Science Office Report
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"As I walk through the hangar where I park my TIE. I take a look at my real life and realize there's nothing left..."

<salute>

Welcome to my forty-fifth public report as a Science Officer, gratuitously late (*cough*, sorry... I'm just not very bureaucratically minded). Onwards to the news:

Science Office News:

  1. With the expiration of the infiltrator-wing.com site we have lost our testing forums for Imperial Alliance AND the place where we hosted EHBL. We are looking into the solutions - please be patient. If you require EHBL, mail the TAC or me and we'll make sure you get it. If you have Imperial Alliance bug reports, for now use its section at http://ortho.minos.net
  2. Free Worlds (and Imperial Alliance) have been added officially to the TIE Corps platforms list, also on the database. Furthermore we gained our own [EH] tag in Free Worlds, including our own craft list... AND Free Worlds has been upgraded to a new version. For all details check our Free Worlds forum at http://www.ehnet.org/mb/viewforum.php?f=118&sid=9e0551fef896ec1f69dcd3510af60477
  3. Imperial Alliance is still heading along fine with basically all of the HUD (except for the optional hologram messages) done and with the craft models being redone in UV mapping. On the Imperial Alliance front we've also made excellent progress on the music part. AD Darkhill coded it so that the game will be able to run, by the player's choice, either CD Audio, selected MP3s (or other digital music files) or event music as TIECD had. (Music changes according to what happens in the mission).
  4. This last version of Imperial Alliance now runs mp3's off a "Max Rebo Playlist". Max Rebo is our own simple music player (MP3, OGG, Audio CD and stream (EH channels pre-coded)) and available at http://www.minos.net/~sco/test/MaxRebo.zip Try it out, if you encounter any problems report them at http://ortho.minos.net so Den can improve upon it and make it again easier/better to make play lists for Imperial Alliance.
  5. Because of related trouble within the IW I'd like to point everyone here that is in an SG staff towards the procedures for changing the Order of Battle. I've put these online at http://www.minos.net/~sco/science-manual/orderofbattle.html. As you see that's part of the still unapproved and unreleased "Science Manual", but these rules have already been the same (but unwritten) for years and as such should give you a good idea on how and what.
  6. I've re-released the TIE Phantom for TIE95 and CD, this time with its own cockpit. More such updates should be along shortly. This means for example that if you fly a rebel craft, you'll actually see its own cockpit. Finished already are the X-W, Y-W, A-W, Z95 and a R41 cockpit. Patches will be released and/or updated accordingly. I'll also try to put up a tutorial on how to make cockpits, it's not all that hard. Until I do, use the tutorials on the matter at http://www.geocities.com/hal1234_2000/tutorial.html
  7. On the matter of tutorials: I've released one on how to have custom large sized graphics in TIE battle files at http://www.minos.net/~sco/guide/tiepalette/bigbattlelfd.html It is a graphical tutorial, so it can be slower to load up.
  8. If you want to help out in testing, and perhaps even in building the IA game (missions etc), contact LC Mark, CEO-CMDR of Core Squadron - our test pilots. You will find Core on the CD rosters, so you won't have to move your position in the TC for example. (Yet, the squadron was approved to be added to the TC roster already.)
  9. Thanks to LC Zeth I've updated the graphics of more transports on the Fleet Manual and added the CUV to the selection. Been looking into php'ing the entire thing as well... Having everything .html is just too much *g*. If anyone wants to help in this, feel free to contact me.
  10. Additionally, after I heard LCM Blacksun say he's a java coder I've asked him to look into the DXF viewer of the Fleet Manual. Hopefully we'll be able to view all our craft interactively in wire frame 3D soon.
  11. I have contacted the XO about adding more craft types to the TC rosters and to update some of the rosters to the Order of Battle. He also said he would look into adding the Patch Archive to the database in similar fashion as the compendium (yay! *keeps fingers crossed*)

Science Office Status:

CA:SCO: Admiral Darkhill has been working on a newer version of our IA .exe's. I must say that flying with my own music and being able to control that in-game (volume, next/last song) is tremendously cool.

SCOA: CPT Tim has been UV mapping craft and generally debugging them. (Craft can now fire unlinked shots as well.)

Site: The Science Office site can be found at http://sco.minos.net or via the redirect http://scienceoffice.isCool.net. The mirror can for now still be found at http://www.gimmie.tudelft.nl/homes/blok10b/ender/sco. Fleet Manual has seen updates in craft pictures and types.

Command Staff Objectives:

Continued patch development and platform resource: Made a large amount of custom cockpits for TIE (XW, XvT and BoP are related.). Researched and published on how to have custom large sized images in TIE battle files. Research and published on a TIE editor bug that breaks up all linked orders and its solution. Researched and ported the TIE Demo mission to XvT and submitted that, working on a port to regular TIE.

Get a release candidate version of Imperial Alliance released: Finished HUD graphics, added music tools and controls, made a large variety of needed icons, fixed all changes made by adding MP, redoing all craft, made/ported missions.

Upgrade and add to the Fleet Manual: Updated craft pictures, added craft and researched displaying 3D models some more.

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 making adjustments to the craft models and integrating Multi Player (!). Text to Speech has been added to briefings and radio messages.

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!

<salute>
SCO-TCT-TCS-PROF/FA Ender mBind/CS-10/SSSD Sovereign
GOE/MoS/GSx2/SSx7/BSx4/PCx7/ISMx17/MoI/MoT-50rh-60gh-7bh/IS-1SR-2GR-1PR/LoC-TS-Rx1/DFC-Rx1/CoS/CoE/CoL/CoB/LoAx2/OV-4E [LGNR] {IWATS-AIM-GFX-ICQ-IIC/1/2/3-JS-M/1/2-OPT-SM/2-TM-TT-XAM-XTM/1/2-XTT}