Darth Stalin

Interesting aside:

 

Having family who have worked for companies like Boeing, I know that some companies get contracts by lowballing the estimated cost and then jacking up the price later once the government has committed to whomever they gave the contract to. Most civic construction suffers from the same problem. I've heard of Northrip and Lockhead doing this, not necessarily Boeing although I'm sure they have too.

 

Heh, I'm working as a lawyer in Poland and I often have to deal with public order contracts arranged between government authorities and private companies - and that's the standard practice, especially in case of motorway construction...

Hey, does anybody know why the Death Star's cost is only 1 (ONE) credit? OK, I do understand that it takes 82 minutes to build it, but... looks strange. 

Okay, after some trials and tweaks and lots of trimming, I've finally produced something that can be played quite smoothly, with relatively minor lag (IMHO not greater than in original GFFA campaign). Currently it's during tests... but it's week 7 or so and the game runs smoothly (though scrolling the galaxy map is best done when game is paused), loading time is pretty short, as well as saving time, and still there was no crash during saving - with save game files of only 60MB size, not over 110MB as in previous version, which crashed almost instantly.

However, the file is "filled" only in Imperial part - i.e. the player can play the campaign as Empire only - to play as Rebels one should (IMHO the best solution) cut out the "Imperial" part and paste it into Rebel section of the file and trim it to fill its needs - i.e. reduce the number and quality of rebel ships, increase the same for Imperial ships (and mabe also reduce Rebel planets with increasing number of Imperial planets etc.).

The trimming was possible due to greater variety of Rebel and Pirate ships as well as great reduction of starting Imperial forces. The rebels got also smaller number of ships but of better starting quality (i.e. Reef Home and Liberty models "a" and "b", as well as Ardent mod "b" and "c" etc.; Pirates have - which depends of technological advantage of a given world as well as its affiliation - higher models of ships, like Invincible Mark II and IV - for CSA planets, Mark III reserved for "independents" like Mandalorians or Hutts etc.; also Dreadnaught Mark II, Victory II (for Rendili, other CSA worlds and some "top dog" independent worlds), Venator II, Acclamator II, Recusant Mark II and so on.
Neither side has its large compliment of fighters/bombers, with Pirates equipped with Fleet and escort carriers (which reminds me about an idea to provide a fighter'bomber/ship compliment for Shipyards and Asteroid bases - that would be veeery helpful and could allow more variable creation of "planetary defence fleets").

On the ground I've greatly reduced the number of infantry units present, leaving mostly "heavy equipment" like tanks, crawlers etc., but I've "built up" the Pirate planets (and many rebel, too) to the limits - with battle stations, shipyards etc., as well as buildings - barracks IMHO suit better than "plain" infantry, as well as reduce variety of units. Besides, a planet with Espo barracks, Soldier barracks and two modelsof crawler factories, with some "loose" repulsor and heavy tanks and airspeeders seems to be much harder nut to crack, especially if equipped with Shield - all these building spawn quite decent infantry and vehicles, which makes - for example - CSA planets not an easy prey.

Also the Rebel heroes have been added ALL, and IIRC mostly in their most advanced "form" (i.e. on their highest level), thus making the Rebellion harder to crush and giving the opportunity ofencountering all of them in battle, either on land or in space. And to deal with Wedge's Lusankya you have to use something bigger than just "Black Squadron" - maybe the Emperor himself in his Sovereign weapon of terror

Oh, one more thing as I've almostforgotten: the campaign is tailored to accomodate 216 planets (yes, good you can see) - the only exception being Lwhekk, which I've tossed away due to 3 reasons:
1. Ssi-ruuvi are completely "out of the stroy and their homeworld doesn't even appear as an object to conquer... except some Chiss activities... which is completely out of the table as the Chiss Ascendancy and Empire of the Hand also do not appear in the mod)
2. Proper implementations of Ssi-ruuvi themselves and their ships using available ones is just impossible
3. I've needed space contained by the Lwhekk and its hypelane (to Bakura and also somewhere else) to add more hyperlanes, so that all 216 planets have someform of connection with each other. These hyperlanes are taken directly from campaign files, yet some of them were cut - like Coruscant-Empress Teta - to give more space for others - the mentioned hyperlane is not necessary as there's Soruscant-Kaikielius and Kaikielius-Empress Teta; also there's no need for ET-Byss, as there's "Byss Run": Byss-Prakith and Prakith-Empress Teta.

Nothing more to say, here's the file (attached to the post).


In order to play it, rename the file cutting off the "_DS_trimmed" section from file's name, paste it into .XML folder and replace (previously making the back-up copy of course!) the original "CAMPAIGNS_GALAXY_FAR_FAR_AWAY.XML" file. Then star the game, choose the GFFA campaign in game menu and mark "Empire" as the side to play with. Make appropriate adjustments of money... and play.
And remember: Do not underestimate the power of the Dark Side of the Force!

Besides, especially in case of heroes with their own "custom" ships the "death" event may occur either in space combat or (as with "land" or "double environmental" heroes) during land combat. This may well be explained as "ship's destruction/failure" or "being severely wounded during combat".
To avoid searching too much: look at Anakin Skywalker; he was even called "dead" by his former master yet he survived. He also replaced his command ships many times during his time as Emperor's servant. Similar case was with a female Imperial Knight (don't remember her name) from SW: Legacy comics series (the one saved by Cade Skywalker and "encased in Vader's way" by Bantha Rawk). She survived and even got new armour, yet it required time.
Similar case: see Johny Rico in "Starship Troopers", when he was presumed (and officially declared...) dead after failed "Ivasion on Klendathu", yet he survived in medical tank (resembling very much the bacta tank... ).
Oh, forget about the Emperor himself, resurrecting in his clone body at least twice before his permanent death... or Thrawn's clone... etc.
Besides, the cost of "resurrecting a hero" is sometimes astonishingly high - hero must be "built" anew and then upgraded with all his previous "levels" (see the cost of Thrawn - construction (some 10K credits?), then construction of Admonitor...(another ~30K credits) and finally the Razor's Kiss - IIRC 729K cedits! - total about 800K credits for one hero!).
That reminds me about the need to conquer more "mining" planets in my ongoing Empire campaign... to have a weekly income of some 100K per week at least - doable but requires careful planning.

What is the "SMI mod"?