DarthTex

I always spy on my "major/critical" systems. If you find out enemy missions are on the way, the majority of the time they become "foiled". But for those that don't fail, I "attack" those missions with missions of my own. Commandos take out other commandos/spys/probes, and I've actually captured characters before . Nothing like keeping your opponent "in the dark" It also lets you know when enemy fleets are inbound, so you can prepare.

Great post Def! Glad to see you visiting ol' SWR again (it's been awhile). It took me abit to remember what's been happenin'

Like GL will EVER let that happen

I definitely thinking adding "credits" to the resources required is a good idea; it gives the impression that an economy element is also important in the game (which makes protecting your systems from pirates and/or blockades more important as they help support your "cash flow"). Also, if you want to "hire" Bounty Hunters or "pay" informants for info, you do that with credits. The population idea is good, but I think there still needs to be some enhancement to the current system. I think having three political systems displayed on the population bar (GREEN = Imperial, RED = Alliance, BLUE = neutral) is more realistic. I never did like the fact that all systems HAD to have just Imperial/Alliance support, with "Neutral" being an approximate 50/50 split on popular support. This also opens the possibility of "buying" resources from Neutral systems without having to control/occupy them. This makes diplomacy more important and gives some importance to the concept of having an economy support your military efforts. For research I never did like the locked in research tree. I liked the idea of technology research similar to the Civilization game, where you 'researched" from several choices, and after researching two or three more basic ideas, more robust technologies would be "unlocked" for research (i.e. you would have to research metallurgy and the wheel before you could build a tank). I'm not sure of "what" you could research, other than: improved turbolasers, improved ion cannons, mass drivers, heavy turbolasers, heavy ion cannons, improved shielding, heavy shielding, improved light power cores (for small ships) improved medium power cores (for medium ships) improved heavy power cores (for heavy ships) high power cores - light ships high power cores - medium ships high power cores - heavy ships high power cores - Super ships different grades of armor for ships starfighter hyperdrives (also for use in Tie's) starfighter shields (also for use in Tie's) shield penetrating torpedoes HIMS system - light ships HIMS system - medium ships HIMS system - heavy ships and etc, etc, etc, I don't like the idea of lossing the Special Forces. I've always enjoyed using them, just not some of the "quirks" of no ongoing espionage missions, etc. I've always fancied it would be cool to have an espionage mission on a specific unit (ship, starfighter or troop regiment), that would provide information about the units location when it would "move" to a different system (using standard detection rules every time); like planting a "mole" in the unit. I took some time to "dig through" the improvements most players would want (mostly from the What are people's 5 ESSENTIAL wants for Reb2? thread), and here is what I compiled. There were approximately two dozen ideas that I thought were worthwhile, with the top five being: 1) Capturing enemy ships. Basically this boiled down to having a better tactical commands during space battles. This also includes options for "ramming" enemy ships (but this would have to be a "special" type item); targetting specific ships systems (shields, engines, gun emplacements, etc.); landing/re-launching fighters; more fighter groups than 4 (with mixed groups of fighters & bombers - the fighters would "escort" the bombers), etc. I think to keep from using every ship as a "ram", you would have to have a special ship unit crew the ship, and a recruitable character be in command (they would get a chance to escape but may get killed/captured). For capturing ships, you must use certain troop units for boarding, and then the captured ship can NOT be used for the remainder of the battle. 2) Refit/Upgrade/Customize capital ships. Using the technology tree to develop better weapons, armor, shields, engines, etc. It would be nice to bring a ship back to dock and have it upgraded. This would cost extra resources/credits as well as time. You could also change items around on the basic ship makeup (more weapons, but less armor; more fighters, but less troops; basically generate a give-n-take system. The more changes done, the more cost and time. 3) Multi-factions: Have the Hapes consortium, Corporate Sector, etc. be neutral factions during the game. Have them also create fleets/troops/fighters and control systems. Use diplomacy to sway them to your side (and keep them there, lest they quit or join the other side) or invade them (where they possibly join the other side or just remain "neutral" but fight you). 4) Hyperlanes: travel between systems on hyper lanes is quicker. This also means having space stations/nav buoys in deep space where interdictors can protect systems/sectors from invaders. "Survey ships" would be required to find new hyper lanes into new territory. Hyper lane maps could be bought from informants for money, or stolen via espionage missions. System-to-system travel per the original game would be practically non-existent (you could still try, but most should end in failure: i.e. ship destruction). 5) More units: More capital ships, more characters, more troop types, more starfighters, more planetary systems, more resources per system; basically MORE of everything. Other good ideas (not in a special order): a) Pre-game "setup" editor. b) On going espionage missions/auto-explore probes. c) Missions for starfighters (like sabotage missions against troops/facilities/ships/fighter units). d) Specialized systems (Kuat, Fondor make faster ships; Thyferra "heals" characters troops faster; etc). e) Crew experience. This could be done using the the "number" of days since the unit was created. If damaged during battles, then when replacements arrive the experience would average out with the "new recruits". For ships to have experience, there should be a new "unit" for ship crews, otherwise how do "chunks" of metal get experience? They can't, it's the crew that gets experience. Starfighter units would work the same in that they would get experience based on longevity, plus an averaging when new replacements arrive. Extra bonus experience would be added for surviving battles. This means ground troops would also have to change to be more like fighter units (A troop regiment being made up of twelve companies/squads/whatever, like a fighter unit being twelve individual fighters). f) More ground assault/combat options. Maybe taking over a system takes several days (a ground combat scenario like the space based battles? similar to EAW but not that complex). g) Nuisance events with Crime Lords/Bounty Hunters/Pirates. h) Espionage to steal: "plans" for ships, facilities, troops, hyper lanes. Deep plant "moles" to keeps tabs on certain units/characters. i) Build multiple units at a time at systems with multiple similar-facilites. For example: currently if you have 10 shipyards all are used, with new ships being built only after the previous ship is complete. Change this so you can specify which shipyards contribute to which ship; i.e. 5 work on an ISD, while 3 others build a Lancer, and the final 2 building starfighters. j) Better blockade scenarios: The best example given: How can an un-armed transport blockade an entire system? I roughed out a system such that a number of ships required (based on numbers of turbolasers/ion cannons/fighters) versus the economical outpout (number of mines/refineries) of the system; so basically the more a system produces, the more ships required to pull off a total blockade, otherwise the blockade is only partially (a percentage) effective. k) Hero Units/Flagships: These units (only so many allowed per side) get special combat bonuses, and popular support bonuses. Of course should they "lose" a battle, negative "bonuses" would apply. l) Special one-time event/items: Finding the Katanna Fleet;finding Despot Xim's treasure;finding the Armory ships of Alderaan; etc, etc. m) Timelines: Clone Wars, Galactic Civil War, Vong-NR, and/or just pick Side A vs Side B. These are just some of the ideas most have submitted that I thought would really make for a nice game. There were several other ideas that I thought were too distractive or impossible to do without creating a mess of a game (hyper micro management). But, you need to decide for yourself.

Merry Christmas to the SWR community

*REMOVED* You sound like a slick-sidewinder to me; all of your "posts" are SPAM and should be deleted from the system ! EVADERS!!! Hack his crap out of the forums. Putting your dribble here on Paul's thread just rubs me the wrong way and sticks in my crawl . May the fleas of a thousand rabid mangey coyotes infest your crotch . And DON'T COME BACK! Oh, and Merry Christmas to the SWR community

And another year passes, my friend. Maybe I'll play a game of Rebellion in your honor (As Impreials, of course! )

Rob, I hope you don't mind but I picked out a wedding cake just for you and the "Mrs" ... http://img252.imageshack.us/img252/4503/weddingcake.jpg http://img44.imageshack.us/img44/7128/weddingringsx.jpg Enjoy!

From what I recall, shooting a pistol at the water works, but not for rifles (the faster velocity of the rifle bullet actually causes it to shatter on impact, but not so with the slower pistol shot). Shooting underwater does work, to a degree (automatics are NOT automatic anymore ). A pistol (automatic or revolver) can cause damage if shot at point blank range (within 1 inch or less; actually contact works best). A rifle has an effective range of 8-10 feet maximum. Spearguns still seem to work best though

Sure they do. Haven't you been watching Mythbusters? Oh, sorry ... you missed the last two years of TV. It depends on the gun and bullet actually, plus you can fire underwater (assuming your bullets didn't let water get it, which they usually don't). There is a difference between shooting INTO water, and shooting WHILE underwater.

Having a "tough" opponent would be awesome, ... but ... (you knew it was coming) ... the AI, is still the same crappy AI. I have also dreamed of engaging in combat against an awesome enemy fleet. But I've come to the realization that the AI will always plot against me. If you were to "plant" a large enemy fleet somewhere (an SSD with a dozen or two ISD's at Endor) there is nothing to prevent the AI from "hacking" that glorious fleet to bits, sending ships all over the galaxy the very next game day; so much for the "awesome" fleet. Of course that's just a possibility, not an actuality; but based on actual gaming experience, there is a high probability it will happen. But I'm willing to risk it, hence the long tedious, complex, boring, mind boogling search through a "saved game" file. I'll look into seeing what I can "flesh out" easily for others to use. I haven't been actively doing this for awhile, so getting back to speed may take abit of time.

Danish, I've noticed you've been digging through some of the "older posts" (even commenting on topics dusty for 4 years ); have you checked out Savegame Hex Editing Format yet? It already has some of the answers you're looking for, particularly here and here. I've already determined some of the important game info for each system: it's affliation (Rebel, Imperial or Neutral), is there a population or not, is there a military occupation, what is the percent of system support, what's the garrison requirements, how many surplus garrison troops there are, the system detection rating, the number of energy slots and how many used, the number of raw material slots and how many used, the flags for if a system has been explored or not, plus there are several I have yet to figure out. I've been working on doing what you're suggesting for quite some time; off and on (mostly "off"). I just haven't tested most of it just yet It's more complicated than you think. I believe the savegame format keeps a listing of all "items" constructed and/or manufactured at the beginning of the game; every item has a unique identification number. Once the format is determined for the item saved, you could copy it to get more, but you need to know where the unique identification number is located and modify it. The ID number must be incremented, but I don't know if or where this ID number is stored. Who knows what will happen if two items have the same ID number (probably a game crash)? And then you have to "locate" your new item on a system somewhere. The item list does NOT contain this data, only data on the item itself (I think). I haven't yet studied or worked on this "item list" in any detail, but I have worked quite extensively on "what" is located at each system, like this. This example only has 1 mine and 1 refinery, but you get the idea if it has several, plus troops, facilities, fighters, spec forces, characters, capital ships; it can get quite busy. It is an extremely tedious task, slow going and down right depressing to think about. My spreadsheet of a large galaxy saved game is 500 megs, but did not get the entire save game file loaded (I maxed out the MS Excel spreadsheet). Changes, calculations, anything changed takes several minutes to compute through (I always turn off "automatic calculations"). I'm sure most of the problems come from my spreadsheet formulas and coding, but I just haven't spent any time trying to refine any of it. Which is problably why I don't work on it much. Someday I might get back to it, or even experiment some more. Maybe I play around with it abit now ...

You're welcome

Try contacting Def, he mentioned he was heavy into it (hence his "not" being here). Of course since he's "not" here, it could take some time for him to read this and answer . E-mail would be best.

I use decoys on espionage, sabotage, abduction (assassination) and uprising missions only. What's the point of using a decoy for diplomacy? Either you're wasting that (diplomatic decoy) characters time (they could be working on getting more political support on a different system), or they weren't really rated as a diplomat to begin with (in which case, why use as a "decoy"?). I also believe "incite uprising" missions by special forces (only) are a total waste of time and resources. If you're not using characters as your main source (with spec force support), then don't do it at all. I can use the resources better getting other spec forces (or for other tasks, i.e. sabotage).

Good job Def! Keep them coming

The only way to do that would be (story wise) "that Luke has already been captured and turned" and change one of the Empire characters to a "Dark Luke". Of course this now leaves you with what to do with the "Good Luke" on the side of the Alliance

Change your screen resolution?

The thread is over here. PM me your e-mail address

Unless, of course, you use a modified galaxy

If you have a hexeditor you could try to change the "ship class" value in the CAPSHPSD.DAT file from 14 (hex) to 18 (hex). 14 (hex) is the "class code" for capital ships & 18 (hex) is the "class code" for the Death Star. The class code is the 17th byte in each ship record. I'm not sure if that will work, or what would happen with your fleets, because two Death Stars can NOT be in the same fleet, or orbiting the same planet (per program: because of gravitational forces, yada yada yada ...); therefore, two "ships" with the class code of a DS might not be able to be together in the same fleet or system. Best guess, give it a try and see what happens.

Well, maybe the upcoming TV series might generate some new enthusiasm for the site. Currently only Clone Wars on Cartoon Network is presently "representing" the SW universe to the public.

I believe the ion cannons take down shields faster than turbolasers/lasers. Lasers are darn neither worthless unless going against fighters or the smallest capital ships (I wonder how many corvettes it would take to knock out a SSD ). Ion cannons (after shields are out) help take out the target ship systems, but I don't think they do any "real" structural damage.

Ever try the Wing Commander games? Or Descent? Or Descent Freespace? Good games, all of them. I did the original releases of Wing Commander and Descent, and some Wing Commander II, but that was about it for them. I've downloaded (but haven't yet played) the "updated" Tie Fighter" game that was done on the XWA engine (I still need to get XWA first).

I haven't really given much thought into RPG's. The last one I did was "Zoot Wars", and it just kind of faded away ... ...