Teradyn_pff

One of the questions I would like to see answered is how the death star interacts with the environment. You can't have something that big close to the planet without tidal waves, etc. There should be some minimum distance that the DS has to stay away.

You know, there is a very good question in there. I wonder if we can skirmish against the computer in the 8 way mode and/or in the galactic mode? I guess it was assumed but has it been given as a definate feature?

From the new video, that I finally got to see because I came home for lunch, it appears that when the death star is destroyed that it will be a cinematic event and not a regular unit action. This makes me wonder about my questions about the DS being treated as a regular unit with reguard to hardpoints and regular attacks (turbolasers and ion cannons). Did anyone else see vader's tie close to the end there? I rewound it a couple of times to make sure because at first I thought it was a Tie Interceptor, but oh well.

For the campaign I can see that as being the end goal for the Rebels, but for 1v1 multiplayer, how can the Empire be forced to build it? It was mentioned that it will be expensive, so it is not like it will be there by default.

Correct, but the graphic is very blah, it is a collision between the explosion ring graphic and the DS model that is not handled or even acknowledged by the engine in that video. And the issue of the fleet that was closer to the planet than the DS from what I could tell has still not been dealt with. The small fighters (tie fighters especially) should not have survived.

Is there any useful information in this video, or is it just eye-candy? And can anyone find this video in wmv format?

Anyone see this trailer in another format than quicktime, please let me know. I can't install quicktime up here at work. Interesting thing is that this trailer isn't on the EAW page at lucasarts and Petro doesn't have the info on their site either.

Since this is supposed to be very modable, and since it makes sense from a design standpoint, the ability to carry troops will be a value, or attribute of a particular ship. You can either change a value in the ships XML description or if it is not there you should be able to add it in. Either way, you could probably change a simple value to give, say an ISD the proper troop complement. The only limiting factor to this is the interface with which the troops land. If the carrying vessels is the one you actually select to come to the surface then having troops on an ISD will be an interesting issue since even in Canon, the ISD can not land.

If you can scrap your ships, I would like it if they did it the way that Star Trek Armada II did it. You had to take your ship back to a shipyard and it took a while to dismantle it. I think about 25% as long as it took to make it would be a good number as well as tying up the shipyard until it is done. It should not be an instant money thing.

If this is the case, then I believe it would be referring to the single player Rebel campaign. They have mentioned that it would be very expensive to build a Death Star and I don't believe at this point it will be a requirement for the Empire to build one in multiplayer.

What you are referring to is the blast wave that passes through the Death Star and incedentally, the entire fleet between the Death Star and the planet. Petro has already acknowledged that there is an issue there, so hopefully there will be some reprocussion. As of now, though, it doesn't appear that anything was hurt by the blast.

If you are strapped for cash, then the DS would be the first thing you would scrap. We dont know if there are maintenance points though like in rebellion, so it may be necessary to get rid of some units rather than lose them to maintenance.

Yes, for destroying a planet, the Death Star will do nicely, but what use does it have other than that? (the burning question that we still do not have an answer for)

Whats Base Delta Zero? It was a special order for an Imperial force to bombard the planet until the crust cracks, thus making the entire surface uninhabitable. The interesting thing is that a single ISD could do it. If they have bombardment in this game, it will be severely nerfed from the true Star Wars canon equivalent.

Well, I am back with more questions. But first I would like to request that the moderators keep this thread free of non-question posts like the one above (no offense Joyce). This thread should be of great value in the upcoming chat if we keep it focused on that purpose. As such, it would be beneficial for it to be stickied also. I know that I am posting alot more than just one question, but I am aiming at bringing up questions that I think of and wording them in such a way as to not leave room for a vague or incomplete response from the devs. It would be better for us to get a "we can't answer that" than an unclear or misguiding answer. Continued: 11. How is the frequency/duration/quantity of bomber runs during a ground battle handled? Can we perform bombing runs as often as we have ready bombers in the fleet in space? Can we have all of our bombers come down at once (or really close together) at different points on the map, or is there some mechanism that restricts this like a timer? 12. Will the defending player be able to have stationed fighters on the planet to allow for defensive air cover against the bomber attacks and are these fighters able to attack regular units? Example being an X-Wing strafing an AT-AT. The X-Wing blasters should have a more decisive effect against the AT-AT than the blasters of the rebel speeders. 13. It was mentioned before that Star Destroyers can build Tie Fighters and Tie Bombers. Does this mean that fighters are built buy the ships that can carry them, and does this include space stations, ground bases and the Death Star? 14. How are destroyed units handled in space and on the ground? Does the debris from a destroyed ship stay present in space during the battle and are ships impeded by it or can they pass through it or does it just dissappear? The same question on destroyed units on the ground. If the debris stays present, does it stay for future battles, or does it get cleared when everyone goes back to the galactic map? 15. Can individual units or groups be retreated or does the entire force need to retreat at once? If the whole group has to, what happens to units that are unable to make it to the extraction point? Do they automatically die, can they fight it out and inflict casualties until dead? All for now, will bring some more up as I think about them. Please feel free to reword these questions to make them more condusive to useful responses.

I have listed this in my questions in the chat questions thread actually.

We do not want it to degenerate to that. One thing I like about these forums vs LEC is that we usually have well thought-out discussions. We obviously will have alot of people start showing up here as a result of the live chat announcement, but we all need to keep the same level of involvement that we had before and continue to post thoughtfully and constructively.

What I think is interesting is the fact that the ISD could hold 6 squadrons and that was reflected in the game, but the Death Star was only given 24. I think that the problem is that our current computer technology is not sufficient to properly model the Death Star in a game as of yet.

This is exactly the type of post I think he is referring to. What the issue is, is that it seems that all of your posts are either one-liners or small sentence fragments. They give the appearance of being post-count boosting. Every once in a while a small responce is all that is needed, but the conversations on the boards are better served by longer, more thought-out posts.

well, he means when you start a game, singleplayer or multiplayer, that you can choose to play in a small galaxy, medium galaxy, or a large galaxy. Is this speculation or was this mentioned somewhere?

Nope, stationary around the planet. Ecsept for the DS. Speaking of which, we don't even have confirmation that the DS will have any fighters attached to it.

Actually, there is no benefit to that. The asteroid field that will be present will not actually come in to play in the galactic mode and unless you have units or a base there, they will probably not even drop out of galactic mode while moving through.

Jan, I think the real question is if you can actually go down to the ground map view and position your stuff when you build it, or whether you just select your planet and tell it what you want and the defenses are placed automatically. From what I have seen so far, I am afraid it will be the latter. I hope I am wrong on this point.

Might want to check your ISD creation to make sure you can build troops and all... you know.. with the pop cap.

I wish they would stop saying this if it isn't true. And if it is true, how? The sequence of battle is one thing that still confuses me. If it is linear, how do reinforcements show up? If it is real time, could you drop troops on the ground before the enemy is taken out in space? And if that is possible, could you have orbital bombardments happening from both fleets on the ground? Too many issues with this part of the game. Delphi, could you shed some light on this question? I assume that the game is too far into developement for this to be changed from how it is currently implemented, so there should be some kind of answer available that is set in stone for release. It could be that you are only allowed to land a set number of troops on the ground at a time, but as you lose them, you can call down more troops that are in orbit? That's one possibility Trouble is, we don't know what he meant by pop cap. Is he referring to a ground/space pop cap or does he mean a galaxy pop cap. I am very interested in this aspect myself but I think as for fixing it goes, this is one value that should definately be modable, given its nature.