Questions Round 2: Answers!

[Darth_Torpid-PG]

Here are the answers to the second round of questions. Some of these questions could be taken a few ways, so if I didn’t answer exactly how you expected, feel free to clarify/expand on the question and I will follow up on the answer.

 

 

(1)Athanasios: Are there firing range indications both for ground and space units? We cannot see any in the demo, which, in many cases ends up brining your forces to close to the enemy and get annihilated (not to mention those torpedo launchers that un-deploy automatically from their defense points).

 

Generally the firing ranges of the units are not indicated. Some of the special abilities that have an area of effect will show that area when the ability is activated. You can also see if something is in range by watching the mouse cursor when you attempt to target something.

 

 

(2)gstommylee: I have a clarification question is the regular edition CD and the collectors’ edition DVD? I'm curious to know if the collectors’ edition is DVD I haven't decided which one to get yet.

 

Here's the SKU list as I have it:

 

US English (1 DVD, extra bonus disk)

 

US English (2 CD)

 

UK/SP/IT (1 DVD) English VO (Spanish/Italian HUD and Tutorial VO) with Spanish/Italian on-screen text

 

UK English (2 CD)

 

German (1 DVD) – full localization

 

French (1 DVD) – full localization

 

Polish (1 DVD) – full localization

 

Russian (1 DVD) – full localization

 

Japanese (1 DVD) – text localization only

 

Canadian French (1 DVD) - full localization

 

Asia/Pacific UK English (2 CD)

 

Brazil UK English (2 CD)

 

Mexico US English (2 CD)

 

Note that this is subject to change but should be relatively trustworthy.

 

 

 

(3)Sithman1138: What effects happen when major characters are taken out: Leia, Luke, Emperor, Vader, etc.

 

With some exceptions, heroes have a re-spawn timer that activates when they are defeated in combat (whether in space, land, or taken out by a bounty hunter). Heroes can also trigger their re-spawn timers when certain galactic-mode special abilities are used (for example, Boba Fett de-spawns when you use him to eliminate a Rebel hero). The hero re-spawn timer is long enough to be a pretty meaningful penalty for losing them, but not long enough to prevent you from enjoying the use of the heroes.

 

Because of this, it is strategically beneficial to, for example, use Boba Fett to eliminate a Rebel hero, or use a raid to eliminate an Imperial hero before a major battle to deprive the other side of their use.

 

The exceptions are the “leader” heroes – Mon Mothma and the Emperor. If the “kill enemy leader” win condition is turned on, defeating those heroes will end the game.

 

 

(4)wedge2211: Can both "move," "attack-move," and "attack" commands be queued as waypoints, rather than just "move" commands? It'd be nice to tell a bomber squad to take out the hardpoints on a ship in a particular order or tell a group of units to sweep for enemies along a given route, instead of having to wait and issue each command individually after the last is completed.

 

Currently there is no order queuing in the game other than movement waypoints, but I will certainly put it down as something to consider for the future.

 

 

(5)shadowsfm: how do you selectively split your fleet for an initial invasion fleet and a follow-up second fleet?

 

There’s no way to queue up fleets for an attack, but you can use the normal way the game engine works to achieve the same effect. I am assuming you already know how to arrange ships within fleets by zooming into planets and dragging ships around.

 

All galactic progress stops while a tactical battle is taking place; so using this fact you can send one fleet to your target, wait a few seconds, and then send the next one to the same target. Be sure your pause is long enough; if you don’t wait long enough between fleet dragging the game will automatically combine the fleets at the target destination.

 

So, when the first fleet arrives, you have your battle, and the second fleet is paused on the route to the target. Even if you lose the first battle or retreat, the second fleet is unaffected and will arrive as soon as the first tactical battle ends.

 

Generally you will want to split space and land forces anyway unless you are absolutely sure of the enemy space defenses, since ground unit transports are easy and obvious targets.

[Athanasios]

LOL, Torpid, just watch what i was just about to post . Heh, no offence taken...

 

I thought we've asked 5 questions the other day and just wondering what occured to them.....

 

I think in these situations there are two options:

 

a) -answer the faqs now

 

b) -...

 

Btw, if they were posted somewhere, heh, just delete this

[Darth_Torpid-PG]

LOL No worries I've had a busy time here working on...stuff...so the answers were later in coming than I would like.

[gstommylee]

Thanks for the info torpid

[Jeff]

Thanks for answering these Darth! All these answers make me want the full version of the game even more

[popcorn2008]

Great answers, hopefully the collector's edition will be DVD then. Can't wait to try it out!

[Commander Obi-Wan]

Thanx for the answers. Like, Darth Moeller said, "All these answers make me want the full version of the game even more!"

[Darth_Extas]

Great Answers thanks again, I am still in anticipation for EaW

I wonder what else will happen with these questions, as the first post had said.

I still have good interesting EaW as it currently stands.

[sven8136]

Lack of a queue system for attacking/etc does seem like a big step backwords in the development of the rts genre. I hope that is quickly resolved.

[wedge2211]

Thanks for answering!

[Sithxace]

yes they say they try to make it less chore-ful with the strategy by having a lot of thing automated, yet having to assign a new target for ur ships is prob the worse chore of the bunch especially when u have lots of lil units fighting at once

[Athanasios]

Although the cursor answer (related to firing ranges) is adequate and all the details will be explained in the manual (<--- i'm expecting a nice one, not a leeflet that unfolds to four parts ), could you tell a bit more about cursors' indications?

[Slocket]

"

 

Quote:

(2)gstommylee: I have a clarification question is the regular edition CD and the collectors’ edition DVD? I'm curious to know if the collectors’ edition is DVD I haven't decided which one to get yet.

 

 

 

Here's the SKU list as I have it:

 

US English (1 DVD, extra bonus disk)

 

US English (2 CD)"

 

So is the Collector's Edition for the USA a DVD or a whole bunch of CD's? Anything more than two CD's I would rather have the Euro version which is in DVD format I assume? The question is still not answered clearly.

[gstommylee]

collectors edition is dvd at least to the current list and regular is 2 cds

but typical its as ways been subject to change. (not likely that it would happen) its alwasy been with 2 version of the game 1 dvd and the other version is cd i have yet to see since they been starting to come out with a dvd version of games as well as a CD version where both collections and regular are cds

[alecsuba]

I contacted Ebgames the company and not a crappy store regarding DVD or CD. they told me they have no idea what the collectors edition is and havent been told that information. They told me if the information came out before release i could specify which i wanted but til then basically out of luck.

[Orao]

Hi,

 

Thx for the awnsers but may you tell us why you opted for the system where the computer make choice which ships will start the battle ? Wasn't more natural for a player to make his choice instead letting that to the computer ?

[lightsaber]

One big question is still pending... is it possible to download the English-Voice-File? As I read, the German version is "full localization"... I doubt that Lucas Arts has invested the same amount of time/money in finding an appropriate crew to cast the voice-overs.

 

I would really appreciate an answer on this subject.

[gstommylee]

I contacted Ebgames the company and not a crappy store regarding DVD or CD. they told me they have no idea what the collectors edition is and havent been told that information. They told me if the information came out before release i could specify which i wanted but til then basically out of luck.

 

Yea all the sites compusa bestbuy ebgames gamestop image for the collectors edition show PC_CDROM not PC_DVD.

 

I'm wondering at the time the lucasarts decided to do a collectors edition they decided have it be cd rather not dvd and later on they changed it to do dvd instead and sites aren't aware of that.

[popcorn2008]

On Amazon.com they did say the collector's edition was CD-ROM but now they aren't saying what it is. I can pretty much assume it is one DVD and one bonus CD with extra content as it is in Germany.

[shadowsfm]

so germany gets the added content?.

its cool that i can change the language in the german version.

[Darth_Torpid-PG]

Although the cursor answer (related to firing ranges) is adequate and all the details will be explained in the manual (<--- i'm expecting a nice one, not a leeflet that unfolds to four parts ), could you tell a bit more about cursors' indications?

 

Unfortunately, after doing some more research, it seems that this functionality was disabled in the shipping version. Supposedly the color cursor system was found to be too confusing in focus tests. The functionality is still in the XML, so it can be turned back on if desired. Basically how it worked was that the target cursor would be yellow if you attack something out of range (that is, it would have to move to attack) and red if something was in range.

[Darth_Torpid-PG]

So is the Collector's Edition for the USA a DVD or a whole bunch of CD's? Anything more than two CD's I would rather have the Euro version which is in DVD format I assume? The question is still not answered clearly.

 

Honestly, I don't know. I got the SKU list from Lucas, but the details you have there are what I have as well. I assume that the DVD would be the collector's edition, but it's just an assumption. You may want to contact LucasArts via their online store and see if they can offer more details.

[Darth_Torpid-PG]

Hi,

 

Thx for the awnsers but may you tell us why you opted for the system where the computer make choice which ships will start the battle ? Wasn't more natural for a player to make his choice instead letting that to the computer ?

 

We experimented with a "setup screen" system for both space and land so that you could have more control over the initial ships in battles. It was almost universally despised because of it's impact on the flow of the game. In order to preserve game flow, we devised a priority system that chooses ships based on the encounter. While not ideal in all situations, it does a pretty good job overall. You can remove the situation entirely by streamlining your fleets.

[Darth_Torpid-PG]

One big question is still pending... is it possible to download the English-Voice-File? As I read, the German version is "full localization"... I doubt that Lucas Arts has invested the same amount of time/money in finding an appropriate crew to cast the voice-overs.

 

I would really appreciate an answer on this subject.

 

I doubt that Lucas will allow the downloading of only the localization files. You may want to take a look at the German version - since it is on DVD, it may contain all of the voice files, not just German localization - however I can't confirm that. Once it leaves our offices, it's all in Lucas' hands If the German version doesn't have what you need, you may want to try the UK version. As to the quality of the actors, I would guess that Lucas is pretty particular about who voices their characters no matter what the language.

[Thrawn]

Thanks for answering all of the extra questions! Clearly you guys are just sitting around and twittling your thumbs now that EAW has gone gold;)

 

I'm sorry to see that colored cursor system go. It sounded like a very good idea!