R2-Opus2

Update: I got my new computer all straightened out a little later than expected, both games are installed and run really well so far. I didn't get a chance to redownload the editors or the extractor yet, that may have to wait a bit longer since I'm looking to get my broadband hooked up. No sense getting making maps when all you have to upload or download with is a 56k connection :-\ I'll refer back to this post when I'm all set.

I don't know if this is a bug or not, since I haven't tried to repeat it yet, but I was doing the Dathomir mission playing the campaign a second time through, and the game hung up at the cutscene where you rescue the witch lady at the second prison. It just showed the characters standing there with the witche's back to the camera. They were still animating body movements however as if the dialogue was going to kick in but it never did. I did however still see the Imperial message at the top saying that the Gov. was sending reinforcements in (since I didn't blow up all the uplink stations yet). I'll give the map another run through later and see if it happens again. While the Dathomir mission is fun and fairly well done layout wise, it's aweful long to complete.

I never used the stock bounty hunter much if at all, mainly cause they don't try to take out major heros (only minor ones like ground and fleet commanders if they exist). A mod would go a long way to making them worthwhile that's for sure. Actually now that I think about it, perhaps they'd be just as useful as defilers even if all you gave them was their ability to sabotage structures and/or troop/ship units. Mix up all the various costs that missions like that would take to perform and it could become a fairly versatile unit. (I'm referring of course to the stock bounty hunter from the Hutt palace, not a new hunter type). Since the Empire and Rebels can already build these if they have a palace, the only tweak I'd then make would be to the defilers - in my view both units ought to be able to perform similar actions (apart from corruption perhaps).

So what your saying in your experience is that it is possible? Cool, and cool. Next week needs to hurry up and get here - the computer shuffle is nearly ready to happen, just getting things cleaned up, dust bunnies eradicated etc. The FOC editor is already downloaded, then I gotta get that meg extractor thingy for the maps I'm going to begin tweaking. By the way, where's a link to the meg extractor thing? I'd better get that soon while that computer is on a broadband connection, cuz after the move, I'll be back on dialup *yeesh*

Ah ok then, so I will need that extractor after all. I'd thought you could pretty well browse anything through the editor and access it that way. That's cool though, it'll help me with my first couple of to-do lists next week. I think I already know the first map I want to tweak, Hypori. I haven't yet played that map in GC mode to see what the differences are between that and skirmish by way of build pad/turbolaser turret placement, but I already know the skirmish one could use some work.

If that's the case, than that's where the wiki went wrong. It never said anything as to the mode of play the Venator was available just the station that is said to have it. In any case, once I become more familiar with the editor, one of the things I want to do is fiddle with having different units be available through piracy (if not add a few more piracy corruption options).

Is this separate from the editors themselves?

As anyone knows who've read the first impressions thread for FOC, one of my hangups in both land and space maps are the placements of build pads/space turret pads and ground turbolaser turrets. Anyway, once I finish the musical computer shuffle here at the house (should be situated by Monday), I'll have a better PC to begin playing and messing around with both EAW and FOC editors at better length. I was wondering for those who've been doing this awhile now, especially with the EAW editor (and anyone who've now moved on to seeing what the FOC editor can do), I wanted to know if there's a way to make tweaks to the stock maps to allow for what I wanted to do. I'm hoping to make them seem more tactically fun to play in either GC or skirmish mode. I realize the stock maps for space and land are sometimes different between GC, skirmish and mulitplayer so I figured I'd start with GC, and eventually tweak the skirmish ones. I'm really new to this stuff so I thought I'd test the waters one small step at a time with minor alterations before tackling creating a brand spanking new map, so any thought's tips and suggestions are welcome.

If the hyperspace lanes leading to all the planets in your range are glowing yellow, its possible you've corrupted all that you could up that point which would explain why you can't corrupt any more. So if there are more planets beyond you can't reach, just remember that in order to reach them, you need to corrupt (or conquer) worlds that border the ones you can't reach first. You'll see the planets light up when you've done that. If that's not the case and you can still bring up a corruption option window that means you can still perform one. Just review carefully that you've met the prerequisites for it: Credit cost Unit cost (units have to be built of that number) Mission prerequisites Main Hero Availability (some missions require a hero) If you are trying to corrupt the same world twice however, it won't let you do it. Corruption would have to be removed by one of the AI's characters before you could corrupt it again. The easiest way to know if you can corrupt is to select the defiler (left click and hold for a moment) and to the bottom left of any world in range it'll say "corrupt planet" or some such - otherwise it'll just say "sabotage" in the GC view.

Be sure to look just below each option in the corruption screen for each planet. Some options require that you had to have built units it requres besides the initial cost to perform it. i.e. below and to the right of the main picture you may see a unit type, such as a grenadier or MDU followed by a 2/2 meaning you'd need two of that unit made (doesn't matter which planet they're on, if you got 'em, it'll subtract 'em). You'll also see a smaller picture under the main one to be performed - you may need a different kind of mission or two done before it'll unlock it for the new planet. Just hover your cursor over the miniature picture below the main picture and the tooltip will tell you the mission type to be done before that one can be open to you. Example: maybe you need to have done two kidnapping missions in which case the small symbol will be the kidnapping mission picture with a 0/2 beside it letting you know you've still got to do them.

I too like seeing ships not quite dead drifting around. My favorite thing to do is take out a ship's engines and most of its harmful weapons and watch it trail fire. Cool. On the issues of mods themselves, I think where this game is concerned anyway, is that it seems most modders are busy making huge conversions/map packs etc. While I applaud that sort of thing and look forward to it, I don't think there's enough smaller high quality dosages of stuff. I'm just as happy checking out a conversion as I am to download a single map or standalone unit if its cool. I guess I prefer quality over quantity on these sorts of things.

I figured that there'd be some multiplayer bits I'll miss because I don't play that mode all that much. Still, I know there's got to be some space maps in GC that has a pirate station - at least EAW had some, but forget which systems.

I haven't explored either editor for EAW or FOC yet. Is it easy to use? I want to get into making maps and stuff for skirmish eventually but I don't know much about it at the moment.

I noticed that too. I was hoping Tyber would still have that shuttle thing he used in the Mandalore tutorial mission as his boarding unit. It should be fairly easy to reimpliment through mods - the ship and everything is already in game, all the Tyber unit needs is the bribe command. I think this is a better balance of including bribery for him in space, by taking him off his mega cruiser and sticking him in a cheesy hard to defend ship.

I've been playing as the Consortium exploring all the different vessel options through piracy on those planets that have it and so far I've only seen these ships: Rebs: Corvette Nebulon-B Marauder Corvette A-Wing Imps: Tartan Broadside Acclamator TIE-Defender I was curious if this is all that's possible to steal or if its random what becomes available at each ring at different times. Given that there are four of each in this list that pretty much mirror one another's characteristics, my guess is probably not. Also short of unlocking it through modding, I still haven't come across the Venator-class Star Destroyer (according to the wiki its for ZC only, purchased at pirate docks). However I haven't come across a space map with said dock in it yet and was beginning to wonder if the only cameo of the vessel in the stock expansion was in the tutorial for the piracy mission at Mandalore.

I've been playing it semi occasionally, still exploring the differences between the versions i.e. playing the old maps in the new FOC, just to see how they moved build pads around or where they've added the bunkers (on some maps, its actually a lot better than they were tactically speaking). However, as with the other game I still have issues with some build pad placements, they're not always where I think they could be used to better effect. Perhaps the differences here too is the difference between playing a planet map in skirmish vs campaign vs galactic conquest - stuff's not always where you saw it before. I've also been playing a lot of the GC games in FOC, just to see what kinds of units I can steal through pirate rings. I'll give this patch a whirl and hope that helps a bit with the bugs I've seen from time to time. I encountered one just this morning where I used Zann to kidnap somebody on the Taris (or may have been Thyferra) map - anyway, it was supposed to end when you destroyed all the enemy units and "secured" the target human guy, but once I got there, nothing happened (I presume it was supposed to work as is the case with Siri or whatever her face is on Utapau where the target follows you back to the shuttle). So far I'd have to say that while I do enjoy the game somewhat still, I still wish for a little more variety in unit availability/enhancements to more skirmish maps. I have not had a chance to play around with the editor to make my own maps but I think if I can get a handle on it, it'll add some replayability to the game.

My first impressions are that I like some things about the Consortium but not others. An example would be in skirmish. How come the Consortium doesn't get a base shield in ground battles? I'm happy that their build pad turrets seem decently powered (enough to make me dislike the buildpad options for rebs and imps still being the same - yet its nice that just about anything can take pot shots at things like air units now as a counter to no base shields). I haven't played skirmish with heros on that much, but about the only saving grace for the Consortium is using Tyber to steal units. A good example of when you'd want to - to get those kick ass rebel artillery pieces. On a couple of maps I was overwhelmed when I had 4 player set up with my extra side having been set on hard, and the enemies two sets on hard and medium and I was pretty well out of it (by the end I had enemy T4-Bs and rebel artillery dominating my base area and couldn't rebuild or buy units. All I had were two fairly useless MDUs and my cloaking transport full of one squad of grenadiers, one of those raygun squads, & 2 demolotioners) It was a great push and pull battle for awhile, but on occasion, and depending on the map and the difficulty I set my side's second team at, they wouldn't build or call in certain units all that often even if we had dominated much of the mining resources. I can't recall the map name offhand but it was one of the new ones. I guess my lesson here is that if I could have used Tyber to steal a couple of T4-Bs or artillery I might have had a shot. The artillery selection for the MDU is very weak and only seems useful on airspeeders, or small packs of infantry. One other thing that I do love about the Constortium is its ability to get money for killing the enemy even if it loses its resource build pad locations. But on the using of heros front, I'm reluctant on these skirmishes to activate heros if its not just me and one enemy element playing - having two copies of bobba, mara and vader running around makes it a little too much sometimes. The enemy on the other hand LOVES and I mean LOVES bringing in T4-Bs and artillery a helluva lot for rebels, same sorta thing for imps, lots of artillery. It does make for a good challenge but sometimes its hard to organize counters. I still think that the best match ups are with Rebels vs Empire for this reason with the consortium on the other hand having a few areas that are lacking I believe to make them truely good ground opponents when the player uses them (I've still yet to play against them on the ground so far to see how the AI does). I think their main lack is of decent mobile artillery, ground speeder types or airspeeder type cover with no base shield option. Space skirmishes have been a little better with the new maps, although I still have a bit of a gripe with both space and ground maps' positioning of things like build pads. Often times they seem awefully spread out to make any decent use of their ranges or any area where you might want better overlapping areas of protection (i.e. such as around your starbases or mining locations) to be that useful. A good example of poor build pad placement off the top of my head is the ground map for Hypori (there is an area that stretches horizontally at the very bottom of the map with 4-6 build pads, a parallel path that runs along here from your base position to the right hand side reinforcement point just ahead of it. If you had built artillery here or any other cannon type, these can't possibly have the range to hit anything on the parrallel path unless the enemy units decided to use that plateau where the pads are as a path - ususally these wind up being air turrets mixed in with repair or bacta tanks as a fall back position instead, since other than enemy air units, nothing else seems to come near this area all that much). Big turbolaser turrets probably would have the range in which case they'd be preferable to the heavy turbolaser positions currently on the map in some places (mostly my problem with these turrets is the lack of any smaller build pad support options nearest them). I think one thing both versions of the game could use, both for space or for the ground is the ability (though it should be expensive or an expensive unit that does this) to plant fixed support turrets anywhere other than where the predesignated ones are. Another advanced ability I think should be to be able to upgrade or steal another side's MDU building options to add to yours. There were times playing as different opponents like the empire or consortium for example where I really which I could build the repair station or the shield generator option the rebels get. But heck, I'd settle for the weapons options on the MDUs to be a little stronger against armored targets).

I forget offhand where I got my demo, but I used Lucasart's listing for EAWs demo sites, and found one that didn't require registration just to download it. It was like the fourth or fifth one down in their list.

That's certainly a possibility too Kelathin that the CoD 2 reinstallation wasn't the culprit. In fact now that I think of it, it could very well be a side effect of running spyware programs like spybot and adaware. On one occasion I do remember that when I cleaned up/quarantined/deleted what it showed me was amiss, that EAW would not run requiring a reinstallation. It had singled out a key file EAW needed as being spyware so that's probably it or was a contributing factor with another file.

It was one of the only capabilities that Force Commander did right in my opinion. However, recognizing this would probably be a bitch to reintegrate, I personally feel it should have taken on with this type of game, an ability that only resided with space and ground commanders rather than every single unit type - Just the units or formations that commanders occupy.

I posted this in the other demo thread, but thought I should repeat it here in case anyone runs across this same issue. I had a directx issue. My specs run EAW and the demo now just fine with the major thing lacking my processor being an 850mhz Pentium III - below what they require/recommend. At first what I got was a notice on the launcher screen that I needed to go to lucasarts support site for a directx fix. This led me to microsoft's site where I redownloaded it. After installation it still would not launch the game giving me a repeat of the error. I ran the demo's analyzing tool and saw the incriminating file I needed - d3dx9_30.dll (I'm pretty sure that's it). First thing I did after this was a reboot thinking that would fix it but it didn't. Next step, I ran the file name through Google search and downloaded it from one of the first sites it gave results on, installed it and the problem was solved. Note: I suspect this error, considering EAW ran fine before, was a result of me rinstalling Call of Duty 2 which most likely required a lower directx version and that I must have installed it over it unnecessarily causing that above error.

Good to know about the transport, I'm going to test that out later today. Its a shame if its not this way in the final version, but it'd be nice to preload those transports with the necessary troop amount prior to landing it. It would also save some space if its a garrisoned unit with soldiers inside it, freeing up land slots.

I had a little direct x trouble at first - seemed when I downloaded it from the microsoft site, it was missing a key file when I ran the game's diagnostic. Had to get the missing file from a google search of it but it worked fine after that. (d2dx9_30.dll somethingerother). EAW ran fine before, so I guess I messed up when I rinstalled Call of Duty 2 most likely. (I probably overwrote it to an older version of directx). I didn't explore the whole demo yet, but first impression I have is I like the units as well. I think the idea of this faction using cloaking was probably the only way a third faction was going to work. A few questions on it though. The transport that's cloaked on the ground - does it have a troop capacity ceiling? Again I haven't tested everything out to be sure, just want to know how many I should make per grouping of troops and mercs. So far it would appear that, unless you use the transport in combat, you'll probably only ever need 1 on the battlefield. I am also curious as to what target priorties and weak-against targets have changed among the empire and rebels due to the new faction being added. Lastly a question about Zann. In the Mandalore mission one objective is to capture a Venator (sp?) destroyer. Is capturing ships a space bonus of the character or was it a fluke demo/camaign only thing?

Popcorn's got what I was trying to say. I wonder if, what your problem is, is that your playing in Campaign mode (not Conquest), and that its possible you might not get the Heavy Factory (or build the tanks even) until you finish your next mission? I played the campaign well over a week ago so I don't remember. I do know that you can steal up to a certain tech level with the droids before you can't anymore - not until the next mission is done. Tech progression is pretty well fixed in Campaigns. However, you did say you were at Tech 4 right? If I read my quick chart right for the game, T4-Bs are Tech 3 while speeders are Tech 4. You should already have it so yea, that's confusing. I would take out the next planet in the mission and see what happens after (best to probably dominate the space above it first, so you can have more troops and bombers in orbit while you do it - may want to take out any problem enemy planets before this though along the way). I can't think of whatever else it could be other than an odd bug. If you win the next mission and you still don't get it, I would replay the game your doing with the exact settings if you remember them and see if you can't repeat what's happened here, then report it to that thread topic.

All I've noticed is, besides the droids stealing everything (including the T4-B plans + Heavy Factory plans), you have to have a Light Factory already made on a planet before you can then build the Heavy Factory there. You won't be able to make them otherwise. Be sure to pick a planet with plenty of building slots on it as well. Otherwise you may find yourself accidentally demolishing a prerequisite structure and therefore not even see the Heavy Factory building option in the que.