Ishmael-PG

I'm not the technical graphics guy, so I can't give you detailed information on what has been updated, but the new hard-point system that makes the the walkers possible also allows... well, just about anything, really. Combined with our effect / ability system, you can pretty much make whatever kinds of units you could dream up. It's very flexible.

When I said the engine was modified, I meant it.

Seems people are having issue with the buzz droids, so let me take a sec to explain how they work. Once deployed, they'll hover in the area for about 3-4 seconds, then begin tracking any enemy fighters or corvettes that come near them, doing constant damage to those ships. ...unless something broke in the latest demo version (I have not played the most recent demo version), they're very useful and quite powerful. If you use them in an area, you pretty much guarantee no fighters will be coming through there. They also make the Star Vipers of the ZC able to take on much more powerful fighters (i.e. X-wings) and emerge victorious. The only suggestion for using them is to micro-manage their deployment in different places across several viper squads. Dropping them all in one place isn't as useful.

Actually, we had it that way when we first implemented the ability. Every repulsor unit just stopped and could no longer move. It sucked. It could end games instantly if the opponent was canny. If I was at my pop cap limit and it was all filled by repulsor-based units, and the enemy put up the RLJ, none of my units could move at all, and I couldn't land anything to try and take it out because I was at my max. A smart player would then ignore my units, destroying my base. Was hands-down the worst way to win and made for very un-fun play. We were going to keep it that way and add a timer, but decided that simply slowing all the units (and the slow is substantial) was a better solution. You can mod it back to the original way if you really want, but I don't think you'll find it very fun. We now highlight the RLJ on the radar, reveal it (so you can bomb it), and you can still move, so there's a chance you can come back. It's a fun ability, but it was game-breaking in its first implementation.

Repulsor Jammers interfere with the performance of all repulsor technology, making all repulsor-based units move very slowly. And Iblis' Gargantuan Battle Platform is indeed mobile. Slow, but mobile.

Hmm... maybe they're not just made of "metal"? Maybe there's more to Urai than you know? Glad to see that you're consistent with your negativity, Cheese.

Before you even play the game, you make broad judgements and statements about it. Many of the things added to FoC (like enhanced base layout) were directly in response to what players asked for, BTW. FoC is a lot of fun to play. The new faction adds considerably to both GC and MP. Believe me or not -- your call.

Kyle and Mara are only in the multiplayer skirmish at present. As some have discovered, there are assets and such for some of their respective craft for you to use in your mod efforts.

If at any point in the future, a possible expansion was to be announced, I think you would all be theoretically very pleased and intrigued as to what it would be about. IF that were to happen, of course. And IF there were to be an expansion, you can bet it wouldn't be the Roma's "dessert scenario". But it's all just heresay at this point. Just crazy wacky theories, brought on from dessert-induced Roma's binges.

That's would certainly be a nice option on the front-end... although you can easily mod the campaign file for whatever campaign you desire and remove all the pirates on the planets -- just make sure both players have the modded campaign file and you're golden.

Luke's "Lucky Shot" is just that -- lucky... you'll either do a LOT of damage, or not a lot... so it's not as reliable as a power that will always produce a good effect, but if you get lucky, you can annihilate HPs.

Antilies' "Weaken Enemy" reduces the damage that all ships targeted do to 10-20% of normal for the duration, so if you're assaulting capital ships, just zip him in and weaken all the ISDs... they're still shooting, but they're hardly doing any damage.

Conquest most certainly is in the game, and there's a very large galactic map (i.e. 35+ planets) you can use for it to play head-to-head against a friend. The only reason not all 44 planets are in that one is that some of them strategically didn't make good sense because of map connection points.

I sense abuse from "other" companies regarding patches. Sad. I'll let you in on a little secret... there's about a 3-5 week gap between going gold (i.e. you're done with the game) and having it hit shelves. None of us went on vacation, forgot about the game, or just goofed off with other stuff. We've been playing the game nonstop since it went gold, and lo, we found some things we wanted to fix, so we fixed them. As Delphi said, we've had the patch in test for several weeks. Was the game playable without the patch? Sure. Does the patch make it more playable? You bet.

With the freedom you have in modding EaW, I'm sure there will be one out shortly. =) It's actually very easy to create a new 2-player campaign and use whatever selection of planets you want!

If we were trying to just make a single-player RTS, the game would have been very, very different. There's 3 ways alone to play a solo game, and only one of them is a story campaign. We've done some things differently in this game than any other strategy game, and change is sometimes hard to accept, simply because it's different. No tactical base building feels very funky at first, but remember we're not trying to make the same game you've all played before!

Yep, we thought of this... the Rebel story campaign takes this into account...

There are many things going on here at Petro... people are working on all kinds of cool things for EaW and beyond... BTW, we just got our boxed copies of EaW today, so you should be seeing them in stores today or tomorrow!

LOL

It's pure coincidence. It's hard to do clumps of crystals without them looking like a certain material... especially since we'd used red, blue, and green crystals throughout those games.

Interdictors can either block retreat of enemy fleets, or deflect incoming missiles away from nearby targets. You'll find that interdictors are very important in multiplayer games, as missile-bombardment of your space station is a very frequent occurrence.

Your advantage over the enemy has to be substantial in order to have the fog lifted. This is done to help you hunt down those last pesky units without them hiding behind a tree or rock. The limit is certainly not just one unit -- sometimes you don't even see it kick in until you are mopping up the last of an enemy's forces.

There is a certain Mon Cal built ship in the game that you can only have one of...

There are certainly some differences in EaW that you'll notice right away -- one of the main ones being the shift of production to galactic. Don't forget that you can call down more forces from orbit with the reinforcement button, so you're only limited in units by what you brought into space above the planet in the first place! Enjoy!

Hmm... some wordsmithing going on there... You seem to be implying that balance is a 1 for 1 relationship (i.e. a tie fighter is as powerful as an X-wing), which isn't the case. All balance will do is ensure that given a good mix of ships on both sides, the fight is "fair" in that both players have a chance of winning. The strategies employed and the ships involved to achieve a win could be radically different on either side, but the "balance" is that you can win if you play well, given a good mix of forces to work with. Can the Rebels or Empire always have a chance at winning any encounter? No. If you bring knives to a gunfight, you will typically lose. Same in EaW. If you have nothing but X-wings, and I have nothing but Tartan cruisers (which excel at destroying X-wings) unless I suffer a severe heart-attack while playing, you should retreat and get together a better force, because you will easily lose that battle. EaW is different in that you can run if you're not in a good position -- you don't have to throw forces away if you attacked with too little. As for taking about "realism = SW lore", then we're not far from realism at all. The Rebellion ships & vehicles, aside from the X-wing, which is really the most advanced fighter for the time, are scrappy. They can't win in a toe-to-toe fight with the Empire, and have to be "creative" in how they win battles. Balance provides them the avenues to be creative and win. As Delphi said, the videos show the sides at their best. You can be assured that you can't just throw ships of the same size at each other in EaW and expect a tie.