Introduction:

After years of being in the planning and now about 10 months of work the Tactical Office and Science Office are very proud to announce the release of the "Emperor's Hammer Battle Launcher" - probably the most elaborate piece of software to ever come out of the Emperor's Hammer and one that will most definitely change your flying experience completely.

The Launcher installs battles for you with a single click, launches the games and adds the basic patches used in our missions, like the "Fly All" patch for TIE Fighter. It also prevents cheating by editing mission files, which has been a problem for the Tactical Office since the beginning of this club.

The "Ьber Project" (a SCO Project) was the coding of the Launcher by CA:SCO/AD Den Darkhill, who spent countless hours on programming it - but the result is definitely worth it: It is stabile, comes with its own easy-to-use setup.exe installer, runs on all Windows versions, comes in a MSDOS variant for the older TIE fighter versions and it even looks good.

"Project Shield" (a TAC Project) was the updates to the compendium, done by SCO/FA Ender mBind and TAC/FA Marcin Szydlowski. All battle .ZIPs were repacked to .EHMs, missions were encrypted, all readme.txt files updated to have new install instructions and the Lucas Arts disclaimer, patches were removed, .WAV packages were separated from the battles and all compendium links were updated.

While preventing cheating was the main plan at the start of the project, which is why it was Classified, it has grown over time to be a very user friendly utility that easily beats the original game launchers in use, especially for the Emperor's Hammer.

Expanded Explanation and Usage:

The Emperor's Hammer Battle Launcher provides a single Windows launcher to play Emperor's Hammer missions in TIE Fighter '95, X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter, Balance of Power or X-Wing Alliance (if installed) and a MSDOS version for TIE Fighter CD and TIE Fighter Diskette. It provides better security against cheating, easier use of the games and adds special features (Windows version only):

1. Unzips and installs Emperor's Hammer battles by just clicking the .EHM file you downloaded from the Mission Compendium.
2. Launches TIE Fighter '95, X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter, Balance of Power and X-Wing Alliance from one location and interface. (Only if the game is installed.)
3. Decrypts Emperor's Hammer missions for use by the X-Wing series games in a controlled environment.
4. Tracks and Tags pilot files that use EHBL for processing by the Tactical Office.
5. Monitors Balance of Power pilots and resets the number of missions flown flag every 60 seconds. Allows you to fly extended battles without having to swap CDs every fourth mission.
6. Allows regular X-Wing Alliance Pilot File management plus creation of "EH Pilots" for custom battles. Custom XWA battles no longer require an added pilot file. [Via Game > XWA Options > Pilot Options]
7. Adds Transport and Shuttle flying in TIE Fighter '95, X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter and Balance of Power when available in the mission. [Via Game > Options]
8. Adds Rebel Fighter flying in TIE Fighter '95 when available in the mission. [Via Game > TIE Options]
9. Adds Custom Briefing Sounds in X-Wing Alliance when available in the mission. [Via Game > XWA Options]
10. Allows you to update the settings if you (re)install any of the games after installation of EHBL. [Via File > Directories]

1. Launches TIE Fighter Disk/CD from one location and interface. [via the command C:\(TIE Folder)\EHBL]
2. Decrypts Emperor's Hammer missions for use by the MSDOS TIE Fighter games in a controlled environment.
3. Tracks and Tags pilot files that use EHBL for processing by the Tactical Office.
4. Adds Transport and Shuttle flying in TIE Fighter Disk/CD when available in the mission. [via the command C:\(TIE Folder)\EHBL /t]
5. Adds Rebel Fighter flying in TIE Fighter Disk/CD when available in the mission. [via the command C:\(TIE Folder)\EHBL /r]

Conclusion:

The result of excellent cooperation between the Tactical Office and the Science Office, the Emperor's Hammer Battle Launcher can be called quite a feat: It makes flying for the fleet easier then ever, even for those that aren't very computer-wise, and ensures that the High Scores you might be trying to beat were actually reached in a fair way. Download it now from the admin menu of the TIE Corps database (IW and DB are coming up) and give it a try: you won't be disappointed!