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Welcome to my tenth public report as a Science Officer, not really on time *cough* because I was planning to run a little competition but that has been postponed till all the database stuff is a bit more done… (Ok… and I got a bit much into mission creation ;))

Science Office News:

1. These days I've been looking into various forms of mission "bugs" and other anomalies. For this I've been making a few "follies" as missions for XWA, XvT and TIE with as main goal to check out a few more of the "unknowns" and such. I also looked into a different TIE editor then our common TFW, TIEd. A few things that came up out of all of this and that can be of help to our mission creators:
   • In XvT and TIE docking craft will not dock to containers and such that have orders other then "await boarding" or "hold steady" and such. If a container or other craft has an order like "Self Destruct" a boarding craft will keep "Looking for craft to board" even if its target is straight ahead of it.
   • The "Self Destruct" order of XvT has a bug in its timer after 5 minutes of waiting, and often before that already. If you want a craft to first wait and then self destruct you are advised to actually use a wait order first.
   • TIE missions made with TIEd and TFW are not compatible. TFW will mess up (wipe out or crash) a TIEd mission briefing, where as TIEd will give you a "Range Check Error" on missions made with TFW. This is because…
   • TIEd has limitations on amounts of Flight Groups that can be set up in one mission and limitations on the amount of briefing orders (so no "Drake-like" briefings are possible.). However, TIEd does offer as advantage that it fully supports "Super groups" (Global Groups) where as TFW does not. It also has an easier interface for those that are used to XW-ed, XvTed and Allied.
   • Apparently all TIE editors go by on many "unknowns" and other triggers. This is especially obvious after conversion to XvT, after which suddenly many unknown triggers appear where TIE editors show nothing at all.
2. The Emperor's Hammer AGI games project is actually proceeding nicely, due to the efforts of Khadgar - who is writing a guide for us. He has also made several characters already that can be used for EH games, like several Imperial Officers and even the Fleet Commander. I myself have been looking into making backgrounds and rooms and of both I've included a screenshot. I think that if it continues like this we might be able to present a (simple) adventure game by the holidays/the EH's birthday.
3. The Jedifighter OPT for XWA has been put on hold for a bit, which also affects the craft for Clan Alvaak (Which looks like a more vicious, updated jedifighter). The textures are mostly finished, as is the rest of the OPT, but because of the design its creating bugs in XWA currently (the front becomes transparent at some angles). These can be fixed; it will just take a bit longer.
4. For reference I'll like to point everyone to a very helpful site on the creation of BoP and XWA cut scenes: http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~john22/. These can add a lot of "extra" to any battle. To get movies that look as if they were taken straight from the game itself, there's a converter now that makes 3ds files out of opts and back again! Get it at http://www.geocities.com/v_d_d/
5. Ok, that comp I'm planning is a little SCO webhunt - more news on this spot the moment it's approved by the Training Officer and such.

Science Office Status:

CA:SCO: Admiral Darkhill has not been seen for quite a while… I hope he's alright; last times he disappeared he had very unfortunate reasons indeed. :/

SCOA: Major Shadd has been looking into the creation of cockpits for TIE and XvT using tieedit 1.28. If you want to do so as well, check out http://www.geocities.com/hal1234_2000/tutorial.html its pretty easy. :)

Site: The Science Office site can be found at http://sco.minos.net or via the redirect http://scienceoffice.isCool.net. No major updates this week besides updates to the project pages and reports. Working on a new Order of Battle layout, as the current one is pretty outdated.

Science Office Projects:

XvT/BoP/TIE95 Ship patches: This project's goal is to add all the original and Order of Battle craft that are still "missing" from these games, like the SSD in TIE and XvT, the Medium Transport in all etc. Several of these will be finished soon for my own TIE Fighter battle at least; these include the Bulk Cruiser, Assault Frigate and others.

XWA Ship patches: Primarily the plan is to clear out the backlog of craft arranged by earlier SCO's and such, like the Trithan Interceptor (Kermee), the Hyperion (Den), the Alvaakian Craft (me) and the new fighter for Avenger Squadron (AES). The Trithan Interceptor and Hyperion are now ready, working on the Jedi Fighter before I continue to the Alvaak Fighter, as that's based on it.

XWA Enemy Ship Packs: The plan is to create several multi-ship patches that install 5 different enemy craft of a particular theme at once on the same 5 slots for each pack. The first pack is that based on the “Genko System” (2 fighters, a transport a capital ship and a platform.). Modelling is 80% done, texturing 25%. Further texturing is on hold for the Ship patches projects to clear but can be finished shortly after that.

Emperor’s Hammer AGI Games: Khadgar has made process on a beginners guide to AGI/SCI which should greatly help along this project to make it possible to create EH games in the style of "Space Quest", "Kings Quest" or "Leisure Suit Larry". If you are interested in making these games as well, try all the guides linked and cached at http://www.agidev.com/tut.html.

Finishing up:

I think that's it - If I've forgotten anything or if you have comments, suggestions or corrections, let me know via email. Don't forget that all the projects are described in more detail on the SCO site.

(use only mindb_ender@hotmail.com for official SCO mails.) or ICQ (9706474). Preferably do not mail large files to me, but DCC them via IRC – I’m practically always online at #emperor’s_hammer and #tiecorps using the nick MindB_ndr (or variations.)
 
All my SCO reports are available online as well: you can reach them on the SCO site: http://www.minos.net/~sco/reports/index.html. The moment the TC database is back online they will be posted there as well. I'm going to do that next:)

Until next time, good luck and have fun!