Things that need to be fixed for this game your ideas

[thon77]

i have to agree, it's ridiculous. the ships start firing before i even get a chance to select any of them on some maps. before the camera even pans to the default position from the hyper in cinematic.

[Cheech Marin]

I don't quite understand how that discredits what im saying

 

Anyway the book is written by a physicist, i think he realises how much energy that is.

 

I don't think you realise the power levels that have been demonstrated in the movies, which is where they derive their figures from. A stardestroyer VAPOURISED an asteroid. That requires in excess of 200 gigatons. Unless you can somehow prove otherwise, which people have tried to do for years, and failed those figures stand.

 

 

 

This wouldn't happen to be the same "physicist" who believes that lightsabers cast a shadow simply because of an error made by the filmmakers? (I am referring to Dr. Curtis Saxton, the guy who made the Star Wars Technical Commentaries) It's true, at one point you can see Vader's lightsaber casting a shadow during the famous duel in Return of the Jedi. This obviously has to be a special effects error. This also shows you that the movies are not necessarily the final authority on every matter. Things still have to make sense in the Star Wars universe.

 

This 200 gigaton business would also mean that ships would depend on superheavy energy shields for defense, and once those were gone, the vessel is finished, no matter how much conventional armor you could pile onto that ship. Sure, those numbers might have been "derived" from the movies, but they still make no sense.

[Jan Gaarni]

This wouldn't happen to be the same "physicist" who believes that lightsabers cast a shadow simply because of an error made by the filmmakers?

Yes, that's the same guy.

[Xyvik]

then we would be turning it into another Galactic Civilizations =/

i think having modding capabilities for our own ships is to complicated for this kind of game... but if there really is a want for customizations... let it be only for heros perhaps.

 

And that would be a bad thing...how? GalCiv is an awesome game on every level, and any attempt to be more like it would only make FoC even better.

 

Onto the debate regarding technical details...

 

Timothy Zahn, author of the most popular Star Wars novels and arguably the man responsible for Star Wars surviving this long, has several degrees in the science of physics. Therefore, anything he put in his novels was backed by hard science, and always has been (the only exception being the ysalamari, which were a concession to both fantasy and science). Also therefore, I would trust whatever he wrote to be just as accurate, if not more so, than some paper-pusher technical writer.

 

Therefore, in the end, whatever Zahn writes is truth, anything to the contrary is lies. Including Ep3, which blasphemes Kashyyyk and is therefore apochryphal.

[lukeiamyourdad]

Therefore, in the end, whatever Zahn writes is truth, anything to the contrary is lies. Including Ep3, which blasphemes Kashyyyk and is therefore apochryphal.

 

I hope it's sarcasm. I seriously do.

[Darth Anarch]

I hope it's sarcasm. I seriously do.

Me too. That was more than just a little scary.

[thon77]

Timothy Zahn, author of the most popular Star Wars novels and arguably the man responsible for Star Wars surviving this long

 

[Darth Anarch]

The operative word there is "arguably".

[conmanguyler]

yes, i also think that the pop. space cap shld be atlered, to make the battles huge!, ive seen the trailer and there are many ships on the battle field which is great!, but are you going to include this in the final version?

 

- Edit - and also what are those red spiraling weapon things that come out of the pirate ships? are they some sort of powreful weapon that can take down hardpoints with ease? - like the proton beam?

 

If you know how to edit double-posts, you know how to delete them. -LIAYD

[WarlokLord]

I don't know if this has already been said, but something that REALLY REALLY needs to be fixed:

 

When landing your troops upon invasion, your opponent can send in a raid and pretty much kill all your troops while they are landing... but the troops just stand there and WON'T FIGHT BACK, until they're all landed.

 

That's HORSESH*T! How many multiplayer games have you been ganked because of this?

 

MAKE THE UNITS FIRE IF UNDER THREAT IMMEDIATELY UPON LANDING... IF THEY CAN BE KILLED, THEY SHOULD BE ABLE TO RETALIATE.

 

This, to me, has broken so many potentially great matches that it really needs to be touched upon. I thought the new patch would handle this, but no... troops are still fodder.

 

Thats the point - if you play well enough to flood the enemy dropzone with troops, you can make further landings absurdly costly. When I`m the defender, I damn well WANT that capability.

 

In return I fully accept that the computer player can do the same to me at my dropzone.

[WarlokLord]

"Fans could make better models..."

 

Yea, and how many polygons would they use?

 

*3000* per stormtrooper?

 

I`ve seen professionals post their "low-poly" models to the Interlag and I have news for them... they aren`t low-poly. One of these very models clocked in at 15,000 faces! I used to tinker with Imagine 2.0 and Lightwave, and my mentor showed me what low poly really means. Try making a tank out of 200 triangles.

 

My point is the current array of models look very good. You want DOOM 3 calibre characters? Then send me the money for the computer system I`ll need to display them.

 

When you are making realtime A.I., physics, lighting, and other calculations concerning the activities of hundreds of sandbox entities, you can`t make each entity a Pixar masterpiece.

[Darth Alec]

 

But anyway...

Bigger cap limits and map sizes right from the beginning, and more use for the fighter.

[lukeiamyourdad]

@ WarlokLord

 

You're quite right my friend. Often, people forget that this is an RTS and this genre is notorious for being very ressource hungry. Granted, when computers will be able to handle anything thrown at them, they'll certainly look much better, but for now, let's deal with what we have

 

(By the way, nobody is supposed to spend most of their time staring at the model. You know, that leads to your army getting destroyed )

[Dreng]

The AI should be fixed its specially annoying when you land your forces and get wtfpawnt by a bunch of rebel art tanks and stuff the AI should stay and defend their base also i dont like that reinforcement spots thing...in some planets you just can land 2 units when you start and its impossible to take more spots and defend the original one with 2 units pop cap should be raised to and for space would be nice to choice what units will appear first just like in the ground battles....

[Xyvik]

I hope it's sarcasm. I seriously do.

 

Not in the least. The prequal trilogy did nothing but destroy longly-held EU ideas left and right. And for what? Cheap thrills, "kiddy" movies, and more style-over-substance crap than any other recent movie memories.

 

The number of inconsisties between the prequals and the originals numbers in the hundreds, despite Lucas' promises that everything would make 'sense'.

 

As for Zahn keeping Star Wars alive, lets look at a little history.

 

Star Wars: A New Hope (unnumbered at the time) is released to movie theaters in 1977. Star Wars fever hits the public, Empire Strikes Back is released in 1980, and then ROTJ is released in '83. For the next five or so years, Star Wars is still extremely popular, action figures sell left and right, toys, posters...the works. Then it begins to dissipate. By '90 most stores have stopped carrying anything Star Wars and most people only retain fond memories of the movies.

 

1992. Heir to the Empire is released. Star Wars mania grips the people once again, and the almost dead Star Wars franchise is brought back to life with a tremendous roar that has not yet stopped. The books of Timothy Zahn attracted millions of additional fans, fans who could never really get into the movies but now found some excellent books they could sink their teeth in. By the time Episode 1 rolls around, Star Wars has more fans than it would have had at the time, and that prevents the movie from being the flop it well and truly deserved to be.

 

Then the originals are butchered for the digital revisions (Han shot first, anybody?) only proving that Lucas has lost all sense he ever had when he made the originals, and he is out only to make the millions he now has. Who helped him get those millions? Zahn.

 

So in the end, the prequals are apocryphal. The originals are not. And since Zahn was instrumental in keeping the saga alive where Lucas failed, his works are canon as well. Or can anybody forget that Zahn invented Coruscant, and the Noghri, Dreadnaughts, AT-PTs, Talon Karrde, Corellian Action VI transports, Mara Jade, Grand Admiral Thrawn, the Chiss, Interdictor Cruisers...the list goes on and on.

[Darth Anarch]

As much as I love Timothy Zahn's Star Wars books (he is by far the best writer to work in the Star Wars universe) I have to tell you that you're wrong on a number of things.

 

First, Zahn did not "invent" Coruscant. He merely put a name to it that Lucas decided to keep.

 

Second, he didn't "invent" the Dreadnaught, the Interdictor or the Corellian Action VI transport. These were invented by West End Games, who at the time held the license to manufacture the Star Wars roleplaying game. As Zahn himself stated in (I believe) the foreword to the "Dark Empire" graphic novel, WEG sent him crates and crates of source material which he then incorporated into his books.

 

Third, Zahn's books did not attract millions of new fans that had not seen or enjoyed the movies. Pretty much everyone who bought the books were already fans of the movies; face it, if someone has know that the Star Wars movies have been around for 20 years but still hasn't bothered to watch them, they sure aren't going to spend money on Star Wars books. Reading a book is a lot more effort than seeing a movie.

 

Fourth, George Lucas created the Star Wars universe. By default, anything he says is canon, whether you agree with it or not. You may prefer others' interpretation of things, but Lucas is still The Man.

 

And finally, it makes absolutely no sense to say that "prequal trilogy did nothing but destroy longly-held EU ideas left and right". Lucas always knew precisely which events had led up to the fall of the Republic and the corruption of Anakin Skywalker. Just because a bunch of writers had made assumptions about the Star Wars universe that in the end turned out to be in conflict with Lucas' master plot doesn't mean that the prequels "ruined" the EU. What Lucas says goes; everyone else don't know what they're talking about. It really is that simple.

[Admiral Sith]

(By the way, nobody is supposed to spend most of their time staring at the model. You know, that leads to your army getting destroyed )

 

Exactly right. I spent every battle in my second GC after getting the game in cinematic mode Obviously got slaughtered. It was still cool though.

[wedge2211]

Also, the Original Trilogy was re-released on video a couple times in the mid-90s. That sparked a great deal of interest.

[jedi3112]

Well, back to what needs fixing.

 

I think that infantry should no longer get squashed by vehicles. It ruins the purpose of both infantry and anti-infantry. The only exception to this rule should be the AT-AT, wich should also crush vehicles under it's heavy feet. This wouldn't be annoying and wouldn't ruin the purpose of infantry and anti-infantry because the AT-AT is so slow. The AT-AT should furthermore be able to step on the small defense and on the little walls.

 

Another thing that has been mentioned before is the unloading of troops. Currently troops can be fired upon while they are still unloading and you can't select them to do anything about it. I see 3 ways to fix this.

 

The first one is to make every unit invulnerable untill it actually can be used.

 

The second way is to allow each unit to fire back while they are still unloading.

 

The third way is to create a small area around the landing zone. Weaponsfire cannot go into that area and it cannot go out of that area either. Units that are in the area can only fire at other units that are in that area but not at units outside the area, and vice versa. This would also preven people from stationing their artillery on the edge to make any landing impossible.

 

I prefer the first option, but I also feel that the stationing of artillery next to the landing zone should be fixed. However I would do this by removing the landingzone alltogether and allow for troops to be landed anywhere in sight of other troops (and you will still start out with a single unit so you have and area for reinforcements). I still think artillery should be kicked out of the game, but I don't see that happening.

 

The skirmish and Galactic Conquest modes can use some fixing as well. I am currently unable to play Empire vs Empire games. So that needs fixing.

 

Aside from what needs fixing, there are also some things that have to be changed because of the expansion. For one, the maps will have to be a lot bigger to fit the new units in. The SSD doesn't fit into the current EAW maps. The pop cap will also have to be increased because of the SSD. And you will want to send escort in as well. For the rebels, they will need the additional units to destroy the SSD and the escort the Imperial player send in.

[Xyvik]

Well, back to what needs fixing.

 

The first one is to make every unit invulnerable untill it actually can be used.

 

The skirmish and Galactic Conquest modes can use some fixing as well. I am currently unable to play Empire vs Empire games. So that needs fixing.

 

Those are two things that I was going to mention myself, and I even tried to put them in my other post as an edit but my browser crashed =/

 

I would hope the first thing would also apply to Space, because ships get barraged while they are coming in from hyperspace and by the time you can use them, their shields are gone and they are almost dead. Watching the movies, all units came in from hyperspace almost instantly, not this 4 or 5 seconds crap of getting beat up before you can do anything about it.

 

((Off topic to Darth Anarch: Point One: You're wrong, the city-planet idea AND the name were both invented by Zahn, and Lucas was even not going to use them but finally buckled under pressure. Two: yeah, you're right, I forgot about west end. Third, sorry, you're wrong again, Zahn wrote his books as true Sci-Fi, something that Star Wars the movies was not. His books reached a larger audience as he had already won the Hugo award and was famous for science fiction, so he attracted, perhaps not millions, but certainly thousands of new fans because of his writing. Fourth, yes Lucas created the universe. However, once you set something in stone, I don't care who made it, it does not give you the write to go back and "fix" things. Anybody in the business knows that you go with the flow, you don't like how something turned out, too bad you're stuck with it. What does Lucas do? He screws up the movies in order to make more money. THAT automatically disqualifies him from his own works. It would be like Da Vinci suddenly saying "you know what, I don't like the way this guy came out on the cistine chapel, I'm going to go over and do it again, adding a few other things that I think were missing." He had already performed the painting, put it in stone, it was over. Same goes with the movies. Also, he did not have his master plan done. All he had was a very rough draft. In the end, you either love the prequals or you hate them, and I hate them, and I have a lot of reasons for doing so ))

[lukeiamyourdad]

((Off topic to Darth Anarch: Point One: You're wrong, the city-planet idea AND the name were both invented by Zahn, and Lucas was even not going to use them but finally buckled under pressure.

 

You're right. The name Coruscant was Zahn's creation. The city-planet, not so sure though. Actually, the description of Coruscant in Zahn's Thrawn trilogy does not match the one we see in the prequels.

Originally, in Return of the Jedi, a capital planet of the Empire was supposed to appear instead of the Death Star II. Whether or not it was a city-planet, I don't know, but it could be. I'd have to verify this.

 

Third, sorry, you're wrong again, Zahn wrote his books as true Sci-Fi, something that Star Wars the movies was not. His books reached a larger audience as he had already won the Hugo award and was famous for science fiction, so he attracted, perhaps not millions, but certainly thousands of new fans because of his writing.

 

Which makes a marginal difference compared to the already existing millions of movie fans. No one is saying that Zahn is not a good writer, but claiming that EU made Star Wars survive...I highly doubt that assumption to be even remotely true.

Saying that Star Wars was not real "sci-fi" is a fact, but it being different and more "mythological" made it more popular and accessible to the general population. It was not a story only geeks could enjoy, everyone found something in Star Wars.

 

Fourth, yes Lucas created the universe. However, once you set something in stone, I don't care who made it, it does not give you the write to go back and "fix" things. Anybody in the business knows that you go with the flow, you don't like how something turned out, too bad you're stuck with it. What does Lucas do? He screws up the movies in order to make more money. THAT automatically disqualifies him from his own works.

 

You realize that when you own something, you can change whatever you want right? Biggest fact here: the only ones who actually knew about EU were the diehard EU geeks. Truth is, you matter very little on the grand scheme of Star Wars, whatever you claim. Nearly nobody knew about the EU events leading to ANH and when the prequels came out, only a handful of people have whined because of that.

 

It would be like Da Vinci suddenly saying "you know what, I don't like the way this guy came out on the cistine chapel, I'm going to go over and do it again, adding a few other things that I think were missing." He had already performed the painting, put it in stone, it was over. Same goes with the movies. Also, he did not have his master plan done. All he had was a very rough draft. In the end, you either love the prequals or you hate them, and I hate them, and I have a lot of reasons for doing so ))

 

Except that Da Vinci never had anything to do with the Sistine Chapel. It is mainly related to Michelangelo but others have worked on it.

By the way, the owners of the chapel, the Vatican, did censor the paintings. Turns out the owners are allowed to do what they want with what they own. Weird huh?

[wedge2211]

The first one is to make every unit invulnerable untill it actually can be used.

 

The second way is to allow each unit to fire back while they are still unloading.

 

The third way is to create a small area around the landing zone. Weaponsfire cannot go into that area and it cannot go out of that area either.

I think that proposals one and three are a bit too contrived...and making the landing units invulnerable would reduce the effectiveness of a swift charge on the defender's part, elimenating a tactic from their use. But I do think that allowing troops to fire as they land is a fine idea. In fact, if units come under fire as they are landing, I think they should not only fire back but move to cover if at all possible--think of how a commando unit leaping off a helicopter would act.

 

Xyvik: are you sure about hypering in ships in space? I've done that and seen the ships start firing before they have even finished materializing. Seems like the problem is nonexistent in orbit. In fact, I find that hypering in a corvette makes for a nice surprise when it comes out of nowhere and its initial salvoes cut down fighters that were previously safe from laser cannons.

[Xyvik]

You're right. The name Coruscant was Zahn's creation. The city-planet, not so sure though. Actually, the description of Coruscant in Zahn's Thrawn trilogy does not match the one we see in the prequels.

Originally, in Return of the Jedi, a capital planet of the Empire was supposed to appear instead of the Death Star II. Whether or not it was a city-planet, I don't know, but it could be. I'd have to verify this.

 

Which makes a marginal difference compared to the already existing millions of movie fans. No one is saying that Zahn is not a good writer, but claiming that EU made Star Wars survive...I highly doubt that assumption to be even remotely true.

Saying that Star Wars was not real "sci-fi" is a fact, but it being different and more "mythological" made it more popular and accessible to the general population. It was not a story only geeks could enjoy, everyone found something in Star Wars.

 

You realize that when you own something, you can change whatever you want right? Biggest fact here: the only ones who actually knew about EU were the diehard EU geeks. Truth is, you matter very little on the grand scheme of Star Wars, whatever you claim. Nearly nobody knew about the EU events leading to ANH and when the prequels came out, only a handful of people have whined because of that.

 

Except that Da Vinci never had anything to do with the Sistine Chapel. It is mainly related to Michelangelo but others have worked on it.

By the way, the owners of the chapel, the Vatican, did censor the paintings. Turns out the owners are allowed to do what they want with what they own. Weird huh?

 

 

Yeah yeah, I know, I get too mad at all the stuff sometimes. My apologies if I offended anybody...I'm a die-hard purist sometimes

 

As for the hyperspace...I'm not sure, I think they can fight back the instant they come in, but it always seems that either the ships are more vulnerable or something, because my Acclamators always have no shields left after hyping them into a battle scene, and by the time I can give them movement orders they are almost dead (and this is with very little fire actually being directed against them). Maybe it's just me.

[jedi3112]

I think that proposals one and three are a bit too contrived...and making the landing units invulnerable would reduce the effectiveness of a swift charge on the defender's part, elimenating a tactic from their use. But I do think that allowing troops to fire as they land is a fine idea. In fact, if units come under fire as they are landing, I think they should not only fire back but move to cover if at all possible--think of how a commando unit leaping off a helicopter would act.

 

It depends on what you consider a swift charge. If you plan to deploy artillary next to the drop zone, I consider that cheating, there's no skill required for that. However I want it like this, if a unit can be fired upon it is fully under your control. I have lost a tank in a brigade several times, because it took the transports 30 sec to unload them. And maybe there should be an option of making the dropships transparant. That would make it much easier to select units behind them.

 

Off course a real Imperial landing would consist of fighter support to keep the landing zone clear.

 

I haven't heard much of removing the landing zones and allow landing everywhere in sight. Though you shouldn't be allowed to land straight in the enemy base in that case.

[Xyvik]

I sincerely hope the devs are reading this!

 

In addition to side vs side (empire fighting empire etc.) it would be in the best interests of everybody if there was some way, a shortcut modifier or whatever, to skip past all the logos. Honestly, Petro, yours was awesome because we could skip it, but apparently Lucasarts has too much of an ego and we're forced to sit through at least 10 seconds of worthless logos about stuff we already know. We already know it's Star Wars Empire at War and that it is rated teen for fantasy violence. We already know that it's made by lucasarts.

 

As a map tester, I am constantly moving in and out of the game, and that 10 wasted seconds adds up a lot over time. I wasted over 15 minutes out of an hour one time (I actually timed it) because of that. Please, Petro and Lucasarts, do something about this!