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Welcome to my fortieth public report as a Science Officer, again less then a week after the last one? (Suspicious I'd say! Very suspicious! ;) ). Got plenty of stuff to report though:

Science Office News:

1. I got some new patches out this week. A layout of what has been done:
   • TIE Phantom: Well known experimental cloaking fighter from "Rebel Assault II". Now released for XWA as well.
   • Imperial Shuttle Pod Mk.6: Small courier and utility craft by Cygnus in use by about all subgroups. Now released for XWA as well.
   • E-Wing: Update on the X-Wing for the New Republic. Now released for XWA as well with a OPT ported by RA Xavier Octavius Sienar.
   • Interceptor Enforcement Ship Mk.4: The predecessor of the Pursuer with a fast firing heavy cannon as in use by the HF. Now also released for XWA.
   • Hyperion Interceptor Gunboat: Special craft designed by AD Den Darkhill for the Dark Brotherhood. Now also released for XWA.
   • Tactical Gunboat: TAC/FA Mike's specially built improved gunboat, now also released for XWA.
   • TIE Assault: The earliest T/A variant as seen in X-Wing CD. It features 2 lasers and 2 ions but no hyperdrive. Now also released for XWA.
   • TIE Advanced X1: Darth Vader's personal craft based on the TIE Assault as seen in A New Hope. Now also released for XWA.
   • Imperial Troop Transport: Large transport by Telgorn which apparently took care of the Jawa Crawler in A New Hope. Now also released for XWA.
2. Also quite a few patches were updated to current standards or to fix inconsistencies. These include the I-7 Howlrunner, TIE Vanguard, Phalanx Interceptor Gunboat, TIE Dragon, TIE Guardian, TIE Preator, TIE Scimitar (installer and moved to slot #193), Spectre Advanced Missile Boat (moved to slot #188), MC-90, Dungeon Ship, Sovereign and TIE Protector (new OPT/look) for X-Wing Alliance and the TIE Assault for TIE/XvT/BoP (it gained the ions discovered when flying it in XWCD.).
3. Make sure you always use the latest version of a patch - preferably always download it fresh before you use it. This solves problems with particular battles and saves you problems like not having the ions to disable targets and such.
4. There's a new release date for the Flight Expansion of Star Wars Galaxies, in August. The screenshots look very nifty (Though, again as in XWA space seems just too colourful with a load of nebula's. ) and if you want to go fly then you'd be advised to start on the game already and start earning credit to get yourself a fighter then. How the expansion will be treated within the EH is still under discussion, but we do have quite a few months to still determine it.
5. The Imperial Alliance ("IA" our free game based on the Free Space 2 engine) Project is continuing with this week the engine glow matters being addressed in a very cool way by CPT Timmay. This will mean all craft models need to be redone however (good thing we're doing all these things on a low amount of craft types still.).
6. On both these projects I'd like to ask everyone to just keep their cool. Hyping either or trying to make them compete with each other is just silly (if not just because their completely different goals/outsets/manufacturers.). Hyping just increases the expectations to levels where nothing can ever fulfil them. Both games do seem to be quite a lot of fun to play - that's all.:)

Science Office Status:

CA:SCO: Admiral Darkhill has been doing adjustments and testing to the IA HUD and has been helping out people at ortho.

SCOA: CPT Tim has been working on new models for warheads and thrusters in IA.

Site: The Science Office site can be found at http://sco.minos.net or via the redirect http://scienceoffice.isCool.net. The mirror can be found at http://www.gimmie.tudelft.nl/homes/blok10b/ender/sco. No major updates.

Science Office Projects:

Imperial Alliance: With the release of the freely available source code of FS2, we have started on making a Star Wars game out of it. We can freely distribute a finished game as long as we have all our own data files (graphics, sounds, models etc). About all craft from X-Wing have been added and most of the interface has been replaced. We're currently replacing the HUD and making adjustments to the craft models.

XvT/BoP/TIE95 Ship patches: This project's goal was 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. All the "missing" craft have been added to the EHSPs. This week saw updates to the TIE Assault and very minor ones to the TIE Advanced X1.

XWA Ship patches: Primarily the plan is to clear out the backlog of craft arranged by earlier SCO's and such. The T/Assault, IES, T/X1, ITTR, M/GUN, HYP, E-W, T/Ph and ISP-6 have been released. All existing XWA patches have been updated to current standards.

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 or look us up at #science_office. 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 #science_office, #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 but they are on the TIE Corps site, CS reports, as well.

Until next time, good luck and have fun!