vakundok

I think we should have a basic picture about how a ship will work in battle (eg. How many fire arcs there will be? 4, 6 (front,rear,left,right,top,bottom) or even more. Whether the different weapon systems can be set to hold fire or not.) before creating interfaces. The pictures look interesting but too complicated for me ...

I think "real time" as a category can only apply to analog time. If there are time frames at all it can only be a subcategory of "turn based". So, as stated before Rebellion is a turn based space strategy with real time tactical battles despite its official classification. (Maybe this classification was due to marketing, since several players would not even try a turn-based game.)

In my reinforcement idea, idle ships can be set to "Give support" state and during tactical the "Ask for reinforcements" button gives a list of available ships and their ETA. But this idea requires far faster hyperdrives and shorter time slices to still feel the difference between the hyperdrives. What is "digital real time" and what is the difference between that and the simultaneous, time limited turn-based game? In the latter there are two phases: First, the player has an amount of time to give orders and it will be over when he/she pushes the "End turn" button or automatically when the time is out. When all player is done comes the second, when the players' units will execute their orders.

Hehe, I forgot about multiplayer. So the time needs to be syncronized. Since it is a war that takes years not just a short chain of battles I think the turn based is the only solution for the main game with time limit for each turn. The missions should be supplemented with instructions on how to continue. Eg: Diplomatic: Repeat until joining to us /Repeat to gain X% popular support, or Sabotage: Repeat until succes and continue targeting the next of this type / Repeat until succes and wait for new orders / Wait for new orders. What about reinforcements? Will there be?

Yes and yes. It can be configured (at any time except battles) how to react automaticaly for message types like "caravan arrived" or "idle worker": No reaction, slowing the time or freezing the time. Of course the game speed is manually adjustable as well.

Sorry it was an ill-advised idea. Imperial: Regular infantry: cheap, acts mainly as security force, far better in defensive situations. (Picture of the naval trooper.) Stormtrooper: Better in all aspect, sligthly even better in attack since they cause fear. Production costs more than in Rebellion because they are rare. Clone stormtrooper: (Researchable) Similar to the stormtrooper, far cheaper to produce (maintenance is the same), sligthly lowered detection rating. Tank droid: (Researchable) [or walkers already researched] High costs and the highest attack (and at least good defence) rating, but poor bombardment defense (since they are large targets) and detection. Advanced perimeter defence: (Researchable) Just some little toys they have found on Wayland. No attack, high defence, low maintenance, medium bombardment and detection. New Republic: Local security: Similar to the imperial regular infantry, sligthly cheaper to produce. Wookies: (Researchable) I think their high individualism and lack of self-control (as stated by Khabarakh) make them less than ideal attack but a great defensive force. Veteran trooper: Similar to the stormtrooper but cheaper and lacks the attack bonus of its counterpart. Advanced airspeeder: (Researchable) Expensive but has a very high bombardment defense and at least medium detection. Sligthly better attack rating. Captured walkers: (Researchable) Just for fun.

Did anyone play Theocracy? It can be configured to slow down automatically when special types of messages arrive. It is what I needed in Rebellion. Switch to very slow and the game become very boring or switch to fast and you miss the oppurtunity to handle situations immediately.

Imperial: Regular Division Walker Division Clone Stormtrooper Division Dark Trooper Division Advanced Dark Trooper Division or Recon Division New Republic: Regular Division Defence Turrets Veteran Division Mechanized Division (heavy vehicles) or Sullustian (maybe bothan) Division Wookie Division

"And the 'BMP Converter' is of absolutely no use to us except to let us see what the Resource Names are, but it makes it greatly efficient for the techies changing the game for us to do their work...right?" Yes, exactly. The converter is only for the "techies" NOT for players. "the encoded images are not separated by the resource language but their group instead. So, they all are in group 303." As I know the Resource language only means what language version of Rebellion you own. The most common is 1033 wich is the english. When you open the Tactical.dll with Resource Hacker you will see several groups, like WAVE, Bitmap, 301 and 303. In any entry of group 303 the code that you see is an image but not a standard bitmap file. The graphics softwares canot handle this code, it needs to be decoded into bmp format.

Pucho777: Nearly. But the encoded images are not separated by the resource language but their group instead. So, they all are in group 303. It was only important to see those bitmaps to find out which entry is what. (Eg: to know that the picture of the finished Death Star is in entry 5010, since for displaying the finished Death Star during tactical, the game will display whatever encoded image it finds in entry 5010 of the 303 group.) More important is the encoding since the game engine (in these cases) wants to use an encoded image and not able to handle a real .bmp instead. JediIgor: Originally it was. But there are many more things in group 303 than the textures only, encoded in the same way. (Or a similar way in case of the tactical planet pictures.) The most recent about textures is Gank's idea to see whether the engine can handle more than one textures per ship to display more colors, not just 8 from 169.

Well, not at all. The whole thing started to replace the ships with other types and overall better designed models. (Eg.: Home One (Ackbar command cruiser during the battle of Endor) instead of the Bulwark battlecruiser.) As a side effect we can now replace the figthers as well. (Eg.: If you would like to see Tie Scimitars instead of Bombers it is possible.) I am quite impressed. Do you speak hungarian?

The Bmp converter contains four files: Tactpal.bmp is a bitmap containing the available colors that are usually used in tactical mode. (EG.: the explosions can use only these colors.) (And even there are colors within it which are reserved for special purpose.) Strpal.bmp is a bitmap containing the available colors used in strategic mode. (EG.: the protocol droid and the whole interface) These are important because the 256 color bitmaps store actually color codes which are identified from the palette not the colors themselves. So, if you try to use a bitmap with different palette in the game its colors will be corrupted. Howto.txt is a text file that try to describe how to use the converter. And, of course the converter itself. So, what is it for? Many things of what you see in tactical mode are stored in the Tactical.dll as bitmaps. With Resource hacker, you can save them as .bmp files and also replace them with others, changing what you see in tactical mode. But some of them are encoded (compressed). The converter is to create bitmap files from these encoded things and to encoding .bmp files. With it we can replace the encoded bitmaps as well.

The tactical background picture is entry 5030 of the 303 group in the Tactical.dll. It is a 440 x 438 bitmap with the full regular tactical palette. The game will resize the picture if neccesary and it has a large empty circle to not to disturb the battle. You can replace it, but since this is the only background, any picture will be boring after a while.

Yes. Hey, I am promoted to corporal!

I think the safest method to hold a prisoner is to place him/her onto a moving ship. So, a slow ship dedicated as a prison ship, constantly moving between your two heavily defended planets which have the highest distance between them. They canot escapes while in hyperspace. Second is the planet with a general and many troops (and with high population support).

Can the type of the buildings be change? I would like to use some kind of advanced mines/refineries instead of other buildings. It is possible at all?

The game has both strategic and tactical pictures for the asteroid field, I really do not know why it canot be selected in RebEd.

The 0.3 of the converter is on its way to the download section. It can handle the palette resources (entries above 5527) in the Tactical.dll and create files that can be used to replace the pictures of the planets during tactical battles. However it still can not handle long filenames (I have problems changing the text of buttons in runtime. ) but at least it is small.

Mask: I downloaded the figther editing tutorial and I like it! (BTW I am vakundok not Vakundok. ) The converter started like a pure DOS program. I have just learned about the file handling of the Visual C, so I think I am able to create a real Windows version now that can handle longer filenames if it is required at all.

Tsunami: Well, it would be logical to use the same palette for the whole game. The pictures of the strategy screen use a different palette then the pictures of the tactical screen. I will involve the strategy palette as well into the version 0.3. Planets can use only 86 colors, but these colors can be defined for each planet. However I recommend to select colors from the palette of the strategy screen to avoid color differences between the two. I am thinking of further supplementing the converter to be able to analyze bmps ,modify and divide them to fit into the place of Rebellion tactical planet pictures. When this is done, you will be able to create planet pictures using the palette of the strategy screen (Use 86 colors and black only!) and it will create the palette and the compressed bitmap data files to export into Rebellion. But now I am playing with Imperium Galactica so I think the new converter will not be available before weekend

Are the downloads only links, or they are stored on swrebellion.com? In the latter case how can I delete my uploaded file? Actually I finished a newer version of the texture converter able to export and import palettes.

No, it is not so simple. Each of the (tactical) planet pictures have their own (different) palette. And the planets use only the color codes that were not allowed (transparent) for textures. (From 160 to 245 if I remember well.) The other colors in the palette are the same as with every tactical picture.

the_mask: Feel the pain or what? Were you able to fire with that Death Star? So it seems that both are appleid to any Death Star. 5020 is under construction and 5010 is finished, doesn't it? Gank: Wow, good idea! Well there is no limitation on number of materials (and associated textures) used in the X files. Try and see whether the game engine can handle this! I am still far away from modelling skills and experience. The low res texture is for the second model (xxx1) and the third model has no texture. Hehe, good old times when the problem was to have textures at all ...

Uhh, I got those entries. So they are really paired and they are the pictures of the planets. However the manner is extremly complicated. Eg.: 5521 is the bmp data for the ring world. Its color palette is stored in the 5551, but instead of the usual RGB, they are in BGR format. Why didn't they just store a simple bmp picture?

Jin_Roh: I am also just started to learn about directX and such. That converter is a converter. From binary to bitmap and vica versa. The X file of the model contains the name of the texture file (at the end of the material list), eg: corvet52.bmp, and the 303 folder has a CORVET52.BMP. So when you create a model using funyface.bmp as a texture, save the model in binary X format, you can convert that bmp to the binary format and create a FUNYFACE.BMP entry with the Resource Hacker. It will work. I hope.