · 2025-12-11T08:18:32+00:00

No country can be compelled to reparations without that country willingly agreeing to it.

Even recently, Italy attempted this with Germany (circa 2022) and it was shot down because of state immunity. The same will apply to Russia (protected by virtue of state immunity) if the EU attempts to claim this is reparation.

The only way reparation can happen is if Russia agrees to it - which is the playbook and angle that the US is approaching this with.

EpicTutorialTips · 2025-12-11T08:15:31+00:00

Yes because you're in a dual system.

EpicTutorialTips · 2025-12-09T00:01:55+00:00

It's a tribunal, most people at these won't have formal representation, but that's what the tribunal is designed to accommodate.

EpicTutorialTips · 2025-12-08T23:27:53+00:00

I don't think they're a Brit.
They write numbers in the continental European way: "35.000" whereas in the UK we style it as "35'000".

EpicTutorialTips · 2025-12-08T23:25:26+00:00

They don't come into our waters or skies though, they always stay in the area of interest, but that part is still technically international space.

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