teukros

Oh poo. You had to go and ruin it. I had chosen red, but I would not be a Sith. I would not give in to anger. I would not allow myself to become addicted to using the Force. I would not be consumed by it. So I guess that by default I would be a very gloomy Jedi. And I suppose that I would choose white for my saber's color.

A bit off topic but after reading the Thrawn trilogy* I was left with the impression that there is no dark side/light side duology - its all in how a Force user uses the Force. Skywalker came perilously close to going down the "Dark Path" when he started to rely upon the use of the Force everytime he was in a tight spot - and Master C'Baoth was straight up addicted to Force use and thus, he was no longer his own master (addiction = Dark Side). *EDIT: or was that in the Hand of Thrawn duology? I've gotta reread that stuff...

Understanding by Evanescence

Anyplace where it can be viewed in any format other than Squicktime?

I found this so-called tip out in the web: An example of the bad advice out there in the web. This advice isn't just lousy, it's nonsensical. For the life of me I have no idea how this person could have thought that this was a useful tip...

Here is the link to a FAQ that you should find useful. Take it with a grain of salt but it looks like it contains some useful information: (Don't click on this link - You'll need to copy these URLs into your address bar, they somehow have it set up so that clicking on the URL will not work) http://db.gamefaqs.com/computer/doswin/file/rebellion_a.txt ...and here are links to documents which are all about the Alliance and Imperial ships and fighters: (Same deal with these two links. Don't click on them, copy the URLs into your address bar) http://db.gamefaqs.com/computer/doswin/file/rebellion_rebel_ship.txt http://db.gamefaqs.com/computer/doswin/file/rebellion_imperial_ship.txt Be wary of most of the other so-called FAQs out there - they're full of bad advice. None of them is worse than the Gamespot Gameguide. The only thing useful in the Gameguide is this advice:

Wasn't he saying a while ago that he might allow someone else to direct a television series based on EU novels? ...I'm envisioning taping "X-Wing" every week for two or three years....

Bombarding requires massed fleets and if you're playing the Alliance, I would urge you to keep your fleets dispersed in the early game - the first four hundred turns or so at least. Your Corellian Corvettes are more effective if they operate singly then if they're all massed together. I could quote Sun Tzu here but I'll spare you. You want to find all of the Imperial worlds that have no defenses (and they're out there) before the defenses get built - the only way to do that is to have all of your available ships spread out as much as possible. You'll frequently run into the Imperial Fleet. Welcome these encounters! Having a single Corvette turn tail and run is technically a defeat but it is so minor that I have never seen it affect popular support in a sector. And you will have just gathered vital intelligence on the location of Imperial ships... Also as the Alliance you should take down most (if not all) Imperial shield generators with characters conducting sabotage missions. In sabotage, the Alliance has a clear advantage over the Empire. IMO: As far as the game speed goes, trying to market Rebellion as an RTS game may have been one of the biggest blunders in computer gaming history. It's a turn based game - anyone can see that. Not that I'm complaining about "Very Slow" speed mind you - it does usually allow enough time to do everything you need to do in a turn, except for the first few turns of course but that's okay - Lord knows I frequently need a kick in the butt. But sometimes I keep it in "Very Slow" mode (there's no "Next Turn" button) and I'm almost falling asleep because when nothing much is happening, "Very Slow" is very slow. And the so-called "Slow" speed is actually FAST - much too fast to even read all of the reports as they come in, let alone play the game. So why even include the so-called "Fast" and "Very Fast" speeds? No one except a Jedi could play at those speeds.

I thought the Z-95 was the precursor to the X-Wing It would have been cool to have those in the movie... But of course the Hell has already been merchandised out of the Z-95...

Ok, when you start a game, become familiar with every one of your characters (right-click on character to get information). Find out who's strong at what and who can do ship research and facility research missions. Have Mon Mothma do recruitment missions. Have all of your other diplomats diplomatize the neutral worlds. They'll never know what hit them. The Millenium Falcon is the fastest hunk of junk in the Galaxy. If Han Solo is accompanied somewhere by characters only (no SpecForce units, no regiments) they will travel with him in the Falcon. Use your spies to keep abreast of what the Empire is up to. Successfully completing espionage missions should increase the espionage ratings of those characters. Control all production yourself. It's a pain and it's hard to get really good at it but by turn 300-400 you should have your supply bottleneck ironed out. Before turn 1000 you should have the Empire on the run. You can find out how many mines and refineries are in operation AND under construction by right-clicking on your protocol droid. Build army (and later, Sullustan) regiments! The regiments are the real key to controlling and defending worlds and winning the game! Build Corellian Corvettes. Use single Corvettes to blockade Imperial worlds and to bombard unshielded and undefended worlds (but don't use General Bombardment. It's Evil). If a lone Corvette jumps into a system and there are Imperial forces there, retreat. Build Carriers and X-Wings. Build Medium Transports. Have your newly recruited regiments embark. Use two to eight (or more) transports to explore and colonize the Rim. You'll also need transports so that when you combine Corvettes, Carriers and X-Wings into Strike Fleets you'll be able to invade (and occupy if necessary) Imperial systems. You may have to conduct sabotage and/or kidnapping missions in those systems first. To protect a planet and its assets you want troops. About three Army Regiments, and three Sullustan Regiments. These troops are more effective when led so your important worlds should have Generals. You also have to have a minimum of two Gencore Shield Generators per world. KDY-150 Ion Cannon, Starfighter squadrons, and naval fleets in orbit all may help when it comes to defeating and capturing Rebel agents. NOTE that when a world is protected by only one shield generator it can still be invaded! (it cannot be bombarded however so the invading troops will be on their own) Naval Regiments are better at invading than Army Regiments. Don't even think of invading a defended world unless your troops are being led by a General!!!

Well... it's not an easy game... Browse through these forums. If you feel overwhelmed don't worry, just keep reading and you'll absorb some stuff by osmosis. Then go play the game and things will start to click into place (btw "Commerce Raiding" refers to using ships to blockade planets (and blast the hell out of unshielded planets), at which Corellian Corvettes are perfect). http://www.swrebellion.com/postt2108.html http://www.swrebellion.com/postt2089.html http://www.swrebellion.com/postt2115.html http://www.swrebellion.com/postt2107.html http://www.swrebellion.com/postt1926.html If you stick with it and become skilled at it, you'll download other people's Total Conversions (or make your own with RebEd) and have tons of fun playing the Imperials (or playing in two player games). But for now, play the Rebels. The game is definitely easier to win as the Rebels. Use the CTRL and SHIFT keys for multiple selections. To understand the various types of missions available, study the encyclopedia entries for the various Special Forces units. The SpecForce units are basically either spies, or cannon fodder. Always include a decoy for sabotage or abduction missions. Decoys should have high espionage ratings. An abduction or sabotage team should probably have two characters with two SpecForce units backing them up, along with one decoy character + decoy SpecForce unit. Imperial officers are great at subduing uprisings and the goody-goody Rebels are great at diplomatizing every neutral world in sight. As the Rebels, one of your top priorities early in the game should to develop a strategy to explore and colonize the Rim ASAP. Every one of your sectors should have one world with scads of industry and a couple of troop training facilities, an optional backup industrialized world, and an optional world which is basically nothing but shipyards (and shields and defences of course). I always make my shipyard worlds places like Yaga Minor, Duro, Bilbringi, Corellia, Sluis Van... You want to have a minimum of two shield generators at every single world. Without exception. troops fight better when they're commanded by an experienced officer... As the Rebels you will want to build Corellian Corvettes and Carriers, then Neb-Bs (which are munchkin ships), and then maybe a few Mon Cals when they become available. Interdictors (CC-7700s) are always nice to have too of course. Don't forget to fill all of your ships up with starfighters (mostly X-Wings). You can basically forget about all other classes of ship; and before you know it, the Imperial Remnant will be willing to sign any piece of paper you put in front of them.

I've been looking forward to Timothy Zahn's Outbound Flight. It's due to be released on October 25. Sad thing is, I don't even know what month Revenge of the Sith is getting to the theaters... I've definitely heard it before, I've just forgotten.

In "Spectre of the Past / Vision of the Future" it is clear that one planetary shield is relatively impervious to bombardment by even a fairly large fleet.

Hmm well there ARE two versions of each of them.... ...older versions, and newer improved versions! But I know there is a way to rename the models so they can be used in two different slots simultaneously, and I don't want to experiment because of my experience with the MC-90 model (which has an incomplete model importer installation script btw) trashing things and eventuating an uninstallation and reinstallation of Rebellion...

I was hoping some kind soul could tell me what I have to do in order to use the VSD and ISD models for the VSD II and the ISD II...

I considered this but the more I thought about it the more I liked the idea that only capships should be able to destroy planetary shields. On the other hand, T.I.E. Bombers (at least) should be able to attack unshielded targets on the ground. But if those Bombers are based from Star Destroyers (and not from carriers) then I can't imagine how the Star Destroyers would have insufficient bombardment to destroy e.g. unshielded Alliance Army Regiments, so it would make no difference. The Alliance meanwhile has those (damned) Corellian Corvettes! The only times that starfighter planetary bombardment are important are: 1. If the taskforce has no ships which can bombard (e.g. carriers); 2. If the planet is protected by a Gencore Shield Generator. Addressing 1., I feel that anything in the game that increases the incentive to build capital ships and decreases the incentive to build carriers is a good thing. Addressing 2., I feel that it is also a good thing that Gencores will give planets significant protection and that early in the game, only the Empire will be able to build a fleet capable of destroying them. Remember my idea for a fast fleet consisting of three VSDs and nine Carrack light cruisers? Two of those fleets would do the trick. Of course that would be quite expensive... 876 MAT I think (not counting the costs of supporting fighters). In all likelihood the greatest threat to shield generators will be sabotage (in which the Alliance has a clear advantage) - just like it showed in the movies AND in the Zahn novels.

I was thinking of the scene from the Zahn book where Thrawn gives the Noghri a demonstration of the power of an ISDs turbolasers - knocks the top half off of a mountain as I recall. Also the cut-scene from the "X-Wing" game where a half dozen or so Star Destroyers are firing on a Rebel base's shield until it is taken down. I do have misgivings about removing all (planetary) bombardment from T.I.E. Bombers, but on the other hand, if bombing a planetary shield with fighters was so easy, why design the Victory Star Destroyer in the first place?

Or, Not Just Like Bulls-eyeing Womp Rats. If you use RebEd to organize your starfighters into flights of four, this seems to work fine for starfighter vs. starfighter combat; but there is a problem where planetary bombardment is concerned. That squadron of 12 Y-Wings with bombardment of 2 becomes three flights of Y-Wings with aggregate bombardment of 6. So last night, I was in the middle of making things much harder for myself than they had to be when I asked myself, "why should any starfighters have planetary bombardment capability?" How could Y-Wings, let alone X-Wings, punch through a planetary shield generator with their little torpedoes, unassissted by a capital ship's turbolaser batteries? How could a single Y-Wing squadron (in the out of the box game with default values) make as much of a contribution towards collapsing an enemy planet's shield generator as an IMPERIAL STAR DESTROYER for crying out loud? So, flights or squadrons, just set all starfighter bombardment ratings to zero! This places a premium on ships such as the Victory Star Destroyer, which was designed to enter atmospheres and attack planetary surfaces from low altitude, and helps to rebalance the game - forcing the Rebels to be more covert with their spies and saboteurs, and allowing the Empire to be more Imperial, which is always a good thing, IMO.

It's not just a simple matter of Old Republic = clean, shiney and new and Galactic Civil War = dirty, beat up and old. I can not look at CGI and not know that I am looking at CGI. The best example I can think of is Yoda. In The Empire Strikes Back, he was real. In the prequels, he's just a cartoon. BTW does anyone else look at those battledroids' heads and think of hand lotion dispensers?

Yes but if you are only using RebEd, your new entry can be no longer than whatever it is replacing. So if for example you have some 150 word long description of Wedge Antilles, most of it will get truncated. For example, my Wedge Antilles entry reads as follows: Wedge Antilles Wedge Antilles is a veteran of the attack that destroyed the first Death Star. Gifted and resourceful, he organized and led the celebrated Rogue Squadron, an elite X-Wing starfighter squadron whose pilots are also SpecForce agents who are as dependable on the ground as they are in the cockpit - regardless of the mission. And that is pretty close to the limit. Another word or two and the last line might look like in the cockpit - regardless of the mis or even like ground as they are in the cockpit - r This was before I discovered a tool called Resource Hacker which lets you do pretty much anything you want.

Well in Star Wars as originally conceived George Lucas wanted to have a big forest battle between Wookies and Stormtroopers in the forests of Kashyyyk. Now that could have been interesting. But it's actually a good thing that he went the way he did, because it really would have sucked if the DS II had blown up over Kashyyyk and caused an ecological catastrophe there.

Ok, I've got a pretty good setup here. Turn Two and there's Golan DP IIIs at Duros and Sluis Van (with shipyards!) and also one at Pantolomin. But I only started with one ISD and two VSDs, plus four Carracks and a Galleon. I screwed up royally with my industrial expansion so I will play another game (from the Reb side) and then revisit this one at Turn Two. Around turn 45 the Rebs started kicking the Royal Crap out of the Empire in the Farfin Sector, but that's okay... but just now around Turn 112 my Strike Fleet One, consisting of both VSDs and three of my Carracks, arrived at Bortras (in the correctly named Sessawenna Sector) and brushed aside the two Y-Wing Flights stationed there... ...but then two turns later, a Rebel Fleet consisting of THREE carriers, eleven Corellian Corvettes and 19 Y-Wing and X-Wing Flights arrived at Bortras and said "boo"! I was scared.

I think my journey to the Dark Side began the first time I saw the Imperial card for Subdue Uprising. You know, the one with the Ewok brandishing his primitive spear at the foot of the AT-AT that's about to squash him? I must have spent ten minutes laughing myself silly.

Strike Cruisers rock! but the default costs are about 50% too high. My Strike Cruiser (with MNT cut by half, compare to the costs of the VSD and Neb-B above) costs 47 MAT, 20 MNT. Their damage control sucks. In all other ways, they're top of the line.

What are your stations replacing? My Golan Arms station replaces the "Imperial" Dreadnought (the Dreadnought in the "Alliance Dreadnaught" (sic) slot can be built by both sides). Funny thing is that the station ALWAYS starts with one "squadron" (as the game defines it) of T.I.E. Fighters, and ALWAYS starts with one regiment of Naval Infantry - regardless that I had the DPIII value for Troop Capacity set to zero. If I moved the Naval Infantry to the planetary surface and then tried to move them right back to the station, it wasn't allowed. Apparently during setup the game still thinks of it as a Dreadnought because that is the slot it occupies. EDIT: for sanity's sake, I changed the DPIII's Troop Capacity to '1'.