Lytyr

That would be so useful, i am fed up of games i can't play against my friends because of needing two discs. Same here - or worse, two CD keys. The only RTS games I know that you can play with a single disc and CD key are the Genie engine games - AoE, AoK, and SWGB. Sadly, those games are... well... old. I'd love to play the newer, more in-depth stuff with my dad (whom I game with often), but a lot of it doesn't work. We still get a kick out of 400 medieval units facing it off on the battlefield, but it's not quite as fun as playing, say, Empires or C&C: Generals would be.

Even more simple solution: Don't put it in! Why should you put something in that is no where near the timeline? Cloaking devises were used by Jorus C'Boath and GA Thrawn. Unless the mod is going through a campaign all the way to that point, cloaking devises should not be in. And if it does go that far, the New Republic would have enough money to purchase it also, at least my New Republic would. Well also the Empire wouldn't last that long anyway. The Rebels would crush them! Only 5 years after RotJ was the cloaking device discovered, and then used. IT was likely developed long before that. The storage room itself was a top-secret area that only Palpy new the true location to, I believe. Which means for it to have be in there, it would have to have been completed, at the very latest, a week or so before the start of RotJ. However, with all the DS2 commotion and so on, I doubt the Emperor had time to get the thing working. My guess is it was finished around the time of episodes IV-V, maybe a wee bit after. Considering A-wings were also created during that time periode (more or less), I see no reason a cloaking device couldn't be accessible - at high cost, and only to the player who owns Wayland at that time. Cost could be high, and charged for each ship on which is would be installed. Don't forget - at the time, there was no reliable way to attack from within the cloaking shield (barring liberal use of the Force), so it would be for surprise only.[/i]

An easier (and funner) way to hide ships would be cloaking devices! (hint hint Petro! ) After all, dear 'ol Palpy had a cloaking device hidden in Mount Tantiss, on Wayland... and Wayland is in-game. There are only three worthwhile things on that world: Cloaking device, Cloning vats (bah, do we really need those?) and Joruus C'baoth... who, in a rather indirect way, caused the death of Thrawn. Cloaking devices could work like the other things on ships (I believe I read that you can upgrade individual cap ships with special equipement, such as more turbolasers, more shields... cloaking devices?). There are also jammers for missiles, as available on Interdictor cruisers, although that doesn't have much in the way of relevance.

Thanks for the reply, Delphi - nice to know that it's not been neglected, even though it might be difficult.

This thought just occured to me - will this game be playable over a LAN without needing two copies of the game, like so many other games out there? I hope we can pop the CD in, start the game, then take it out and put in another computer with the same version installed and play like that - like how AoE and AoK worked, if you guys know what I mean. Do we know if this is the case?

Interesting, thanks! Do we know much about its in-game capacities, fighter complement, etc? If it will be good against capital ships, does that mean it has a substantial bonus against them, or just that its weapons to mad damage?

Yes, it obviously shouldn't be a constant phenomenon. For predicting, I was thinking installing satellite systems above the planet - if we stretched a bit and made the satellites attackable, then there's even more stuff to do when taking over a planet.

Just think of it this way... hero's aren't all equal! For example, if everything is sane, Kyle, Chewie, Han, the untrained Luke, and Mon Mothma could all easily be fragged by the Emperor (imagines Mon Mothma trying to kill Palpatine by overloading him with diplomatic work). Obviously Palpy won't be THAT strong, but just to give you the general idea: the two Sith would probably be nastily stronger then most of the Rebel heros, except Yoda and maybe Obi-Wan. One that interests me is this "Accuser". What is it/he/she? I assume it's a ship, as that doesn't sound like a person's name, but you never know. Any details on it?

I hope it's as effective on gameplay as possible, as well as being predictable - so if you're on Hoth and have sent airspeeders all over, and suddenly a blizzard comes through... the airspeeders will be grounded rather hastily and violently. Units should slow down, infantry should have reduced hit points, and nobody should see as well - for snow. In rainy weather, mechanical units could rust out a bit and become weaker; in electrical storms, machines could randomly get zapped and become disabled; etc. Would make the game that much better.

In light of news that we can't bring in reinforcements during a battle, I've been attempting to think up new ways of trapping the enemy in a situation which he doesn't expect. This may prove more or less difficult, depending on the quality and frequency of Intelligence reports available to both Imperial and Alliance forces, as well as the enemy's cunning - however, there are sure to be some basic strategies that can be built upon or modified depending on the situation. What I want to do here is start a discussion on ways to capture or deceive the enemy into an unfavourable situation - pertaining primarily to the Imperial side, since the Rebels are made to sneak around in the first place, while the Empire can't exactly hide 5 Imperial Star Destroyers behind an asteroid field. So we need to find out ways to trick them, either to make them loose equipement, or to let us gain ground. Here are a few things I've come up with; let me know what you think, and post any other ideas that come to mind. Also, note that you can also deceive your opponent into thinking you are doing any of these as well - if he doesn't know what you're doing, all the better for you. In addition, none of these are foolproof; the best player would react properely to any and all of these. I'm also making some assumptions about gameplay and Intelligence - since we don't know everything, some of these may or may not work. This might be a little long, but in the end this is essentially a tactical diary, so it will get longer. Feel free to correct me if I've made mistaken assumptions about something. These are also tailored for humans, as well, as the AI's capacities are as of the moment unknown to us. Double-feint: this seems, to me at least, as a fairly simple tactic, but at the same time rather long to execute, and not necessarily easy to predict. You pull together a bunch of ships, such as Tartans and Acclamators, and you jump into an ill-defended system near the border, and wreck the local fleet, if there is one. Then you run away. The enemy might move some forces to the area; jump in again, with maybe a Victory thrown in, and repeat the process. Do it a third time, but with a worthless little fleet like three Tartans. Then hit a far-away system with a group of Victories and a few Imperials. The enemy will realise the other attacks were feints, and they were. Take the system if you can, but don't commit too much of a force to it. The enemy will come stamping back, and may or may not take the planet. Repeat the initla feints with similar group make-ups, but on a different system. A mediocre enemy will expect an attack far away from the feints, and will mobilise forces to anticipate the actual attack. Surprise hmi by pulling a half-dozen Imperials and several Victories into the feinted system and taking it from under their noses. If the enemy reacts poorly, in the surprise you might be able to take another system or two, as well. Encirclement: certainly a basic strategy, but I'll put it here all the same. Through combat with your enemy, try to get an idea of his favourite units and how be outfits them. Then look around the planets you own, and see if any of them gives a significant bonus that the enemy would really like. Make sure it's not on the border, but not too deep either. Preferably, have it be one system from your enemy's territory. The pefect border planet would also have a trade route running through it. Remove your space forces from the area - leave it open for him to take. On the bait-world, leave a large ground force, to make it a pain to take. Put in turbolaser batteries and ion cannons, just for fun. If he does want that planet, and isn't any Thrawn, he'll pounce. Wait for him to get to the bait planet, and then jump one force into the border system he took to get there. Take it back, then hold it. Assuming that he's taken the space over the bait-world, but not the ground, you can safely launch a strike force - not from the border, but somewhere else - onto him; prioritise destroying weapon systems. Forget about engines and armor - he's got nowhere to run. If he beats that back, he'll have had quite a few losses, as well as disabled weapons - just mop him up with the border force, if that's the case. At worst, you've lost one strike force, while he's lost a lot more - hopefully a nasty lot of ground forces, and ships to Ion and Turbolaser batteries. Here's where one can hope that there's more to individual battles then "Go here, AI takes over, hope to win". Not to mention, he'll be distracted... so you can always "sneak" another force in somewhere else. Running interference: this is one that involves you knowing well how your enemy plays. If he likes to send spies everywhere to figure out where you're going, then it would be best to try and trick him, to confuse him. Use his studiousness against him. Simply put, create chaos all around. Move your ships to and fro accross the border and trade routes. Lash out randomly with Victory SDs and TIE complements. If you've got a Death Star and that victory condition is off, loose it one some useless planet that gives him low income, a small base and no decent bonuses or heros. Send Darth Vader on a suicide mission into some deep-space Nebula. Make him thing you've gone insane, basically - but make sure you've always got lots of ships, and I mean lots. If you're lucky, he might think you've got some master plan going on and go paranoid. If he can't predict what you're doing, he'll either scramble his forces about and lose track of everything, or he'll decide to stampede into your stronghold and take over. Hopefully though, he'll have difficulty choosing a target, if you are patroling everything evenly. When you can see a large force amassing, however, you know it's time to focus: pull everything somewhere and hit a planet that the enemy considers important. You just have to hope that he doesn't just ignore everything and run over to take some planet YOU hold dear - then again, many players don't take loosing their holdings easily.

That Legacy of War mod looks incredible, I must say. I'll give a crack at the regular game first, then load up the mod and see how it goes. Any chance you could add Hapes to the list of civs? What I wouldn't give to command Battle Dragons about... Also, where are you getting source info, such as ground units used by the Chiss Ascendancy? I don't recall hearing much about them in the way of ground forces.

Names that might be cause for fun: Phlying Phreak Rainbow Warrior 5 The Black Pearl Your Doom [Emperors_StarDestroyer_1] SHOOT ME Home Run Chimaera's Aft Turbolaser Holographic Star Destroyer Yammka's Mount Tee-hee... shouldn't you be retreating instead of reading SD names? ... Hm, might not be room for that last one . I'd rather call my ships things like Hell's Fire, Death's Hammer, Winter's Fury, etc. though.

I'm 99% sure there are no turns in this game - just making sure, though, this gave me a start .

I'm quite certain it's been confirmed that there will be "over 80 planetary systems" - a planetary system normal consisting of a planet with space around it. Nevertheless, though, he's right in saying that most won't make it in - that would be too insane (not to mention near-identical planets like Talus and Tralus).

Turning off heroes, as in their respawning, or their existance?

Just a little poke, from unit descriptions in screenies anyway, it would appear that the equal to the Corellian Corvette is in fact the Tartan Patrol Ship. P.S. Tartan is an awesome word, I have no idea why though.

I saw two screens one with a SD combat-rated 70, and a MCC combat-rated 80... Probably only the Victory-class, however.

Delphi, does that mean we can't bring in reinforcements from nearby, while the battle is already in progress?

Maybe just eye candy... or maybe you can hire them to distract enemy troops (and commanders?).

Yes, that's a side I didn't think of - I admit it wouldn't really work. Better would probably be just to keep throwing stuff at it until you succede, and have if be un-failable.

Heh, nice to know I might be on to something. Spy-type units could be great fun, as well - I wonder if they can only be used duringcombat, or it you can sneak them in while the system is otherwise calm? Planting bombs on ships to thin enemy forces before you strike could prove quite useful.

That's sad news... unressurectable heros would have enhanced both realism and required skill... as well as giving us some fun options (remove all your forces from Planet X or I will blow up Planet Y which happens to have Luke Skywalker on it with my DS). Sad.

Strategic points? Hm, I'm in the dark now - when were these talked about?

If a rebel player fails to get the X-wing prototype, I would guess that after a set amount of time (say 20-30 minutes?), you get a message saying "Admiring the bravery demonstrated by your failed strike, the Incom design team has defected to your cause", and then the players gains the X-wing - though 30 minutes slower. Or maybe you just keep trying until you get it. I imagine that there might be a "Defend Mon Calamari for X time" mission as well to cement the alliance with the Mon Cal and gain access to their cruisers. Possibly also planet-based mission required to gain access to that planet's bonus (taking over Mount Tantiss on Wayland, for example).

I vote Noghri as well - there should be a mini-mission of diverting funds to Honoghr to restore their ecosystem which would give you access to Noghri commando teams. That is, assuming there even is a Honoghr in-game.