Xenomorphine

I'm not sure that disallowing a unit, which has the primary role of launching missiles, the ability to attack small craft would make much sense. If anything, it should be better than most! I think that, like most games, the AI doesn't have the fog of war applied to it. It seems to know where you are (especially on the ground) and just automatically head there. Not that I begrudge it that, but it's one of the main reasons I would like the user to have the fog of war applied to themselves, too, just simply as an option. As it is, the opposing forces seem to zero in on you, but your own have to perpetually hunt around hte map, even though your ships must have done a full scan of the place.

Another thing I had just forgotten to add on there! Orbital bombardment could work to your advantage: Have it so that ships in orbit can completely destroy factories, but perhaps are unable to find and track vehicles. That way, if a ship capable of doing so is in orbit, the opposing forces would have to rely on whatever land units were originally there, instead of depending on them coming off an assembly line continuously. That way, any land combat won't be negated by the ability to do that, plus it would make the user have to construct at least one unit capable of orbital bombardment for every planetary assault they wish to occomplish, plus make the person in control of that world make a proper amount of units to be stationed there, instead of just hopping ground forces to the frontier.

Units: Several which were missing from the original trilogy. The Assault Gunboat would be very useful! Could be used as a space interdictor and, also, atmospheric strike fighter/anti-armour killer, plus it is shielded! Features: A removal of the fog of war effect, if you are able to build satellite probes over enemy territory (with space superiority) or combat occurs over your own. It should always be removed completely in space, unless the opposing side brings units with it which are capable of jamming sensory abilities. For space, larger maps! Craft barely even deploy before battle is joined. Units need to be selectable in tabs on the lower section of the screen! This was something which not only 'Rome: Total War' had, but was featured in games as long ago as 'War Of The Worlds'. It's frustrating having to do CTRL and A all the time, pause the game and manually select all units of a certain type (CTRL and Q is unreliable and only seems to select them if they are all visible on the screen), when the alternative idea would be far more intuitive. The automated resolve definitely needs to be fixed, too, because it's completely ridiculous as things stand. Units like speeder bikes also need to be zooming around continuously when given a target, as on 'Return Of the Jedi' - not just stand in one single place! They need to be going on strafing runs when a target is selected. I haven't done much for the Alliance side yet, but whenever they send air speeders down to attack my Imperial forces, those ones go on strafing runs, making them hard targets. Speeder bikes need that effect. The Empire not to be destroyed if the Death Star is, but when the Emperor dies in some way. AT-STs to be good at destroying infantry, as they seem useless presently! A key to toggle pause! When: When it is done.

What are everyone's experiences with what seems to wipe out either of the main Alliance tanks, when using the Empire's resources? The Repulsor doesn't really seem to do much! The Alliance ones, even their early versions, seem to carve through them fairly easily and it's quite bizarre. The only thing which seems to work well is using Stormtroopers in 'cover' mode and, even then, it only makes them last long enough to destroy about three or four units (if there are about four or so formations all firing on the same vehicle). I'm sure that if AT-ATs are used, they help to turn the tide of battle more, but you have to wait until level four to obtain those! The AT-ST, on the other hand, doesn't seem to be much good against infantry or vehicles (Stormtroopers seem to destroy infantry better than those are able to) That means basically sitting over planets and blockading them. Why? Because automatic resolve makes the most bizarre equations. What are your most peculiar results with the automatic resolve option? My last one was on a planet surrounded by Imperials, which only had a Y-Wing, level two station and a frigate, against which was sent Tarkin, Vader and a whole fleet of Imperial Star Destroyers. The automated result? All forces destroyed, Tarkin and Vader dead, the space battle lost and the Alliance losing only the Y-Wing formation.

Mine certainly has. Smaller fleets retreating intelligently, if you show up with a superior opposing force. Wonder if it's got something to do with me installing the patch before running it the first time. Most of the reported problems have not shown up for mine yet.

Which of the expectations? The scope of what was first hoped for, no. In terms of doing some incredibly entertaining stuff with what's there, definitely. If they fix a few things, like letting you see all of your deployed units in a battle by means of tabs (as opposed to only heroes), then it could be a truly amazing experience.

Have you looked up the top to see if a fleet has invaded and a battle is about to commence? I've had a similar problem and the game does not force you to go there and the signal sort of blends into the background! You can look around the map, but ships don't want to move and won't do until you have resolved it. Am unsure if that's what happened, but it's worth it to keep that in mind.

They have strengths in different areas and it shows! I play as the Empire and keep getting dwindled down by corvette rushes, then they start bringing in some frigates and so on. But if I can get to the stage of being able to build Star Destroyers of Victory or higher class, on a regular basis, things get easier. Getting there is a problem, however! But wow... This game's intelligence is so far very impressive. Quite challenging and really gives the feel of being immersed in a fluid universe at play. It definitely seems to have that 'one more go' factor there.

I already stated that I wasn't specifying this game, but was instead arguing against those who advocate products in general should be released in an extremely raw form and then patched up to a useable state later. Would you want to buy a car which was almost certainly guaranteed to crash if you drove it, on the understanding that, if you received enough free attention at the local garage, it might possibly let you drive safely?

At times there is. There was a game where everything had been wiped out, l except for a small pirate craft. A group of fighters surrounded it and the game paused for a second or so and then ran for the same length of time, in a continuous loop, until the thing was destroyed and then time cycled almost instantly back to normal and that particular system was designated as victory.

In my experience today, with the patch... The Alliance often actually does retreat! My forces have entered a system with, say, an Imperial SD and three or four Victories and the Alliance, if they realise they won't be able to stan dup to it, just take the option to zoom away from it. The AT-AT does not have infinitely replenishing soldiers in it! Neither does the Star Destroyer have of its craft! The maximum I've been able to have the AT-AT give are two groups of soldiers. the thing can lumber around for ages and the option to use that special ability never turns up again. Similarly, after a certain number of TIEs, the Star Destroyer seems to lack the ability to produce them. It means that there is a finite number for both of those. One thing I thought was weird had been when I tried to command a ship to attack a unit and it headed away from it - or so I had thought. It turned out that most of its turbolasers were destroyed on the nearest side, so it was simply turning around to bring the maximum to bear on where it was meant to! An interesting experience, so far. My biggest problem with it, is that it didn't follow the model of other games and have the units able to be selected below, on tabs, which forced me to hunt around for Tartans, TIEs and other units, which sometimes weren't even visible on the relevant area being viewed on screen. That needs to be altered.

Magazine discs, for one, but the most likely answer is that such people usually wouldn't be able to. I know I was able to use an ATI 9000 and it still worked on virtually everything I had, even up to 'Rome: Total War' without ever needing an update! The only thing which absolutely required it was 'Half-Life 2', which seemed to have a fixation about continuously forcing the system to be as updated as physically possible. I've since graduated onto something a lot more modern, but it's definitely a mistake to imagine that it's impossible for people to not have an Internet connection and play games regularly. In fact, most of the people I know who have a computer rely on their place of work to answer mail with and don't have a connection at home and they're not exactly poor or anything. I'd imagine that it could easily be as high as potentially a quarter of total computer users who don't have a connection at home, but definitely a minority who have higher than a 56K speed. They're getting higher, but still not the majority. You just don't hear from them much in the most visible forums, because they have no reason to buy the sorts of games which are built around multiple player stuff. That this game has been designed to be playable on very low specification systems is something which is going to work hugely in its favour and, in my view, guarantee a lot of sales. A potential success, just from simply doing that!

Wha...?! You do realise that a hell of a lot of people play games who don't have access to the Internet, don't you? Sure, I do and I'm incredibly glad to the people who made this, for bothering to think about those of us 56K people who are unable to get broadband ability (literally, in my case - I'm on a boat in a marina and you won't find any engineers who'll want to install it here!), but depending on people being able to download patches to make a product able to be used is just lazy business practice. As I've heard so many glowing reviews of the demonstration version being stable, I'm hoping that whatever's being patched is more along the lines of polishing, rather than along the lines of what games like 'X3' did, but arguing in favour of a company should releasing a crappy product onto the market and applying successive band aids to fix obvious problems (which I'm not saying is necessarily the case here), is just overly nonsensical. So, please remember, not everyone has cable (the last time I saw a survey along those lines, it was a minority of Internet-enabled users who had that) or even any personal access to the Internet. Sure, a lot of people have an E-mail address, but that doesn't mean a thing. It's what public libraries are often used for. But as I say, this isn't a protest against the company of this game, because it sounds like it's fairly good, plus they've had the good grace to release the patch in a size which is at least downloadable within the usual two hour limit that us 56K people have to put up with! I just don't understand people who assume that everyone has Internet access and cable speed. Most customers won't do.

It is an ability which much odler games have done fine... Just have the computer recognise when weapons are about to hit, when something is going critical or keying on whatever a unit does when it has to 'react' to a certain level of impressive unit encroaching on its territory.

Allegedly... But you can clearly see from the speeder's point of view, in one scene, that the laser fire 'hits' air and impacts a slight distance away from the hull of the machine.

Yeah, it's definitely 'Dark Side' - what the heck would 'Dark Sith' energy be?

Even the Nazis used diplomats! Am sure that I'm not the only one who remembers the 'TIE Fighter' missions where, after you had forcefully brought a settlement between two factions, a cinematic showed some sort of diplomatic talks arranged by the Empire who spoke during it of bringing peace between them.

Heh, that's odd! Was unaware that space stations were required to build space assets. At least some should have the ability to be be constructed on a world.

You're not thinking in the right way... The tank actually lasts for a extremely long time. The fault in the story is the tank commander's unhinged mind and the fact that the vehicle has a couple of instances where it breaks down, suffers from a misfire, starts leaking fuel and all the rest of that. The biggest problem, in the story, was that it got separated from the rest. It's actually shown as quite formidable against ordinary people when it actually works! They used actual Russian tanks (and Russian helicopters) of the time, which is surprising, because the film was made in the eighties, but it certainly gives a feeling of it operating in the expected way. It even has a very primitive motion sensor package, although they had to physically get out and place the equipment down on the ground in a circular arrangement. The faults were in the engineering and crew, basically. Not the variety of weapons!

It doesn't have it wrong - they went and literally measured the length of the original models!

Quite so! Remember that Delphi has implied the TIE Interceptor will be eventually here, so we know what direction things would be going. The main argument for going backwards in time is the apparent popularity and that a certain lava planet has been noted as "serving its purpose" in time. The arguments against that are... (A) The technology everyone wants to see are in the original trilogy. (B) The game already has units which start off from having the best of Clone Wars era technology and there would be little point in revisiting that. © The game reflects a truly good against evil philosophy and the Clone Wars already had a preconceived conclusion, which would take away the ability to win it for the side who never did. They were orchestrated all along. Even if you managed that, the game would end with Sideous having your character assassinated to ensure things turned out in a very specified way. No point in him letting certain factions separate, when the entire aim was to consolidate a huge Empire, all along. Where's the sandbox atmosphere? (D) The robots weren't exactly walking Terminators, were they? Rather silly, if anything! Is the lure of commanding those really that intriguing? (E) By the time an expansion is on the way, the prequel hysteria would have died down considerably. It was mainly fuelled by wanting to know how the story is resolved and that's now done. (F) That lava planet hosted Vader's eventual fortress, if memory serves right. (G) How can we really know that prequel stuff sells better than original stuff, when the company's basically made a point of selling almsot exclusively prequel-based products for a long while now?

Others can agree or not, but I think it's peculiar to see such fundamental basics being ignored, which would both streamline gameplay and increase entertainment value, in a game which is built around a philosophy of doing precisely that!

So, why can the supposedly more dedicated weaponry do so? Probably fire control software, if anything. But if they're far enough away, as opposed to up close and personal, then the target is not going ot be moving around much - especially if it's coming straight on in an attack run! The guns don't appear to be anything of the sort, in any case. They're mounted on the outside of the hull... Would any of those model ships have missile launchers installed?

Aiii... I detested that for precisely this reason! Far too unrealistic and forcing the user to micromanage three or usually more groups of completely different units which would, in the real world, be far simpler and a lot more effective! Watch 'The Beast', which is about eighties tanks from the Soviet Union and you'll see just how obviously effective even those old things are against infantry. Heck, those ones even had a flamethrower on and ability to disperse chemical grenades! Of course, the two machine guns and coaxal (the one which fires precisely where the main gun does), usually featured in Western designs, are still more than enough for any tank to cut infantry to ribbons - and M1s are now finally getting a 'shotgun' round for the main gun, which the Israelis have been using for years! A shell which disperses hundreds of tiny little pieces of shrapnel and can cut down whole groups of infantry in one go. Now, that's not to say that other units might not be better designed for street fighting (the Stryker, for instance, has been found to be great at using its speed to chasing down vehicles, because it doesn't rely on treads), but saying tanks are obsolete when it comes to cutting a swathe through groups of human beings is quite plainly ridiculous and only adds up to a frustrating gaming experience, for the reason mentioned above. This is why I would not mind in the slightest if these sorts of things were reflected in games. So you'd have a unit which would, in a lot of circumstances, be effective against both infantry and vehicles. So what? Bet it would be useless against helicopter gunships! Would dedicated anti-fighter platforms be better at knocking those targets out of the sky? Certainly. But saying a vessel like a Star Destroyer is incapable of much more than token gestures along those lines, is just bizarre. The whole point of them is that they're capable of fulfilling so many roles and are meant to represent a one-size-fits-all-variables role. Not luxuriously so, no, because it can't excel at being superior in every area, but stating it should be rendered virtually defenceless for some obsolete need for 'balance' (when it could easily be countered by using tactics like saturation) makes me wonder just how long it will take for someone to make a fantasy game which covers even half of what was shown on the elderly updated-by-fans title 'Jane's Fleet Command'. Was it massively complicated? No! Very simplified, in fact! Yet still a title which, in its updated form, I play with these days. I don't recall anyone crying out in horror when the 'TIE Fighter' and related simulators, very rightly, allowed capital ships to lock on and engage incoming missiles. The key was to shoot enough of them at such a range that the right amount would hit home. While I'm not going to say that this game eliminating things like that will be its downfall, I will say that if it had included them, it might be a more instantly classic, entertaining and even educational playing experience. And if they can hit things as small as that, then they can surely hit fighter craft (the probability increasing, as the range closes), one would have thought.

Why not just go to: http://www.theforce.net/swtc ? At least that place has the Executor's size right!