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Welcome to my forty-nineth public report as a Science Officer, incredibly late (but also exactly on time and schedule again >:)). Onwards to the news:

Science Office News:

1. The Craft Essay Competition has passed and I am happy to declare that LC Kodiak Kereban won first place, RA Jarek La'an second and LT Moagim Daar third. Medal requests have been made, but i messed up on medal types so there may be a delay (you WILL get your medal though). The quality of the submissions was very good indeed; especially the winning essay was more complete then any other reference I could find on the craft, the Ashanda Ray. Thanks all for participating, lets do this again some time :)
2. Imperial Alliance now has just 1 screen left that is from FS2 (the HUD Config), after which we'll have to go through the folders to clean out small tidbits we might have skipped before and we'll have our "stand alone" beta version. I also remodelled all warheads to actually look in-game as the graphics in the TIE Fighter hangar displayed and Timmay has been working on uvmapping and adding these. Den has been making exe adjustments and looking into the addition of "special weapons" like SLAMS, decoy, jamming, cloaking and tractor. In at least the case of SLAMs, decoy and cloaking we are pretty sure it can be done. The exe adjustments and remapped craft make htl rendering possible again, making everything look just excellent.
3. The V-Wing has been released to the Fleet Manual and as a patch for TIE (CD and 95), XvT, BoP and XWA. All except for XWA also include its own cockpit, loosely based on what it had in Rogue Squadron. I've upgraded TIE-TC#39 (The oldest reference to the V-W anywhere) to amongst others use this patch again, and versions of the same battle for XvT and XWA have been sent to TAC.
4. I've released the original missileboat ("Mk.I" as seen in TIECD) to the Fleet Manual and as patch for XvT, TIE95 and BoP. In these games it replaces the missileboat version (now "Mk.II") already in there. The XWA patch wil be released ASAP w/o replacing the missileboat in that game. All of this because both versions look different enough to be seperate craft.
5. The Planetary Fighter patches for TIE, XvT and BoP now have a custom cockpit, as do the XvT and BoP patches of the TIE Phantom. (The TIE versions already had that.) More cockpits for these platforms will follow shortly - it's about the only thing that can still be done patching wise besides adding completely new craft.

Science Office Status:

CA:SCO: Admiral Darkhill adjusted the exe's to include the new weapon and team select screens, re-activated htl rendering and has been looking into options like SLAMs and cloaks.

SCOA: CPT Tim has been UV mapping more craft and warheads for Imperial Alliance and has been teaching the rest of us how to help him.

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. Added the V-Wing and Missileboat Mk.I entries to the Fleet Manual, uploaded old reports.

Command Staff Objectives:

Continued patch development and platform resource: The Missileboat Mk.I has been released for TIE, XvT and BoP, the V-Wing Mk.II for TIE, XvT, BoP and XWA. Custom cockpit graphics added to the Plt/F and T/Ph.

Get a release candidate version of Imperial Alliance released: We're now 1 screen and a few tidbits away from a "stand alone beta", one that doesn't need FS2 anymore.

Upgrade and add to the Fleet Manual: The Fleet Manual got a new splash image, its sources and preface sections have been updated. Quite a few new craft added. (Currently at 160 craft.)

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. Working on getting to 100% replacement of the data fles so we can start distributing a beta that doesn't require FS2.

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 #sco. 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!