<salute>

Welcome to my forty-first public report as a Science Officer, which are becoming regular it seems ("What have you done with our Science Officer?!"). Onwards to the news:

Science Office News:

1. CPT Timmay has been making excellent progress on Imperial Alliance, our new game based on the Free Space II engine. The engine glows of the craft are being adjusted to display the throttle setting and correct colours (take a look at http://hosting.infiltrator-wing.com/phpbb2/viewtopic.php?t=70 for screenshots on our IA forum.) The docking points (yay!) and shields on these new models are also debugged, which makes for better mission creation :)
2. I got two new patches out this week. A layout of what has been done:
   • TIE Raptor: A low cost TIE variant that trades durability for manoeuvrability and size. Now released for XWA as well.
   • TIE Drone: Also known as the "TIE Droid" this unmanned craft is mostly used for sentry duties where pilot numbers are low. Now released for XWA as well.
3. I have decided to no longer support the Ares X-Wing (a pink X-Wing), Marauder A-Wing (a blue A-Wing) and two BHG transports (Savannah's Revenge, Xunrunner). After years on being on the patch archive there hasn't been a single mission made with either of them. Also they are generally just (badly) retextured craft with minor stats changes. (Laser type). If anyone ever decides he does want to use them they can return under regular regulations concerning new patches.
4. The Fleet Manual has seen a lot of updates this week in a bid to ease use and increase the amount of craft covered. A layout of what has been done so far:
   • New craft: I have added the ISP-6, INT-4, Hyperion Fighter, Enforcer Picket Ship, the Luggage, Cargo Ferry, Authority IRD, Shadow Y-Wing and TIE Phantom. More craft are being prepared.
   • New graphics: With the help of LCM Shinobi, LC Zeth and MAJ Archnagel I'm going by all the craft of X-Wing Alliance and adding views from all sides. This has already been responsible for the adding of several ships.
   • New layout: All craft that have graphics now have the new layout that allows you to see these views and a short description of the craft at the top of each entry.
   • Patch links: With this new layout all craft that have patches available now also have these patches linked from their Fleet Manual profiles.
   • New directories: I've expanded and changed the directories to the three major "teams" of the X-Wing series (Empire, Rebel Alliance and Various) plus the Emperor's Hammer (Displaying craft that are made for or by the Emperor's Hammer.) Additionally to these I've added an extra directory which displays all supplements.
   • New sections: I've changes the sections of the supplements to the ship categories used in the games: Star Ships, Platforms, Freighters, Transports, Fighters and Objects.
   • Order of Battle: I've updated the Order of Battle to include links to the newly added craft types and fixed some typo's that had been reported.
5. The Patch Archive will be updated to hook up to the Fleet Manual better, with the same sections as, and links to Fleet Manual. Currently it is quite dependant on knowing what kind of craft is used by what Subgroup, which isn't very user-friendly.
6. I've been going through a whole lot of fiction (300kb, plain .txt) for the News Letter, which the goal of having a nice new EH-wide competition... stay tuned ;)
7. I got my 50th Medal of Tactics - Red Hammer... yay! *huggles OPS and TAC*

Science Office Status:

CA:SCO: Admiral Darkhill has been doing adjustments and testing for IA and has been researching new EHBL 2.0 options.

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. Fleet Manual has been completely overhauled.

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.

XWA Ship patches: Primarily the plan is to clear out the backlog of craft arranged by earlier SCO's and such. The TIE Drone and TIE Raptor have been released.

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!