Monthly Archives: May 2015

Friday Feature: Commando

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“A good soldier always knows how to use whatever equipment is at hand: computers, droids, vehicles, communications gear, and – of course – weapons. Knowing what a weapon is capable of – and more importantly, what it isn’t capable of – can save your life in a tough situation.” ―Colonel Marck Linth, Alliance SpecForces

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Commandos are the epitome of the soldier. Their lives are committed to the art of combat. When a starship in drydock needs to be destroyed, an enemy factory needs to be shut down, or a new opposing headquarters needs to be blown sky-high, the commandos get the call.

Commandos were important but not overly powerful in early Star Wars Galaxies; post NGE, they were one of the few surviving classes and specialized in heavy weapons.

In Empire in Flames, the commandos are the soldiers on the frontlines of the war.

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Commandos specialize in explosions and blast damage.

Grenades are simple weapons, quick to use and available from any good weaponsmith. They are great for tossing AoE damage into a tight battle, often hitting multiple opponents with one explosion.

Rocket launchers, on the other hand, are slow and not very accurate, but critically important for taking down enemy vehicles. A volley of rocketfire is the best answer to enemy walkers attempting to massacre friendly forces.

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Commandos aren’t limited to explosions, though – they bring plenty of other heavy weapons to the table. Flamethrowers, acid rifles, and disruptors all play a role for a commando – the right heavy firepower at the right time. When it comes to dealing damage or just intimidating an enemy with a big wall of fire, the commando is a go-to soldier.

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Commandos bring a variety of skills to the table. Most will bring at least a little medic for field emergencies, while adding some melee skills – typically either unarmed or a one-handed vibroblade for quick combat. Some prefer adding additional long-range combat to the fray, like adding a sniper rifle.

Skills: Medic

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“Any battlefield medic would be proud to have done as much.” ―Han Solo, The Unifying Force

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Medics aren’t a focus of Star Wars during the movies – only on rare occasion do we see anyone patching up a wounded soldier, and even then it’s a doctor, not a field medic. The Expanded Universe did a better job of demonstrating the necessity, though what Disney will do now is anyone’s guess.

Nonetheless, adventurers in Empire in Flames will find medical skills important.

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Medic skills allow players some limited abilities in the field. They can use stims in the heat of combat to keep a player or pet fighting long beyond the time they should’ve been incapacitated. More proper packs and time can allow a medic to bind and heal wounds that would otherwise be crippling. They can stop bleeding and apply antivenoms, preventing a player from dying from slower means.

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Most adventurers will pick up at least a few medical skills. While more urbanized types like crafters and entertainers may forego those skills, the types wielding a blaster or swinging a sword understand the utility of field medical skills.

Core3: Unlocked

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The SWGEmu team has announced the conditions and contract for receiving the time-unlocked Core3 files.

Having reviewed the agreement, the Empire in Flames team sees nothing that causes us concern. However, we’re not quite ready to comply with all the conditions set forth – a problem we hope to rectify in very short order. To prevent any misunderstandings: the delay in our application is on our side, not the SWGEmu team’s.

Assuming we don’t have any issues with receiving the Core (our understanding is that the SWGEmu team reviews these as applications and therefore reserve the right to turn down applicants), we should be ready to move forward with public testing in the very near future. We’re not putting out any dates, yet, so you’ll have to settle for Soon™.

During a review of our environment and server, we encountered an issue – a hardware limitation with our network equipment. We’ve already put in an order for new equipment, and should hopefully have the issue resolved before we’re ready for public testing.

The fire’s coming.

Roleplayer Lore: Rise

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One of the details that sets Empire in Flames apart from other SWGEmu-based servers is a focus on story. While roleplaying alone cannot sustain a server, it can be an important part of the playerbase’s activities. The live Starsider server is a great example of that.

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Rhaze Durile was a mainstay figure in the RP community on Starsider. As an Imperial Inquisitor, he provided a steady stream of story-driven events over a number of years. Although he currently is focusing on Star Trek Online, he is planning to return when Empire in Flames launches to run another long-term campaign. Rhaze will be a GM in-game to allow him to more easily create the epic setups he specialized in back on the live servers. 

As part of the setup, he’s writing a serialized story to set the stage. This is the first part.

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The Empire was doomed. That was what the Rebel propaganda kept claiming. Captain Jeck Mevara checked the trim of his uniform once more as he looked over the precise operations on his bridge. Although the Imperial propaganda machine was in full swing claiming the so-called rumors of the Emperor and Lord Vader’s deaths were absolutely false, Mevara knew the truth.

The second Death Star had been destroyed. The Empire was without its Emperor and Lord Vader was dead. The projections were grim. While the Empire could maintain a war of attrition for some time, it would ultimately die a slow, agonizing death should the growing rebellion gain support at the rate it was.

Rebel cells had sprung into action all across the galaxy. The rebellion was spreading. The Empire was burning…but not for long. His ship was on a critical mission that would save the Empire. The factionalism that was gripping the Empire was more prevalent than was generally known. Although Palpatine was dead, the propaganda machine he built was as strong as ever. Not many people knew the truth, but Mevara’s new master had shown him the truth.

Mevara had never given much thought to the Force or its application in military matters. Frankly, he had always believed the whole thing to be a bunch of mystic nonsense that did more harm than good. After all, the Emperor and Lord Vader had been so-called “Masters of the Force”, and it had all but destroyed their bodies. Lord Vader had once said the ability to destroy a planet was insignificant next to the power of the Force.

Before, Mevara had quietly thought that such a concept was nonsense. But when the Force had given the power to a farm boy from Tatooine to single-handedly destroy the first Death Star and then kill both the Emperor and Lord Vader while his friends destroyed the second, Mevara could no longer deny its power. He found himself envying those few remaining people who could control it, secretly wishing he could learn to control it himself to exact revenge on the Rebellion.

Then, his master found him and gave him the ability to weld the Force through the use of what Mevara knew to be a perverse combination of technology and magic. It didn’t matter. Mevara had the power to get his revenge, but he would have to be patient. The process Mevara’s master used to grant him command of the Force was not powerful enough to create entire armies as Mevara wanted.

Not yet, anyway.

That was his ship’s mission. It had taken weeks of maneuvering to get around wandering Rebel patrols, but they had finally arrived. Mevara heard the slow, purposeful steps of his master approaching from behind him. Everyone came to attention as he glided onto the bridge, his dark crimson robes rustling slightly as he came to a stop beside Mevara.

“Status?”

Mevara snapped to attention and offered a sharp salute. “We are entering standard orbit now, My Lord.”

“Any sign of Rebel activity?”

“No, My Lord. Our approach has gone unnoticed.”

His master nodded. “Very well. Proceed with the operation. Launch all fighters and assault ships. I want all communications silenced. Bring me the artifact, and Captain…no survivors. We are not yet ready to reveal ourselves.”

Mevara nodded crisply. “Yes, Lord Durile.”

Friday Feature: Merchant

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“You sound like a businessman, a responsible leader.”
“It’s the price you pay for being successful.”
-Han Solo and Lando Calrissian, The Empire Strikes Back

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Merchants often know nothing of combat. They don’t wield a lightsaber or point a blaster, grip the yoke of a starfighter or stand on the bridge of a warship. Nonetheless, they are some of the most powerful people in the galaxy.

On the live Star Wars Galaxies servers, merchants were critically important. SWG has always had a player-driven economy, and the merchants are the ones who keep that part of the game humming along.

Empire in Flames ensures the merchants will have plenty to do.

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The economy is the game of merchants, and it’s not a game for the poor. Successful merchants are some of the wealthiest players in the game. And success can only happen one way: delivering quality goods to eager buyers in the right place at the right time.

It is important to differentiate “merchant” from “crafter.”

Merchants run shops, hire vendors, advertise goods, and concentrate heavily on selling goods.

Crafters create goods. Crafters may very well become merchants as well, choosing to sell their own goods, handling their own marketing and hiring practices.

However, a merchant may not be a crafter at all. Some merchants may specialize in selling top-quality resources at high credit per unit prices; some may flood the market with low-quality but cheap resources. Still others may specialize in hard-to-find or downright rare items. And the biggest, most powerful merchants may acquire exclusive contracts with the very best crafters, becoming the proverbial one-stop shop for the best goods in the galaxy.

Remember: disputes over trade routes brought down the Republic.

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