JasonTL12

Hi. I lost all of my reference materials that I previously had stockpiled. I found almost everything again, but the Fighter Tutorial on Mask's page has a 503 error. I know I could go in and find all the bin files in res explorer, but his tutorial is set up so nicely and has all the numbers as a great reference guide, so I'd love to have a copy of it again. If anybody has one laying around, could you please email it to me at jasonlaviolette2006@yahoo.com thanks all, later

hey all, how's it going? just started working on my own tc again and i'm compiling my shiplist and models. just wanted to know if anybody has the completed bulwark with the textures working nicely. the links in this thread seem to be dead. even if its not finished, just a basic one that i could tinker with would be cool. if so, please put a working link up or feel free to email it to me at jasonlaviolette2006@yahoo.com. thanks oh, also looking for a decent looking GR-75 transport too. i could probably model that one without much trouble, but i have absolutely no artistic talent when it comes to texturing. yes, i know its a rediculously stupid ship, but having one or two avaliable at the start of the game is still nice to start building facilities on those uninhabited rim systems with lots of raw materials and energy

yeah, the build time depends on the construction cost (refined materials x 4, for standard facilities; refined materials x 2 for advanced facilities). if you lower the processing rate of the facilities, watch out for running out of refined materials to work with, which makes your facilities suspend production until the materials become available. I have to work hard to not run into that problem even without modifying anything. you can also change the processing rate of the mines and refineries so your refined materials will build up more quickly, but (and i'm not done testing this; i'm not sure if anybody else has or not) i think that if you do this, you might end up depleting your resources more quickly (e.g., that message that you get that says you've lost energy resources because of operations on a certain system, which makes you lose blue bars, or energy slots; and i've also seen a system with a bunch of mines go to a solid red bar saying that there's no mines or raw materials, and not because of a natural disaster). I think the fact that you can run out of non-replinishable natural resources is actually programmed into the game. I'm not sure if it drops your maintenance pool or not, but those mines technically aren't digging up raw material for refineries to process, making it even more easy to eat up your store of refined materials while building things. in a large game with 200 planets and mines and refineries out the yin yang, the difference would probable too subtle to notice, but it is there.

not bad at all. never seen it before, was good for a cheap laugh, the puns were pretty good

Cool, at least i'll know what to do if that every happens to me. God that would suck to have to listen to that everytime you start Rebellion just to see if your chages that you make look right.

Thanks Antonius. My main email is jasonlaviolette@hotmial.com I'm on msn at the same name, and yahoo im at JTL12102005. Mine and refinery is actually what i did first, just because you can't change facilities in the current version of RedEd, only ResHack. Love to see those pics though, and share mine if you want to give me some feedback on my first bitmap experiments

Yes, you're absolutely right. I've been thinking alot about it today since i wrote that this morning. I'm not doing a drastic story change, but instead of starting the game after the battle of yavin (in fact, i know i'm not starting there, because i booted griff out of the story already because he died in during the evacuation through the blockade) I may start them on hoth, but the protectorate already does that. I could start somewhere during Return of the Jedi, such as starting the characters of on Tatooine right after the rescue of Solo. Luke, Leia, Han, Chewy, and Lando would all be there. Maybe Adar Tallon could be the 6th, because, from what I've read, that's where he hid out after faking his death until he rejoined his old friend Jan Dadonna in the Rebel Alliance. Eventually, luke would go to yoda to ask "Is Darth Vader my father?" (one of the things I always do in the begining of the game is try to find Vader through espionage so Luke knows and can tell Leia when he gets his Force ranking high enough. Although, I have realized that Luke will tell her even if he hasn't run into Vader, as long as his Force ranking is really high. Its weird, even if he knows, and is still a trainee, he didn't tell her, when he was a master, yet didn't encounter Vader, he did tell her). Well, one hardwired even down. Solo could still be being hunted by a host of people. Two come to mind: 1 Jabba's family for Solo being the reason that he is dead, and Dengar still hold that ancient grudge from when they were young crazy pilots (now they're just older insane pilots ) And these are just minor variations on the same story. Your'e right, you can make this game not even about Star Wars. The possibilities are really endless, even with the same basics and hardwired programming that we can't modify.

Well, what i'm basically doing is trying almost to do a TC on the scale of Rebellion Reloaded, with the exception of maybe some wave files and movies, athough I'd love to change everything i can, but that's huge for one person. I started simple, using ResHack to change things after i learned the program. I changed all the bitmaps for mines, refineries, construction facilities, and defensive facilities. This includes encyclopedia entries and all system & build bitmaps. Yes, its easier to use RebEd to do this, but the facilities aren't in the engine, so dont' have cards to change. Once i learned ResHack, i'm now going to use it to change all i can, then use RebEd at the end to change the systems/sectors, character attributes, ship specs, etc. In between, I'll probably do the ship modelling before i change ship specs, so the right ships are totaly in there to mess with the specs (whish is one of the main factors in how the AI builds things and plays aggressively). I just started with those because they were a good place to practice changing things as i found where resources were located in all the DLLs. At this point, I'm developing my storyline and choosing my characters. Storyline is tough, there's not all that much you can do because you can't get rid of luke going to degobah. you may start on hoth instead of Yavin (like in the protectorate), and luke going to degobach in a hundred or so days would still make sense. Except for the Jabba event, you could even start around return of the jedi, when Luke goes back to Degobah, except that then the Jabba event would have to be changed to some other kind of event, because Jabba would already be dead, not that there's a lack of people out to get Solo. I'm still in the planning stages of my story, but i have most of my characters picked out and am working on changing all of those around at the moment. Its been a process of a lot of research because i really want to be accurate as far as characters and their ranks/attrubutes at my starting point. I modification of this magnitude is grueling, taking alot of time and energy, but when everything is finished (probably in about a year, lol) I really want to be proud of what i've done, so i'm really taking my time.

Amen to finding time and patience. I'm trying to do this TC of mine on top of the rest of my life. I learned most of the programs i needed to in order to do the TC in one weekend (exceptions being RebEd, which i played around with alot, and the ship modeling programs because i'm waiting until near the end to change those) Learing where everything is in the DLLs if funtastic and i can say that picking one place to start and staying on track and completing things in steps is not easy when you keep finding new things and starting new parts of the project when you come across them. I'm just happy to say that i pretty much stayed on track this whole weekend with one step of the project; researching characters, deciding who is going to be in my TC, and editing all of their data in ResHack. A big part was researcing rank systems and thier insignias so i can accurately portray the characters at the correct point in thier careers. Next is on to replacing all of the bitmaps for all of my characters on a goofy note, i just noticed that i went up a rank in the postings, woohoo take it easy everybody

Thanks Trejiuvanat. Its only a 400x200 EData Pic with a 200 ppi and 8/256 color, but it is a bitmap and over 70k. could just save it as jpeg to make it smaller, don't want to take up too much bandwidth anywhere with pictures. I'll look into the remote linking to a free image share site. Thanks, hope to get that up soon, I'd love to here what people think, and maybe give me some feedback so I can make my cards even better as i continue working on my TC project. Thanks again, later

Nope, not another novel, just wanted to say thanks for the feedback. Yeah, Tarkin did seem to be in charge of Vader in ANH, but he clearly was not under the authority of Moff Jerjerrod in RoTJ. Between the two movies is when the Emperor made teh Council of Grand Admirals, which i thik should have been outranked by Vader, but maybe not, but the Grand Admirals outrank all Moffs. And although Tarkin was an arrogant f#&% and seemed to enjoy bossing Vader around, lets face it, the Dark Lord of the Sith, apprentice to only the Emperor, could snap Tarkin's neck with a though and a little help from the Dark Side of the Force So who was really in charge of whom? I know its a game, but i really enjoy learning new things, researching, and basically just thinking, that's why i enjoy strategy games. Also, I know i'm putting alot of time and energy into this, but i just really want to be proud of it when i'm done with my total converstion of the game. This isn't some half assed job of just modding some character stats, ship specs, and pictures, I'm looking at making this a whole new game, with just the programming the same. I might not go as far as replacing all of the wave files and all of the videos like they're doing with Rebellion Reloaded, but I'm going to try to change it as much as i can and do the best i can with it And sorry for the length of the messages, when i start to type, it just flows. This one is just a novelette But thanks for the interest and input, glad some people are actually reading all of my dribble, thinking about things, and taking the time to reply If you actually care to see the systems i have come up with, I put all of the pics of insignias i made into a word documents with thier rankings, but maybe i made your brain hurt enough for a while

Dude, Boba Fett and Winter are Great. Love that first one of Daala (because she looks hotter in the pic), but overall, the second one looks better because the angles are right and you can see more of the uniform and rank. Great Work By the way, how do i stick an image on a post, love to see what people think of my first attempt.[/url]

The Wikipedia entry looks good FishFace. Really surprised me that copies sell for up to $45 on ebay. I knew there was a big face base, as this site and the people modifying the game are a testament to, but i didn't know it was that rare and/or in demand to be selling for a price like that. Not too suprising, however, because it is a great strategy game where you have to keep on your toes about everything that's going on, from your characters, to your troops, fighters, ships, and special forces, to how much maintenace you can have and how fast your facilities are eating up your pool of refined materials if you don't have enough mines and refineries to keep up with your construction projects, all while not really knowing what the enemy is doing except for the obvious overt actions taken against you. Action games with fantastic graphics and sound are a dime a dozen these days, and new ones sell for over $50 dollars, so i guess its not very surprising that there are Star Wars fans and other people that enjoy thinking that are searching to get this game.

Thanks again Tofu Maybe it was 98, I just know its been a while that i've had it. I remeber playing it for about a year when i as at PSU, and i graduated in 99, so 97 was a guess (i didn't bother lookig for a date ). I must have gotten it pretty much close to when it first came out. I really haven't looked around the net for another copy, although i should probably do so so that i have a back up copy if anything ever happens to my disk, but i'd imagine you may be able to find the game on amazon, ebgames, or other places online that sell video games. LucasArts might actually still sell it on thier site as well, as they sell a bunch of thier older games still, but i haven't checked that out either yet. If anybody does happen to look for it (not many probably will, most of us that come to this site already have it and have been playing it forever) please post where you found it, if you do. I'm betting i'm not the onely one that wouldn't mind having a safety net back up copy. CDs don't last forever, they wear down, get scratched, and even get broken in unfortuate (and most of the time, idiotic) mishaps. Later all

Thanks Tofu. Yeah, I dug around more, and pretty much have things under control. I incorporated alot of into from different systems i found, picstures, and the movies and books, and compiled a ranking and insignia system for the army, mavy, space force (fighters), security, intelligence, and research &development that follows along (mostly anyway) and actually makes some sense I grabbed some compnents (red, gold, and blue bars, and cylinders) and went to town on PSP. I'm amost done making all my own bitmaps that i can paste onto other pictures as i make all of my character cards, only have intel and research to make yet, and those are pretty easy. Interesting point though... The insignia for grand admiral makes abolutely no sense the way it is, except for the fact that the emperor just thought up the rank out of his dark mind (and with it, the insignia). I guess that's what happens though when you have authors, artists, and, to begin with, George Lucas and a low budget to make the first film (none of whom, i think, had any military advisors to help them with the intricacies of developing a space age insignia system for thier armed forces). Think of it this way. governmental rankings are blue/red and military rankings are red/blue. From what I've read, seen in the movies, and saw on a couple sites with ranking for different parts of the Galactic empire, this is what I've discerned as a basid starting point (and just leaving jerjerrod in ESB out because that was probably a blunder of some sort) Governmental ranks go up to BBBBBB/RRRRRR before gold starts at the left with Moff and works back to the right. High Moff = BBBBBB/RRRRGG, and Moff=BBBBBB/RRRRRG, and moffs have 4 cylinders (and i still don't really have a grasp of why less cylinders is higher than more, but that's the way it is). Grand Admiral outranks Grand Moff. With no cylinders )and gold eschelauns), what would make sense is if it were RRRGGG/BBBBBB, instead of having all six blue on the left because military ranks are red over blue the whole way through. Its still the same 12 with just 3 red and 3 blue switched. This is also logical if Ozzel, in ESB is an admiral instead of a Fleet Admiral (whish makes sense because Vader put him in command of Death Squadron after griff was Killed blockading Yavin--If Ozzel were a Fleet Admiral, you'd think he'd actually be in a high command somewhere instead of at home playing with the kids when he got his orders to get his ass to Death Squadron). So, a Fleet Admiral should be RRRRRG/BBBBBB, High Admiral + RRRRGG/BBBBBB, and Grand Admiral RRRGGG/BBBBBB. None of these ranks would have cylinders, so a Fleet Admiral would outrank a Moff if he were conducting operation inside the Moff's territory, A High Admiral outranks a High Moff, and a Grand Admiral outranks a Grand Moff. Theoretically following all the way through, in the navy, RRGGGG/BBBBBB would be Supreme Admiral, RGGGGG/BBBBBB would be Lord Admiral, and GGGGGG/BBBBBB would be Military Executor: Supreme Lord Commander of the Armed Forces. In other words, Lord Darth Vader would have a rank insignia of 6 Gold over 6 Blue if he were to wear one Governmentally (I'd say civilly, but the line between civil officer and military officer gets blurred in an imperial system of government), after Grand moff, things get a little tricky because you have to switch from a higher Moff ranking to a Vizier ranking somewhere, althoug I've never heard or seen Viziers wearing command rank insignias, but it would make sense that there would be insignias to go along with the classifications (even if they aren't worn) in an Empire. So I've conceptualized it like this: Grand Moff = BBBBBB/RRRGGG with 4 cylinders, Supreme Moff is the same with 3 or 2 (I picked 2) cylinders, Lord Moff is the same with 2, 1, or 0 (i picked 0), Vizier is 6B/2R4G, High Vizier is 6B/1R5G, and Grand Vizier is 6B/6G. This may be a little off because, Grand Vizier Sate Pestage and Lord Vader would be at the same rank, which is a little screwey because, when it comes right down to it, this is a military empire and Vader would definitely outrank the Emperor's cheif advisor and day to day governemtal leader. So, there should probably be a theoretical position of Supreme Vizier (that should be the 6B/6G) that would never be filled, so Vader always stays second in command of the entire empire. That would push Grand Vizier to 6B/1R5G, but I've seen some people use 6B/6G for Grand Vizier, so that's ok with me. Theoretical Lord Vizier would be, of course, the Emperor Palpatine himself. Another way to do it would be to keep the 4 cylinders so admirals always outrank Moffs and continue in the same pattern: Supreme Moff, Lord Moff, Imperial Executor-Supreme Lord Moff of the Imperial Territories. This would leave Viziers as honorable positions appointed by the Emperor to act solely as advisors to him without having direct control over running the government, which is the way it should really work, but, from what I've read, Grand Vizier Sate Pestage does most of the day to day running of the Empire while the Emperor meditates with the Dark Side. Well, in researching this, I learned a lot and refreshed a lot of my memory from the books I've read, and it was fun, but my theoretical conceptualization and structuring of a coherent ranking and insignia system is complete. Some people may agree with it, other not, but most of the information out there is theory and conjecture anyway, even from the authors and illustrators working on books and and comics. In sites that I found with ranks and pictures of thier insignias, no 2 completely agreed, so i'm not really worried about it. I've developed a system that's logical to me, so i'm happy and i can't wait to see it in-game when i'm done with my TC Thanks, and have a good week all

Yeah, i was just thinking about the movies and actually fast forwarding through ANH just to see if some of the things i read about Bast and Tagge possibly surving the first death star destruction. From what i can decipher, tagge wasn't in the control room. It does look like Bast and Motti were bown to smithereens. I know that ANH was made so cheaply and quickly for a fim of its type that things like a uniform ranking system and actually getting names right were overlooked to just thet the project done. I also know that commander can encompass alot of ranks, like captain in conventional water based navys, but being ex air force, it urks me to not call people by thier appropriate rank i found a couple more sites and found some interesting things. One is that both imperial army and navy pretty much follow conventional US (and other) army and navy ranks to a tee, but (at least on a fleet) they have the exact same uniform and the insignias follow the exact same progression. That has to be confusing. The impirial fighter force follows the British Royal Air Force almost exactly. Thier different uniforms make them more easily distinguised as well. There are some other different officer uniforms with different colors and misleading insignias, but, since this is an military empire, it would make sense that they are other separate branches (such as such as security, intelligence, and R&D) and follow different insignia styles and progressions. I'm probably spending way too much time on this, but when I'm done with my TC, i really want to be proud of it by staying as close to form as possible with the films, books, and what i've read and discovered online as i can, and yet still have a ranking system that is logical. This is just the first time I've really delved deeply into the Imperial and Rebel Officer rankings and it intrigued me, enthused me, and frustrated me, so I'm happy and I think i've put all brances into systems that make sense to me, even R&D officers and governmental ranks. Well, guess it's time to get cracking on pinpointing where my personnel are in thier carrers, getting all the arwork done, and getting them into the game. Oh, just for the sake of asking, does anybody here have any decent pictures of Lieutanant Page or his first name? I read somwhere that he actually has one, but haven't been able to find it anywhere. He's one of the few original characters I'm leaving in the game (heck, the rebel commandos are his commandos, what would they be without thier lieutenant?). He's one of the few original characters that I'm actually leaving in on the Alliance side, but i want to change all the pictures and have full names if they have them. Thanks, and have a great weekend everybody

Yes, sometimes it takes a good while for people to reply. Take your time, really look around the site. There's alot of info here that just needs to be found rather than asking the same questions over and over. Sometimes you'll fine the asnwers you're looking for, sometimes you have to ask because its a notally new question or subject. And yes, posting is great, and its nice to get that ranking up, but be respectful and don't just post your ass off for the hell of it. There's only so much space to go around for the site. Good luck on your questions for HW2 and academy, i haven't really gotten into them much. I've started this TC project now that i have a bit of time and haven't really played other games, not that i don't have them, lol. what can i say, I'm a rebellion freak

If you enjoy strategy games, definitely find a copy if you can. The only problems i've heard of is from people outside of the states that have shipping difficulties. the game runs from the cd even if its fully installed, so there are no downloadable copies out there and that's a breach of copyright anyway. But, like I said, it should be cheap and can bring hours and hours of fun, and sometimes frustrating gameplay (like all good games). It also has a tactical component that's fairly pathetic, at least in terms of graphics and your ability to control your fleet, but it goes back to strategy again and how you put your task forces, squadrons, and fleets together to go into the battle. There is some control in terms being able to direct your fighters and what ships you want to plunge into the heart of the battle and which ones should stay on the fringe or go after fighters instead of capital ships. Again, this is mostly strategy though, but it's fun to learn how to go into a battle and win, run when you need to, or even defeat a bigger and better fleet depending on how you strategically command the battle. Sadly, there are no ground battles, which would have been a good extra aspect of the game. You do, however, have control over 30 personnel and all the special forces teams you can make to conduct certain missions, and have complete control on building mines and refineries (that harvest raw materials, stockpile refined materials, and give you a maintenance pool for all your forces), building other facilities (such as shipyards and training facilites, and planetary defenses), and building your ships, fighters and troops for defense or attack. It's a fairly complex, complicated game, but once you master it, the AI actually seems pretty mentally inept. Some people around here have been working hard experimenting and testing settings in rebed for your military units that helps the AI along and be "smarter" and more aggressive. If you know the game, you'll end up winning sooner or later, but its a long fun trip Once you really learn how to play, you can mod it yourself, try the total converstions that people here are working on, or, if you really want a challenge, play against somebody online Just a warning though, this game can be addictive. I've had spells when I'm really in the mood to play that i started friday afternoon, got 3-4 hours of sleep sometime saturday afternoon, played more, and all of a sudden realized that it's 2-3 on monday morning and i had to get up for school or work in 4 hours

Ok, at the moment i'm putting together my TC concept, which includes gathering information on the right characters to put into the game in terms of being timeline appropriate, having major roles within the time line and the appropriate attributes and/or ranks, and pretty much just making the game more fun and the way i want to play it After this is done, I can get back to digging through ResHack and using Rebed to put the finishing touches on. Wow, that sounds so easy, too bad its still a few months away until it all comes to fruition. So, more to the point. I've spent the last couple hours doing searches on the net and here in the forums, and I'm still a bit confused about ranks and their insignias. Yes, I know that, in the movies, some of the rank insignias were just goofs, and that ANH is just way out there in terms of rank insignias from ESB and ROTJ, but I've found about 4-5 sites (some of which were referenced here) that have ranks listed and pictures of of the insignia bars and cylinders, but I'm still a bit befuddled. The problem is that, although they are pretty close, the sites disagree on some of the insignias and/or cylinders used to denote specific ranks. The insignias from ANH don't help matter much, as many of the references have insignias for both the "old" and "new" systems. To make matters even worse, the original pictures in SWR are a little screwy too, showing combinations of bars and cylinders that I can't find in any of the Databases and Databanks I've found. Griff has 6 blue, 6 red, and a 1 cylinder on boths sides, which would put him where, between fleet admiral and high admiral???? Veers has 4, 4, and one cylinder. Is he only a major general and not a Lt. or "four-star"general??? Is it possible that the Army and Navy have different systems? But, if so, how can Commander Praji be in the army system because there is no such rank as "commander" for army forces. Maybe he is an army Lt. Colonel overseeing the stromrtoopers attatched to the Devastator that searched the Tantive IV and Lord Vader just misspoke. We're given ranks in the forums for posting. From what I've seen, the ranks and insignias used in the forums are pretty much the ones agreed upon my most people and concurrent with most of what i've seen in the databanks. Some of you have been very nice to me by replying to my post about starting my TC project, and i hope that will continue So here is the actual question. Does anybody out there have any idea about which system is the "most" correct in terms of websites or databases. At the moment i have FFURG, Wikipedia, Imperial News Grid, and the Star Wars Technical Commentary. Any suggestions on which one to follow? And now for the really big question I'm not sure which one(s) of you put the ranks up in the forums, but would you happen to have a zip file of all those little named .gifs that you'd be willing to send to me via email jasonlaviolette@hotmail.com (or better yet, put in the downloads section for everybody's reference)????? As I'm working on my TC, i want to make all the charaters as correct and true to form by finding pictures, editing pictures, and even making pictures (anything but using the less than perfect original ones in the game). As i was doing this tongiht, I did make my first card of Imperial Grand Admiral Thrawn, complete with new picture (the most real looking one out there that you can't really see his insignia, so i mirrored the image and found a GA insignia that i resized, tilted, and pasted on his chest), new background, and new Galactic Empire emblem. Only problem is that I mistakenly used the first set of insignia pictues i found, which had a supreme (apparently now changed to lord within the last hour) admiral at the top of the list where i thought grand admiral should be, lol. So, its a reverse of how it should really be. i could mirror the pic, but then the insignia would be on his left chest, which i think would be even worse. I'll fix it soon, but if anybody wants to take a look at the bitmap, let me know. If anybody could provide me with the correct system with pictures of them, that would be fantastic. I'd love to use them to make sure all of my in-game pictures are true to form. During game play, i can also change the EData and hack the DLL bitmaps so that if i decide to give someone a promotion, i can just change the pics and i'll have the correct current rank showing up during mission reports As a side note but on the same topic of rank and insignia, just FYI, i read this somwhere today. The Moff Honorific is granted to Imperial Governers so that they have complete control over all of the armed forces in their territory. However, the Moff title can also be given to Imperial officers overseeing special projects, productions, or organizations. These Moff officers are directly appointed by the Emperor and the title gives them rank over all Imperial personnel, military and civillian working on the project or within the organization. This may explain Jerjerrod's insignia, the fact that vader addresses him as "Commander", and even his young age to be a Moff. Or, it may just be a cover up for the blunder You'd think he'd have some kind of visible indication for the Moff title even if he is only at the rank of commander. Just food for thought. Thanks all, later.

Yes, Rebellion is a Star Wars strategy game. Look at the link "About Rebellion". It's been around forever, or at least i think i got my copy of it some time around 1997. It isn't a mod, but people are modding it all the time, making total conversions of the game to make it different and better than it was. I'm in the preliminary stages of a Total Conversion right now. If you can find a copy, i strongly suggest you pick it up, should be pretty damn cheap at this point. Come to think of it, i should try to find an extra copy myself, just in case something happens to the CD ROM. If you do play it, you can learn alot about it on this site, then, after you've played it for a while, you can mod it and play it again. Its different every time without changing it, so modding it only makes it more fun. Ask around, alot of the people on this site have been playing this game for going on a decade now, and in the past few years, people have been modifying the heck out of it

Right now I'm in the mist of character development for my own TC. I wish there were ways of adding new ranks. I've been editing the TEXSTRA.DLL (changing personnel, changing their command titles, etc.), so I've been doing research all day on characters, getting info and trying to find good pictures to use (ones from the expanded universe that i couldn't cap from the dvds) so i can develop my encyclopedia entries and make my own EData bitmaps. Adding new ranks instead of just changing the titles of the characters would be fantastic, but you can't add them just like you can't add characters. If you could, there would be a hundred characters on each side with high admirals, vice admirals, majors, colonels, captain, lieutenants, and even sergeants and corporals running around and holding different ranks at different bases. The problem is that Admiral, General, and Commander have overall effects on military units. These effects are part of the programming that can't be hacked. So, that leaves us with just changing the Command Names in ResHack. So your Grand Admiral Thrawn and Major Derlin are just going to act like ordinary admirals and generals as far as the game is concerned, but at least it kinda looks cool to have more ranks for certain personnel than that game actually allow for

Hi there, The MData files aren't music files, they're movie files (for certain events in the game, the intro, the credits, etc.) in Smacker format, not wave files. Download Smacker and you'll be able to view (and listen to) all the files. It's been a while, so I'm not sure if one of those files is the background music that you hear within the game (without video, just straight audio). My advice is download Smacker, open the files one by one with the program, and see which are which. Then proceed how you think is best when you have that done. You may be able to change the files to different formats and watch or listen to this with different programs (I never tried that) but, remember, even if you're trying to save them as audio files onto a CD, the video information is still there taking up space, probably why you exceeded your CD-R. I don't know of any way to separate the audio from the video, but if it can be done, someone here would know how. Oh, and do answer your simple question, sure, you can listen to the files from your hard drive. smacker will play them, but you're going to have the video for the files running at the same time. That probably wasn't much help, but it was an interesting question, so good luck later

Thanks again Cain. Yes, I know the ship models (texturing and such) were changed as well. I'm probably going to be saving all of the ship editing and modelling until the end, because I know very little about the moddeling aspect. I have to learn how to use those programs and will probably need some specific help when I reach that stage, but that's most likely a couple months in the future. I guess the same pretty much goes for the AI, mostly because it seems like the AI pretty much depends on the specs of capital ships (construction cost, maintenance points, and ship capabilities). I've looked through the forums and saw where you referenced that the AI will build a DS II if the construction cost is lowered throught the first 500-600 days of the game. I think you even said that if you wait long enough, and change the construction cost back to normal, the AI will still build it if the game has progressed long enough. As for the AI's mental slowness and lack of aggressiveness, looking through how you have the ships set up in PTESB, I'm learning what may work. I read in the forums some where that you did extensive testing and kept notes on the AI. I don't know if you're as anal retentive as I am, but if you kept typed notes on the AI, I'd love to have a copy, or truncated basic version with general tips and pointers to have as a quick reference guide when I get to the point of tweaking the AI. I'd be forever in your debt for something like that I also have this idea. The Empire had the plans for the Death Star that was destroyed at Yavin IV. The DS II, like the one destroyed in Jedi, was bigger and badder than the first. Logically, I think it should take some reasearch and development before you can build the newer DS II version. Within this research and development, making a bigger DS II would up the hull integrity (making it more expensive to build when I played as the Empire, but I'd probably have to lower the construction cost for the AI to build it when i play as the Alliance), but also would make the maintenace cost lower because of more efficient power generators and propulsion and weapons systems that have been researched. Also, I'm considering upping the turbolasers and ion cannons (because the thing is bigger than the first one) and also adding laser cannons around the trench and other openings into the DS II (you'd think that the Empire would learn from its mistake at Yavin IV and develop the DS II with a tighter defense, complete with anti-starfighter capabilities, just in case the Death Star Shield would be knocked out). Since the DS is not technically in the tactical battle (meaning the holocube), I'm not sure if adding laser cannons would help defend against a Rebel Death Star Run in the game itself, but I like the idea, and a bigger, more armored station with increased firepower and lower maintenance than the first Death Star should make the DS II more attractive for the AI to build (if the construction cost is low enough, of course). I noticed that there are cards and even a ship model for the Lamda-class Imperial Shuttle. I'd love to add this (or maybe add Boba Fett as a character and have the KDY Firesprey, or Slave I instead of the lamda), and the the Corellian YT-3000 Freighter (first of which in the game would, of course, be the Mellenium Falcon) into the game as small, fast-hyperdrived craft with room only for personnel, no troop or fighter capacity. They would be quick to build, cheap to maintain, very fast and maneuverable in tactica,l and could maybe take on one or two fighter squadrons on its own. I think ships like this would be perfect for scouting systems (loaded up with special forces just in case you run into a lightly defended enemy panet), as a basic fast transport for individuals to quickly get to other systems to perfrom solo missions like diplomacy, and even group a bunch together and put good personnel on so you can very quickly go to enemy systems, wipe out a small defensive fighter groups, espionage and sabotage the heck out of the system from orbit instead of having to travel from from and back to your nearest base, and yank out your personnel and quickly be on your way to another system to do the same when you see a real enemy fleet approaching. I love doing this with characters like Han, Chewy, Luke (and comperable Imperial personnel), and some special forces for decoys. Conducting missions from orbit is a fast and furious way to disrupt all the functionality of that system and quickly boost your character attributes (especially force users) because you can conduct 3-5 missions in the time that it would take for a character (hyperdrive 100) to go from your nearest loyal system, conduct the mission, and get back to base, which is just a waste of time. Okay, I went on a strategic rant, sorry. My question is (since I saw there is a model to download for the lamda) are there any models out there for the Slave I and Mellenium falcom? I know there are cards (I'll probably make my own anyway), but models to use or to edit myself instead of starting from scratch and making my own would be fantastic Thanks again, later

Hi Cain. Thanks for the tip. I have PTESB downloaded and in a file where I am safely keeping it. I use ResHack to look through your edited DLLs and every time I load PTESB, look around RebEd, and play the TC for a while, I pick up on new things that are helping me. Going back and forth from the original settings, my edits, and the changes made in PTESB when a question comes to my mind is a bit tedious, but it's also fun, and I keep learning more and more as I go. I just started this weekend learning how to use ResHack and PE Exlorer for DLL editing, Smacker for the MData files, PSP for image editing, Adobe Audition (formerly Cool Edit) for sound editing, and I keep finding new little nuances in RebEd that I just overlooked before. I'm just glad I have a pretty good learning curve In the past few days, I downloaded and learned these various programs that I never used before, and right now I have edited everything in ENCYTEXT.DLL and changed all of my EData bitmaps that can't be edited in RebEd. I mean I have even changed the 200 system entries, some just a bit, some alot so I like the encyclopedia. What can I say? I'm just that anal retentive when I work on things Hell, with how comfortable I'm getting with ResHack and PE Explorer, I may even keep right on going and finish editing both the DLL and the EData that can be done in RebEd. I don't think there's anything wrong with doing it that way. Once it's done, i can save all of my cards, and then edit them and flop them around in RebEd afterwards. Well, back to work (by that I mean my TC) now Thanks again for your help and your best wishes for me PTESB is fantastic, I hope I can match that caliber when my TC is all done and ready to play. I'm also really looking forward to Reloaded. I've been peeking around the site and have caught glimpses of the new artwork and concept of the project. I am still just learning while I'm working on my TC, but if there's any help I can provide on the project, let me know. later

The natural disaster is one of those pain in the butt things that just randomly happens thoughout the course of the game and its hardwired into the programming, so it can't be edited or taken out. It happens to your planets, to the opponent's planets, and even on neutral and unexplored plants, but you really don't realize it unless it happens to you. The randomness of the game is one of the best parts about it, but can really damage what you're trying to do sometimes, in terms of a natural disaster. There are some ways of getting around it, but these ways are cheating, at least I consider them to be. Even so, when you have a Rebel Headquarters or Coruscant loaded with defenses or a planet with a massive shipyard on it, the natural disaster can be devastating. Getting around it isn't an editing or programming problem, it's a randomness problem, and you can sometimes manipulate the randomness. The easiest way to do this is to use a character or Special Force to do espionage on one of your own planets where the personnel are currently located. It doesn't really work is you sent them to another system, they are in hyperspace and not doing the mission, so it seems the randomness hasn't been manipulated. From your last save point, go up to the day before the event, do an espionage mission, most likely the event will not occur. It may occur on another system, not at all, or even give you more resources instead of a disaster. I've played around with this alot, just for the fun of it. For example, if you do it the day before someone is rectruited, it can change the person or attributes of the rectuited person, or cause the mission to be unsuccessful. Sabotage missions can be foiled and someone injured or unsuccessful when they were successful the last time, just by manipulating the randomness by sending one lonely and bored person on Op Force on an espionage mission. Like I said, it can be fun to play around with and see what happens, but I still consider it cheating.