Strategy Guide and Hosting

[Master_Xan]

So... I'm a computer nerd who has never actually hosted content for outside consumption. A few years back I wrote a strategy guide for SWRebellion, and want to put it up somewhere.

 

Who has suggestions on a site/service I can use? Preferably somewhere free that will keep it up indefinitely. Speed isn't an issue (just a word doc), and I shouldn't need thousands of connections a month.

 

Once it is hosted somewhere, I will put the link in my siggy, and edit this post to include it as well.

[Mitth_raw_nuruodo]

Google docs. Set up a "Master_Xan" Google account (if you haven't already) and just upload the .doc(x) to the drive. Save it there as a public document.

[Master_Xan]

Ew. I hate Google Doc formatting. Is there an option to keep it in my formatting? Or will it default to the Google stuff?

[Mitth_raw_nuruodo]

You could print the Word doc as a PDF and upload that. I'm not sure what options there are for text formatting locks.

[Master_Xan]

I shall investigate.

[Master_Xan]

Finally completed rebuilding the guide from the ground-up. It is currently 35 pages and still has three incomplete sections. You can access it from my signature; check back in a few days to see the completed version. Feel free to give me additional material to include in the guide, or if you see errors of any kind.

 

Many of the completed sections may be expanded, or reworked for ease of reading. Those objectives won't happen until after the other three portions are finished.

[RogueIce]

Each side has three characters that can research one type, and one additional character who can perform any of the three types.

This is incorrect, or at least oddly worded. You have six characters that can research one type (two for each category) and one "jack of all trades" researcher. For example:

 

Ackbar & Antilles - Ship Design

Madine & Rieekan - Troop Training

Karrde & Calrissian - Facility Design

Adar Talon - All of the Above

 

So in total there are seven research capable characters for each side.

 

Also the part where you talk about Luke and Dagobah is, technically, incorrect.

 

By default when Luke returns from Dagobah, he will be a Jedi Student, not a Jedi Knight. This is because the Dagobah boost is 30 Force points, and his starting points are 50, which will only have him elevate to Jedi Student level. I suspect the misconception probably comes from using him heavily in the early game for Espionage, Sabotage or just training him against Vader; he'll gain 20 or so Force points which, while not changing his Rank from Trainee, will push him up enough that he comes back a Knight. But if you don't do that (say you have him doing Recruitment and then Diplomacy for the early game) he won't get the increases and be at Student until you go level him. Which means he can't train candidates immediately upon his return.

[budious]

Not to mention you can level up Luke relatively safely if you find a 'soft' planet (ie. no general and few troops) with the Emperor or Vader doing some mission work. Pair Luke with Han or another strong espionage/combat character as active mission characters, then I'd recommend another reasonably strong espionage/combat character(s) (eg. Chewbacca) as the mission decoy, use more than one if the planet is not 'soft' but not superiorly guarded either. With Han's transport speed bonus, you could do a mission about every 8-10 days from a neighboring Rebel planet next to the target Imperial planet. Target the Emperor or Vader for a Abduction attempt, you might even succeed, and if you don't, Luke comes back much stronger each time. Win-Win.

[Master_Xan]

Great feedback. RogueIce, you are correct; I've never had Luke not come back a Jedi Knight, but that is probably why. Luke doesn't go to Dagobah for a few (or several) hundred days, and by then he has failed a few missions and "felt the force" several times. I'll add in the correction for that and the researchers (which I don't know why I wrote that way), and budious' idea for leveling Luke, into the guide. Edits won't happen til tomorrow though.

 

I'm happy to get more feedback, if anyone has some!

 

EDIT: New version uploaded.

[RogueIce]

budious' idea for leveling Luke, into the guide

If you want that old school cred, refer to it as the "Super Luke" strategy.

 

Looks pretty good. Few typos here and there. In the new section about Luke, it should read: "... ensure your target is not too well protected; if you send Luke after Palpatine on

Coruscant, Luke may well be captured by the fleet orbiting the world." Speaking of which you should do a Replace All for "Corescant" into "Coruscant"

 

Otherwise it's a very well done guide, extremely informative and even taught me a thing or two I don't know. Like the traitor mechanic. Which is absolutely terrible and from now on I'm clicking "Will not betray their side" for everybody because I happen to enjoy long games.

 

Now if only I could disable natural disasters...

[Master_Xan]

budious' idea for leveling Luke, into the guide

If you want that old school cred, refer to it as the "Super Luke" strategy.

 

Looks pretty good. Few typos here and there. In the new section about Luke, it should read: "... ensure your target is not too well protected; if you send Luke after Palpatine on

Coruscant, Luke may well be captured by the fleet orbiting the world." Speaking of which you should do a Replace All for "Corescant" into "Coruscant"

 

Otherwise it's a very well done guide, extremely informative and even taught me a thing or two I don't know. Like the traitor mechanic. Which is absolutely terrible and from now on I'm clicking "Will not betray their side" for everybody because I happen to enjoy long games.

 

Now if only I could disable natural disasters...

Thanks! Oh, and I seem to recall seeing it referred to as Super Luke before.

 

Oops. Figures I would misspell something like that. Thanks for letting me know.

 

I *think* you can disable natural disasters. I heard about someone doing that with a hex editor, or at least they reduced the probability to zero. But I can't find anything about it, so either it was a daydream of mine, or the info has disappeared. I think I also heard of some crazy way to build stuff in the game and reduce the odds; something along the lines of leaving one energy free on every planet. If you find anything, let me know.

 

EDIT: Changes made, and I edited a couple of sentences for clarity. Also added a to-do list on the first page. This is starting to turn into good practice for when I attempt to publish my novel.

[RogueIce]

From your To-Add list:

 

Skill increases (Jedi and otherwise)

 

RebEd's help files has this to say about Jedi:

 

"The Jedi Level number also effects the attributes for each Jedi character. To figure the effect that being a Jedi will have use the formulas below.

 

• Combat- The Jedi Level number is used as a percent. This percent is added to the combat total. Jedi Level% + attribute = total. Example: Combat 100, Jedi Level 88 (Jedi Student); 88% of 100 is 88. 88 + 100 = 188.
  
• Espionage- The Jedi Level divided by two is used as the percent. (JL/2)% + attribute = total. If the espionage is 100 and Jedi level is 88: 88/2 = 44, 44 + 100 =144.
  
• Diplomacy- Diplomacy is figured the same way as espionage. (JL/2)% + attribute = total.

"

 

This is mostly useful for Luke, Leia (after she's a Jedi), the Emperor and Vader of course, since they'll start with a base Force value that doesn't change. For reference:

 

Luke: 50

Leia: 10 (after event)

Emperor: 150

Vader: 120

 

I should also note that this is at odds with the little chart in RebEd itself, which just says [C/E/D] * JL%. The help file is out of date; it mentions an "Unknown Flag" for characters and speculates it's "Won't Betray Side" while the program has it labeled as such. Still, since Luke, Vader and Palpatine's base stats are set with no variance, you could run a beginning of the game check to verify the formulas.

 

By the same token, if you happen to remember a character's stats before they're discovered as a Jedi you could probably work back to figure out their JL number. Otherwise it's just a guess based on their rank, though since the increase in Force Growth is 1 (see below) you can figure it out whenever they promote in JR.

 

Also from LucasArts' old SWR Gameplay Tips page*, they said that every time you get a Force Growth message, your number goes up by 1. Luke is different, of course. If he escapes from Vader, his Force increases 25%. Escapes from the Emperor it's a 20% increase. It also says he gets an Evasion Bonus but I don't know if that's just a +1 or something higher, as they didn't attach a number to it. Also Leia (after she Discovers Heritage) gets an increase of 1 for escaping the Emperor or Vader, and +1 for evading capture in general, which is the same as Luke so I assume his EB is also +1.

 

And this is why Super Luke is, well, borderline abusive. After just four encounters with Vader (assuming my math and LA's numbers are right) he'll be a Jedi Master. Five encounters with the Emperor for the same. Assuming the AI doesn't move Palpatine or Vader somewhere, you could easily have Jedi Master Luke Skywalker before he leaves for Dagobah...which just gives him another 30 points on top of it.

 

*This is a handy page that may contain information you don't know (it provides some numbers on when Natural Disasters and such may trigger). It is inaccurate in displaying Stormtrooper Regiments as needing to be researched when that is not the case, so I don't know if they made any other mistakes. You could look through the Wayback Machine for the latest point they had the page and see if they made any updates; this one was from 1999 so fairly early after release.

 

How to skip droid advisors’ briefings

 

I'm sure you already know, but I'll add it anyway: just delete ALBRIEF.DLL and EMBRIEF.DLL from the game directory. Make backups, of course. Then they won't say anything and it'll just flash through the map displays quickly. That's normal, not a bug. Gameplay will then continue as usual.