Science Office Report
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"We were drinking in the lab late one night... When our booze revealed its dangerous might: The clones in their tanks began to rise... And suddenly, to our surprise..."

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Welcome to my thirteenth public report as a Science Officer, late as usual... (Sorry, but hey: you try to be absentminded and on time at the same time ;)):

Science Office News:

  1. Big news of this week is the release of the Modified Strike Cruiser for XWA. It features working gravwells and actually makes the chance of XWA crashing smaller if you have an updated shiplist.txt installed. The M/SC is available from the Patch Archive on the SCO site, under the Infiltrator Wing Section. The OPT was made by CM Timmay, patch by Den and myself. We're looking into adding it to XvT and TIE as well, but that would most likely be without working gravwells - so I'm not sure if there would be any use for it.
  2. The IWTAC Sienar has converted the E-Wing OPT for XvT to XWA which means we'll probably have a patch for that soon as well - if we ever get a better XWA-level OPT we will update it with that, but this at least means the IW has something to work with till that time. I'll probably use a similar tactic for the TIE Phantom.
  3. Working on a new version of a "fly imperial craft" patch for X-Wing. X-Wing seems to be a forgotten platform, but XW95 came generally together with TIE'95 and has the same graphics quality as XvT, BoP and TIE95. Making missions for it is simple... and the best introduction into mission creation: its like making XWA skirmishes with a briefing. If you can make a XW mission however, you can make basic working missions for all the platforms. If you need any help making XW missions - don't hesitate to contact me.
  4. AD Leeson is making Nova Shipyards into a logistics game like Transport/Railroad/Pizza Tycoon, A-train etc. The idea is that CD members get to buy freighters and transports which they can use to move freight from one planet to the other, making money they can invest again to upgrade their freighters and routes to increase speed and security. I think this would be a very nice game for everyone to enjoy, so the science Office helps out with the craft part. We're hoping to add some additional freighter/transport patches and such soon to give even more variation.
  5. Research points out that an XvT mission file can have a maximum of 48 Flight Groups (32 Craft at the same time in the game is not the same.) and a file size of around 200 kb, though I have successfully tested XvT missions of about 211 kb. If you cross these lines you will probably be plopped back to desktop by XvT. A fully filled out Flight Group is about 3kb, so that's an easy way to bring file size down again. Currently researching briefing unknowns, it seems a "1" in the first slot makes a briefing invisible...
  6. Again: Because of the numerous questions about this matter I'd like to explain how the XPinstaller works. (I didn't know either by the way, sorry to those I might have misinformed.) XP Batch Installer v0.1: "Simple utility that will allow Windows XP users get around XP's limited DOS shell support to install EH custom craft on their computers. Unzip XPInstaller to your \EHPatch folder. Usage: XPInstaller (Note: The *.bat extension must be included or the program will not be able to find the batch file.)
  7. As a side note I'd like to add that it helps to read a readme.txt or look on the SCO site, especially the FAQ, before you mail me with questions that could have been solved by you just reading. I have made a template mail that you will receive automatically if you still mail me on a matter like you not unzipping correctly. If you have a real problem I'll help you as far as I can, of course.

Science Office Status:

CA:SCO: Admiral Darkhill has been working on a new version of the Briefing Launcher for XWA, and the Shuttle and Rebel craft launchers for TIE. I was able to have a full test of the XWA launcher this week, so there's definitely progress. After the Windows versions are done there will be a TIECD version in DOS and it will all be released as one big package. Great work there Den! :)

SCOA: LC Shadd is back and has been keeping up with Slicing news across the web. Some of his findings:

  • http://www.swbattlefield.com/ - These fine folks are making a star wars total conversion of Battlefield 1942, supposedly with both SP and MP mods. Aside from the AT-ST pictures on the main site I've found no other pictures there. I was lead there from another site that had pictures of the battle of Hoth mod for that game. Which looked pretty sweet, they plan to have a full beta out by summer and have a 1.0 out by Christmas.
  • An Imperial hanger for XWA! It's being made for a TIE conversation to XWA. http://www.xwaupgrade.com/ubbcgi/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=1&t=003004 Its a work in progress, but how sweet its looking

SCOA: LT Kweeky has started on a project to modify Descent: Freespace II to a Star wars game for the Emperor's Hammer. The game source code is currently freely available and its still better then XWA in looks and such. Also, mission editors are available and it seems like the mod will be simple enough to do by converting OPT to 3DS to FOB. The mod will probably not feature much in missions outside a demo mission because any others would be better located on the compendium.

Site: The Science Office site can be found at http://sco.minos.net or via the redirect http://scienceoffice.isCool.net. Some smaller updates done to the patch archive and the AGI Project website. I will add full Star Wars Galactic Battle Grounds support ASAP, since I acquired several mission editors for that as well. Problem for now seems to be that the save games ("pilotfiles" in TC lingo) are not too helpful in telling us stats.

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. The TIE Vanguard for XvT was released right after the last report and the Luggage patch is near ready. Working on making the R41 and T-W flyable and reslotting the patch craft. XvT section temporarily on hold till I find a BHE module for XvT - new TIE95 fighter patches seem to be up next.

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. Released the Modified Strike Cruiser this week.

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". The EH total Conversion of "Larry" is nearly completed: about 90% of the views are done, and 50% of the pictures (22 out of 40). I added a screenshot of the Flight Office on the AGI Project Site.

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. They are posted on the TC database as well.

Until next time, good luck and have fun!

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SCO-TCT-TCS-PROF/FA Ender mBind/CS-10/SSSD Sovereign
GSx2/SSx7/BSx4/PCx7/ISMx16/MoI/MoT-32rh-52gh-6bh/IS-1SR-2GR-1PR/LoC-TS-Rx1/DFC-Rx1/CoS/CoE/CoL/CoB/LoAx2/OV-3E [CNTR] {IWATS-AIM-GFX-ICQ-IIC/1/2/3-JS-M/1/2-OPT-SM/2-TM-TT-XAM-XTM/1/2-XTT}