Teradyn_pff

Very good point. By the way. Anyone know the beta schedule on this game? Will it have an internal only beta, did it start already and I missed it, will there be different modes of beta? This is a game that I would really love to help development on because I have such a high expectation out of the final product.

The books might have been changed once canon was changed as a result of the games, but I understood the first iteration of canon (silly Lucas) had them being sensor domes.

This is all find and well, but do we even know if Coruscant will be a win objective or are we making assumptions based on the way it was done in Rebellion?

Don't you mean like in Star Trek? Seriously though, if we have energy to re-rout to the shields, why wasn't it there in the first place when we went into battle? Never have figured that one out.

I think if, for no other reason, this would not be implemented due to balance. In addition, we have no idea as of yet what orbital bombardment by capital ships means. Is it a minimal attack ala ion cannon of Command & Conquer, or a more realistic full on assault akin to the type of exchange occuring between the ships in space. If modelled properly, the ground portion would be a contest to see whether the attacking force can: 1. Land without being destroyed in transit. (Doesn't look too complete according to the videos.) 2. De-activate any planetary space batteries (ion, turbolaser, etc.). 3. De-activate planetary shields that would prevent a bombardment from doing any damage. From the videos, it would appear a more gamey approach will be used where the ground battle will be more like a traditional RTS where the enemy has to be eliminated completely with ground troops and a few "special" attacks in the form of rare orbital bombardments, bomber runs, etc. Back to the subject of gameplay and balance. If the above numbered scenarios were to describe the role in the game of ground attack, it would then be followed by a removal of ground forces and a general blistering bombardment from above until no enemy life remained (especially from the Imperial tactics). Basically all combat would revolve around protecting the batteries and shields or destroying them, depending on your side. It would basically be the dreaded escort/protect mission we all hate in RTS games for the defender every single time a land battle began. Although I am more hardcore on putting realism in every aspect possible, I understand I need to take what I can get since the game has to sell more than the 1 copy I will buy. I am eagerly anticipating this game as it is (IMO) the modern day version of Rebellion many of us have been praying for. My $0.02

Given the scope of this conflict, I don't think that the shields are going to be directional. They probably wont do the shields right anyway, going with the usual game idea that the domes are shield generators. They never were, they are sensors. The shields were actually projected from a network of little protrutions like antena all over the hull.

If the debris is purely cosmetic, then you could have an option for them to sink out of view during the battle and/or not show up at all if they were persistant.

Never heard anything like that Naja. Think they meant that the Empire wouldn't automatically know when the Rebels took over a neutral planet?

This is a good question because we haven't really (or at least I haven't found it) seen alot of details on the ground battles and the specific functions we can perform. There are still some questions on building during combat. I think when we have seen it it has been in skirmish mode, but who is to know? Do you have the ability to go into the planet view and build up your base while the galactic map is going on? I think we have been so giddy about the idea behind the levels of war here that we have forgotten to ask about some of the minor (but important) details.

I wonder how the people feel that evacuated to Houston and the area? They have to be thinking that someone has it out for them.

My thoughts exactly. Destroyed ships seemed to drift below the 2d plane of play, so I'm not sure if they'd have any real impact on play at all. Still, I'm guessing it would be some sort of restriction of movement for ships... basically to stop them from crashing into it. Hard to say really. I think from what we have seen, they will drift to the -1 plane but there is no doubt that it will be alot cooler for the cap ships of a destroyed fleet to be sitting there than to just poof. Anyone know whether or not the debris will be present after the battle? It would be cool to engage the enemy over a system a second time with the hulks of his last encounter with you there to remind him why he should be running.

My comment on the video from another thread is valid as a response for that Foshjedi:

About the shield generator... or more specifically, the power generator for the shield generator. Why is it assumed that it was outside in ESB? The problem was that the shield prevented a bombardment by the star destroyers... which included the Executor. Now if there was a shield bubble that prevented space based bombardment and the generator was not under that... why could that not have been bombarded? I was just thinking about this. Now once the generator was destroyed, Veers told Vader that the generator was gone and "you may start your landing". This would imply that you can't just dropship through the shield but does this mean that the AT-ATs could fire through the shield or that they could walk through it? What about the possibility that the shield had an umbrella effect, meaning you couldn't drop or fire down or through it but it doesn't extend down to the ground so the AT-AT group had to drop outside the umbrella and make the journey underneath it? In the game they have the shield extending to the ground ala Episode I gungans (curse you Lucas). I think this is a mistaken interpretation of the way shields work. Kind of like how x-wing, rebel strike and the like have the two domes on the command tower of a Star Destroyer being shield generators, assuming that there is a projected bubble effect. Also how they did the Droidekas. Truth is that those domes are sensors and the shield generators are hundreds of little mini tower... or antenae sticking out of the Star Destroyer's hull in a pattern like the pins on Pinhead from the horror movie (can't remember the name). If you think about it... the individual antenae projecting their own little umbrella configuration shield spaced properly would overlap making a very tightly knit shield "coating". On a planetary scale it may be easier to have a huge generator projecting one big umbrella shield or multiple generator towers making an overlaping shield group like on a Star Destroyer. Regardless, there is a fundamental problem with the placement of the power generator. Petroglyph said that it was like that in the movies but I think if you examine the evidence from ESB, the movies dictate a different scenario altogether. Does any of this make sense?

The Devs have mentioned this before, I think they are planning on adding it into the "polishing" stage (or current stage) I hope so. There are a huge number of things that are tactically and strategically desicive that we have hints at but no useful details. Anyone else notice that we keep seeing the same units and battles over and over? New planets are cool I guess, but having Coruscant is a no brainer. The true thing I want to see is the land battle map for Coruscant. Talk about urban warfare. Realistically, a ground battle for Coruscant would be a tactical and logistical nightmare. There are no fields for open battles. Probably not even enough space to put down a command structure. Wonder how they will handle this and Bespin? These screens and new demo are annoying me in a way because they are rehashing stuff. Makes me kinda worried that they are going to let things slide in a big way because they have the eye-candy appeal and the massive Star Wars purchasing base.

If you listen closely to what he is saying, the implication that you can destroy the station or the ships with the Death Star is very heavy, but there is still a possibility that he is referring to conventional destruction with the fleet. I wish they would stop blowing up planets... we have seen that, I want to see it destroy something else. What gets me is that I haven't noticed how the player tells the Death Star to blow up the planet. All I see is the lever to fire. I haven't noticed a targeting move that would indicate the player had to tell the Death Start that the lever being pulled is to blowup planet. This is why I am skeptical about what his statements meant. And another thing: The ships should have been severly damaged in that blast. Look at how far debris was shot out and how close the fleet action was to the planet in relation. There is technical data on the Death Star's shields and how strong they had to be to withstand the resultant blast of a planet exploding. Anyone else think the tie fighters shouldn't have survived that shockwave that extended past the distant Death Star, not to mention the rest of the fleet?

Picks, torches? What are you thinking man? Bring the AT-ATs. Do this up right.

Very interesting. Begs to wonder about how the planet plays into the space combat?

I just re-read the developer diary for Joe Bostic and noted this: Um. Is this a special move, or does this mean that if you get your transports close enough to a planet you can drop troops in the middle of a space battle? And does this mean that the space battle would be bypassed or would the rebel ships just have enough speed to try to out maneuver the Imperial fleet? Raises a whole slew of questions since if the battles are semi-real time, meaning that when a space battle starts, the players' attention is focused there and the rest of the galaxy is paused, then how would a rebel player pull that off? Ugggggggg, I want at least a few solid details. Everything I have read or seen so far, just generates new questions!

They probably wont leave. That is the type of force that chases you home from the playground, kicks down your door and steals your lunch.

Uh, that looks alot like Reba McEntire. Who posed for that?

Also another thing that could potentially destroy this tactic at the outset: do we even know if we can do anything in the galactic view while a space battle is going on? If it is a situation where once a battle is joined in space it has to be completed one way or another before the regular control is restored then there is no way to bring reinforcements like you described. On the other hand, if you can go between the galactic map and the space battle.. what is to stop another space battle from going on? And for that matter, what is to stop 3 space battles and 5 ground battles going on at once? For multiplayer this isn't so bad since the other player has to pay attention to one thing at a time like you do, but against the AI.... ouch. I thought they mentioned something about the galactic map being real-time, but what does that mean? It was also mentioned that once the space battle has been "resolved" then you can conduct the ground assault with the remaining fleet. This makes me think that the battles are going to be linear in terms of occurence. You move a fleet in galactic mode, when it gets there, galactic mode freezes and the players are put into the space battle. Once that is over, if the attacker wins he THEN gets the option to assault the ground. If he chooses to do so, then the game is shifted to the surface of the planet. Once that is over with, the trailer video suggests that the defender can attack the space fleet with what remains on the surface (although it did seem to be just rebel transports fleeing the blockade to me). This seems to be a good way to conduct the order of events but I think there are a couple of things that could affect the way the battles operate. Can you lead the defenders far enough away as to get your transports close enough to the planet to launch the assault while the space battle is going on? If so, can the ground battle be affected by the space battle above (cap ships from both sides maneuvering in close to the planet to offer supportive surface barrages)? This might not be a possibility, but the mechanics of how a surface installed ion cannon can affect the space battle has yet to be fully explained, nor the cap surface attacks for that matter. It could be a valid tactic to drop a strike force quickly to take out the ion cannon to help out the space battle. The necessity of doing this would be determined by the power of an ion cannon though. Someone may have understood the answer to some of these issues better, and if so, please share that with us. There are so many unanswered details that are critical to all aspects of how this game will be played that it makes the mind hurt.

Well, the thing I am thinking about is Rebellion. When you play the Empire, the only possible use for blowing up a planet you would have is if you have found the rebel base. Any other use is completely stupid because it ticks off everybody and you destroy what would be a good resource producing planet. The only reason would be at the end of the game if you have captured the rebel leaders or you are playing a HQ only game. This makes me wonder what good a death star will be if it can not help in fleet battles... what benefit would there be to spend the enormous amount of credits it will take to build (and protect) the thing? Being able to pop into a system, use the superlaser on a big rebel cap ship, and then retreat would be an extremely powerful use of the Death Star. Popping into that system and blowing the planet up... what good would come of that? We haven't really seen any details on faction with planets, whether it is affected by activities ala Rebellion, so maybe the Death Star wouldn't hurt your rep if you blew up a planet with it... but I can almost garrantee you that you wont get the same amount of credits from the planet area if you blow it up. Fosh, what I said about how the game is being made was referring to whether or not the space portion would be able to handle the Death Star as a real object. If you can have a space battle around the thing... I dunno. I think it would be extremely cool if it had its own gravitational field... meaning it would work kindof like a black hole in Star Trek Armada I & II. Your ship loses its engines and it gets pulled in! There are so many possibilities available that they should be farely no-brainers if it is being modelled as a unit in the space area. That is a big if though. You can't have a game like this without the Death Star of course... but if it is like rebellion... the Death Star will be something you don't even build until you have already won the game basically. This would be a sad thing IMO because the true use of the Death Star should be such that the Imperial player has to make the decision "Do I gamble and use the credits I have to build the Death Star or should I instead use those for conventional fleets?". The Death Star should have more to it than blowing up planets (which you probably will not want to do strategically 99% of the time). It should provide an extremely potent fleet killing capacity with its storage capabilities for cap ships, fighters and its superlaser (upgradable to target large capital ships) not to mention its emense storage capacity for ground assault. The implications of the possibilities for the Death Star will change everything about how we conduct the galactic and space portions of the game! Absolutely nothing we try to strategise has any real merit in the overall game until we know more about the Death Star. Even a possible inclusion of the SSD will not be as significant because of the sheer difference in the type of platform we are talking about. There will be a more conventional balancing element for the Rebels against the SSD, but the balance for the Death Star is its achilles heel and that is not the same thing. The thing that has me perplexed is that screenshot with the x-wing in the trench. There are what looks like, real time battle going on in the background, which would imply that the screenshot was taken with the cinematic camera. There were turbolasers on the sides of the trench as well, which could be there for just the little trench map view but could they be actual hardpoints on the Death Start that can target and fire on enemy capital ships and fighters (with small percentage to hit of course)? If so... how long could Home One for example last against a direct assault from the thousands of turbolasers available on the Death Star? There are so many details like this that I never would have thought possible to even consider in a game. But I have to wonder whether or not Petroglyph will be the ones to do it. Anyone that has played a Star Wars game RTS, Flight Sim, etc knows that when the Death Star is in play, it is a bitmap in the background, ground map in a special level, and so on. Will Empire at War be the first game to actually model (to a reasonable level of realism) the Death Star? My brain hurts from the anticipation and the war between my usual extreme scepticism and a sense of a new hope. Sorry, couldn't help it.

Eh? How is that Indum?

Most RTS don't have persistency like this one does, so if they dont have something similar to this in already, they will probably have to add it in soon. During the E3 show, I think one of the demonstrators mentioned something about a retreat. I can't find that video right now, but if anyone knows what part I am talking about, did they show the retreat and what did it look like?

Naja, I think we agree for the most part. But I am a hardline cynic i guess. I think that the United States needs to take care of our own problems before we worry about fixing others'. Truth of the matter is, this has more to do with the OIL than any human rights issue as you pointed out. It just makes me sick to see the hypocracy of it all. We as a country have no right to interfere with any other country unless they request it, and I don't think Sadaam asked for our help there. Our constitution lists our rights and rules as citizens of the nation that that constitution governs, it does not apply to any other country unlike what alot of people seem to think. Mark my words, maybe not in our lifetime, but well before 3000 all of this goodie goodie fantasy people believe in will be knocked to the wayside and the raw caveman-day rules will be reestablished. The United States is like those college students all over the world that always seem to be ready to rally a cause, demonstrate, hold idealistic beliefs. Too young and stupid to come to true grips with reality as it exists. Those idealists eventually grow up and you don't see them active like they were, there are more real issues to deal with and sometimes life just sucks. America will have that happen, but the trouble is that it is a very large country, and any depression or rage that results from coming to terms with reality will probably be very unpleasant, possibly catastrophic. Imagine a suicidal teenager that could take the whole world with it with just a single push of a button.