Friday Feature 1/5/2018: Commands in SWG

Happy New Year! 2018 is going to be an exciting time for EiF. Our population are numbers are rising. The roleplaying community is burgeoning. The GCW is around the corner and players are getting ready and helping with live testing of the invasion portion of the system!

SWG is rich with action players can use either from the command line or placed into macros. This week we’ll focus on some useful commands. Some of our earlier Friday Features utilized a few, such as with macros.

Basic Commands

//
Complete list of commands in game. Note many commands may need a target.

/afk
Sets your character to “Away From Keyboard” so others know you are not currently available.

/anon
Sets your character to anonymous for the purpose of searches.

/consider (/con)
Displays the difficulty rating of a targeted creature or NPC compared to your skill with your currently equipped weapon.

/earth
Displays the earth (real) time.

/find
Brings up list of commonly searched for locations. Selecting a location will create a waypoint to the nearest one of that type and will produce a lighted path leading you to it. To remove the waypoint you created, type /find clear.

I personally use this ALL THE TIME! /find starport when I’m out in the middle of no where searching for the best resource spawn, allows me to get a waypoint to the nearest starport.

/findfriend
Locates your friend by name and creates an active waypoint for them. You must have the person in your friends list and you must also be on their friendslist for this to work.

/follow
Auto-follows your target; use /stopfollow to cease following.

/gallop
Urge your mount go faster for a short time. Don’t expect to use this command continuously! This is useful if you are mounted on a pet and get into combat and the pet slows down to fight.

/logout
Logs your character off the server; you should be in a city, house or campsite for a safe logout, otherwise your character will be at the mercy of the world for 3 additional minutes.

/notepad
Allows modifications to a text file that gets saved as “notes.txt” in your base profile directory. I use this to enter notes about what foods I can make and the max stats I can hit.

/quit
Exit the game immediately. Your character will remain vulnerable to attack for three more minutes.

/tip
Automatically transfers a specified number of credits to your target; you can also use /tip bank to send money directly to their bank, but there is a 5% transfer fee to do this.

/unstick
If you are stuck in a building or other feature of the landscape, this should unstick you. You cannot be moving in order for the command to work. If this command does not free your character, then please contact an admin.

/waypoint
By typing /waypoint and the coordinates, you will create a waypoint in your datapad at location of the current planet’s coordinatate or at your present location if nothing is entered. Note: targeting something and typing /waypoint does not function.

Chat

/groupchat (/g)
Sends message to group channel.

/guild (/gu)
Sends the message typed after the command to your guild channel.

/retell (/rt)
Sends tell to the last person you sent a tell to.

/reply (/r)
Sends a tell to the last person to send a tell to you.

/say
Puts your message in a chat bubble and in the main chat window.

/tell (/t)
Sends an instant message to the character indicated; you can send the message to multiple people by separating their names with a comma.

/tellpet
Sends a command privately to your pet.

Combat Players

/listen
You actively listen to the targeted musician. Heals mind wounds and battle fatigue

/loot
Loots targeted corpse. 

/watch
You actively listen to the targeted dancer. Heals mind wounds and battle fatigue

/unstick
If you are stuck in a building or other feature of the landscape, this should unstick you. You cannot be moving in order for the command to work. If this command does not free your character, then please contact an admin.

Digging in the Dirt!

/forage
Rangers: Searches the area for anything useful.

/me
Medics: Use to forage items useful for Medics and Doctors

Entertainer/Dancer/Musician

/flourish <#>
Plays indicated musical or dance flourish.

/bandflourish
Synchronizes flourishes of everyone in the group (however, this does not grant the XP of normal flourishes). Using this command allows you to show some style alongside fellow entertainers! Only band leaders can use this command.

/bandleader
Transfers Band Leader status to indicated character.

/sing
Chat bubble that is unique to Entertainers.

/startdance
Begins the dance style that you specify.

/startmusic
Skill and instrument required – begins playing song that you specify.

/tip
Automatically transfers a specified number of credits to your target; you can also use /tip bank to send money directly to their bank, but there is a 5% transfer fee to do this.

Grouping Commands

/invite
Invite the named or targeted player to a group (only group leaders can invite additional people into an existing group).

You cannot /invite while you are in combat or the invitee is in combat. You cannot /join while you are in combat or the inviter/group leader is in combat\

/uninvite
Cancel the group invitation to the named or targeted player.

/join
Joins group or band if you have been invited.

/makeLeader
Group leader only – transfers leadership to named or targeted group member.

/groupchat
Sends message to group channel.

/dismissGroupMember
Dismiss the named or targeted player from the group.

/disband
Group leader only – disbands current target, or entire group if no target is named.

Guild

/guild
Sends the message typed after the command to your guild channel.

/guildremove
Removes target or self from your current guild.

Management: Structures (Houses, Harvesters, Factories

/addpower
Adds power to selected structure.

/setpermission
Sets which players are allowed to move and pick-up items within a structure, as well as the ability to destroy that structure. You must be in or near your building or installation to do this.

/setprivacy
Sets your structure to private or public. You must be in a building to use this.

Merchant/Crafters/Resource Gatherers

/mailsave
Saves your game mail on your computer

/sample
Used by Surveyors to take a resource sample after surveying.

Roleplay

/emote
Displays whatever text you follow it with as an action of your character. For example, if I want to say: Megan is serving free chocolate mousse cake on Port Jato, then the following would accomplish that:  “/emote Megan is serving free chocolate mousse cake on Port Jato. 

/kneel
Changes stance to kneeling. Great for RP!

/moods
Displays list of moods.

/mood none
Returns your default mood to neutral.

/prone
Changes stance to prone.

/roleplay
Sets your character to “Role Player.”

/say
Puts your message in a chat bubble and in the main chat window.

/sing
Chat bubble that is unique to Entertainers.

/stand
Changes stance to standing.

Emote Commands: On the Abilities and Commands menu (Ctrl + A) there is a Social tab with all the emotes you can use with your characters. Most emotes each have three states:

For example, in the list you’ll see an emote for “About Dang Time!” By hovering over it, you’ll see the command for it. /adn. By clicking on it, you’ll see the three states:

  • Without a modifie:
    • /adn : You openly show that your patience has expired
  • With the self modifier to apply it to yourself:
    • /adn self: A bit frustrated with yourself?
  • Targeting a player, or adding player name as a modifier:
    • /adn Megan: You encourage Megan to hurry. Any day now!

Next week we look at more commands to improve communications.

Sandarie Coron, Community Manager

Clearly Not Combat Princess!

EiF New Year’s Eve – GCW EVENT!

If you aren’t doing much on New Year’s Eve, come bring in the New Year with an Empire in Flames! Normally Sunday evenings at 9:00 pm EST is our weekly EiF RP Campaign installment. On 12/31/2017, a live test of the Galactic Civil War will take place on EiF’s live server with a planetary invasion! The planet is yet to be determined, but will likely be announced in the 12/29/2017 Friday Feature “Anatomy of an Invasion” which will provide a breakdown of how invasions work.

What can you do to prepare? I thought you’d never ask!

One thing we definitely know about the invasions is starports can be flipped via the base busting system. You’ll need a busting team with:

  • Bounty Hunter
    Commando
    Smuggler
    Doc (this replaces the BE required in Live)
    Squad Leader

    AND A support group to keep the defending faction from killing your base busters!

If you are an Armorsmith, Weaponsmith, or Chef: get your vendors stocked!

If you haven’t finished your template, or have been waiting for the GCW so you can PvP, wait no more! You have just over a week to prepare!

If you are thinking, “Bleh, I don’t PvP…” Well neither do I, at least not very well, but I’m definitely going to plan to be in a walker pew, pewing!

The EiF GCW is unique and original content. You have never experienced Star Wars Galaxies like this before.

Sandarie
Community Manager, Empire in Flames

Welcome to Empire In Flames

An Empire in Flames is a post-Endor server offering a new, unique Star Wars Galaxies experience!

What’s the 10,000 foot view?

Empire in Flames began conceptually before the shutdown of the live servers with a design friendly to Roleplayers, PvE players, PvPers, and pilots. It started as, “What’s your ideal server?” It started with a new profession system, expanded to housing and races, and dreamed of a Galactic Civil War in practice instead of imagination. In short, it’s the concept of a Star Wars game as dreamed by a small group of long-time Starsider players – players who were RPers, PvErs, PvPers, crafters, and pilots, none of whom fell into the trap that any of the major combat systems – pre-CU, CU, or NGE – was by any means perfect.

A new profession system

Empire in Flames offers a new approach to the system – one that combines the best of the ideas of the NGE and pre-CU.

Trees are categorized as “professions” and “skills.”

Professions cost no skill points (though they require XP to level). However, a player can only have ONE profession at a time. Professions include:

Bounty Hunter
Commando
Doctor
Entertainer
Merchant
Ranger
Smuggler
Squad Leader

Abilities acquired from professions can be used with any weapon, or even unarmed. Professions offer enhancement, access to specialized skills like slicing, vendors, creature harvesting, and so forth.

Skills, on the other hand, require skillpoints and can be freely mix-and-matched. They, too, require XP to level; however, all skills can be learned from their novice box up. Prerequisites are not required.

Architect
Armorsmith
Artisan
Bio-Engineer
Carbineer
Chef
Creature Handler
Dancer
Droid Engineer
Fencer
Image Designer
Medic
Musician
Pikeman
Pistoleer
Rifleman
Shipwright
Swordsman
Tailor
Teras Kasi Artist
Weaponsmith

Skillpoints have been adjusted to allow a player to pickup approximately 2 1/2 trees, with some exceptions. (Image Designer, Dancer, and Musician together reach 250 points, for example.)

A new approach to housing

Like most branch servers, Empire in Flames offers additional housing options not available on Basilisk – and a few not available on any other branch server. However, player cities take a central role; player houses are required to be built inside city limits.

No more crust of housing on the edge of the no-build zone around NPC starports. No more endless sea of houses on Tatooine. Instead, players have more reason than ever to cooperate – “home” is now a community.

New Races

While “new races” are proliferating across the branch servers, they started with Empire in Flames. After unauthorized use of our code on other servers, we decided to release them for other servers to use…and used they have been. Still, we’re not resting on our laurels – we’re working to add even more options, even when it means we’re pestering Timbab for a new tool to make it happen.

A New Setting

The decision to move post-Endor is partly driven by roleplay, but also by a desire to implement a proper Galactic Civil War. While the immediate ramifications of the time shift are largely cosmetic, it does mean new themeparks will be coming – after all, Jabba the Hutt, Darth Vader, the Emperor, and Xizor are all dead.

How will you position yourself to rise to power?

We respect existing lore that has happened before Endor, but past that we will be creating our own lore, pulling bits and pieces from varying sources. We simply don’t think the way things go in the new canon with Jakku and all makes for very compelling gameplay or storytelling, but we also can’t trod down the path of Legends as its over saturated and restricting.

Crafting Revamp

One of the most controversial changes we have adopted is a crafting revamp for weaponsmith and armorsmith.

Instead of the old crafting system, we moved to a “core”-based system. The base of every weapon is a core, whether it’s a pistol, carbine, rifle, or melee weapon. The core determines critical stats like HAM cost, damage, and speed. Additions like stocks, scopes, and customized barrels are done at the weapon-level to modify those core stats. In essence, any weapon or armor can be made good. Empire in Flames is more than powerhammers and T-21s and composite armor.

A Roadmap Forward

Post-launch, the next three major patches are planned: Galactic Civil War, Schisms of the Force, and Underworld. The first is to bring a proper Galactic Civil War to the galaxy; the second to implement the Jedi profession; the third to reveal black markets, smuggled goods, player bounty hunting, and Crime Lords.

Along the way, other content is planned – new themeparks for the New Republic and the Empire, a three-faction questline over the fate of Jabba’s criminal empire, and a series of post-Endor based heroic encounters.

Also check out our Q&A from the summer!
And the whole Friday Feature Archives

Friday Feature 12/15/2017 – The Staff of an Empire in Flames

Over the past weeks we’ve chatted with some of the Empire in Flames staff. We’ve added some special people to the team in recent weeks also and we’ll be doing chats with them in the near future. The Community of EiF feels like it’s exploding and expanding so rapidly recently. The excitement being generated by the new and returning players for the Staff is sometimes intoxicating. We often call that feeling Dev Crack. I felt it would be beneficial to create a chart or list of the current staff for the community, so everyone can see the roles of the varying team members here at an Empire in Flames. My hope is this will help the community to direct their questions to the appropriate folks and get the best responses in return!

Lead Developer/Project Owner
Halyn

Halyn is responsible for the content and direction of EiF. He directs the efforts of his staff, who strive to implement his vision. He gives the team autonomy to create, but his vision and guidance are always the final word. He somewhat jokingly refers to his style of leadership in EiF as a benevolent dictatorship. His roadmap for EiF never has had a timeline associated with it, due to his real life obligations. What he has shared with the community is that he’s actively working on the EiF original content for the Galactic Civil War. The GCW will be followed by our implementation of Jedi, and then the long anticipated Underworld publish. Halyn’s recently been teasing a lot of GCW content in our Discord and on Facebook.

Boss Lady
Kelta

Kelta wears many hats in EiF. She helps with Community Management and is the primary sounding board and sanity keeper for the Lead Developer/Project Owner. She is usually the voice of wisdom to the entire staff and we love her advice and calm presence. She is also a great roleplayer.

Combat Developer
Anishor

Anishor has been spending a lot of time working on his passion for the combat system in EiF. He’s been doing a revamp of the combat professions, looking at the NPCs, and resists. He is also responsible for the implementation of the Entertainer Fame tree, which works to give entertainers meaningful payouts for missions. Anishor has also implemented our Launcher (thanks to Progor from Relics of Corbantis for the base code!), and is the designer of the Skill Builder which is one of his current projects.

In-Game Asset Developer
Gail/Abi

Gail is working to bring items from SWG which are not part of the SWGEmu into EiF. He’s adding them to looted schematics, junk drops, end-game and world boss drops, existing crafter lines, and other things. Some of the items will have been obtainable in other versions of SWG. A few will be things that were in game, but never player accessible have been placed into the game too. If you take a trip to Port Jato, the EiF Space Station, and visit the arena on the lower level, you’ll see the fences Gail pulled from the games NPC assets. Below is the link to the forum thread where you can place requests for in-game assets. Doesn’t mean you’ll get them… but you might! Be sure to follow the instructions for posting requests.:

http://empireinflames.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=34&sid=4ae8adb0c35e8732f28e52a7dc38c282

Designer/New Art Assets Developer
Violet

One of the most creative SWG artists is working with EIF to add art never before seen on any server. Violet has her own test server and develops art for Sunrunner II’s Takhomasak’s planets. Violet is also the Head Artist of Mod the Galaxy. In MtG, she’s working with Sytner on making scripts for animations/organics possible (*a little blue Twi’lek squee is heard*) She is working on a Pazaak deck and an A180 Blaster Pistol currently for EiF. Violet likes to livestream her work and can be found on EiF’s Discord in the #livestream channel. She, too, has a thread on the forums for requesting original artwork. Please read the guidelines before posting requests.

http://empireinflames.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=6

Other Art Assets
Wefi

Wefi is a very talented graphic artist. He’s taken existing and new assets and manipulated them for use in EiF. Such as ships for our starports and weapons. Wefi is an avid RPer and you are very likely to find one of his characters in-game helping with the immersion of EiF. Wefi also handles some of our client file modifications.

Creator of Worlds
Takhomasak

Takh is the creator of the planet Taanab on EiF. Takh is the Administrator and Lead Developer of the SWGEmu server Sunrunner II. His server is in testing right now, but the stuff he’s doing is extraordinary. EiF and SII are sister servers with different goals. We share assets and camaraderie and laughs together. Two of his new planets, Kuat and Mon Cal will figure prominently in the upcoming GCW on EiF.

swgsunrunner2.com

Instance Developer
Lasko

Lasko is also part of the Sunrunner II team who is partnering with EiF. Lasko brings an extensive background in SWG, as a staff member at Mod the Galaxy and creator of the MTG asset compilation. He’s helping Halyn with some of the GCW projects and soon(™) EiF will enjoy some of the instances Lasko has brought back from SWG Live.

modthegalaxy.com

Co-Wbsite/Forum Admin
BluePyros/Andarta

Blue has been part of the EiF team since way before launch. He is the reason all of our housing deeds are holos! He has a talent to dig into code and manipulate it. Part of his role in EiF is to help get people settled on the Website/Forums. If you are having trouble getting in, contact Blue or Sandi on Discord.

Community Manager
Sandi/Sandarie

Sandi has been with EiF since before it’s launch. Her role is to be a liason between the community and the developers when needed. She normally maintains a presence in Discord and in-game. She’s known to read EVERY post in Discord and Galaxychat. She’s also the Co-Website/Forum admin and writes most of the Friday Features. If you have ideas for the Website, forums, or ingame events, Sandi is the one to contact.

Clearly Not Combat Princess!

Combat in Empire in Flames, or How I Spent My Summer Vacation

EiF brings you a player’s perspective’s on EiF’s combat system. This post isn’t fully fact checked. Thank you Pizza the Hutt! You are one of my all time favorite Hutts! Enjoy!

-Sandarie, Community Manager

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The combat in Star Wars Galaxies has gone through multiple iterations and changes in its lifetime. Empire in Flames is another such iteration aiming to improve upon some of the inadequacies of the original game in a fashion that differs from the Combat Upgrade (and the subsequent game-changing overhaul that was the NGE). 

While the fundamental mechanics of “Pre-CU” combat still stand, there have been numerous tweaks and changes to encourage a diversity of builds that was sorely lacking in the original game. These modifications to the base emulator take the form of adjustments to stat allocations for each profession, ability changes ranging from minor adjustments of multipliers to new behaviors, and some tinkering to the engine to make combat much more intuitive and interesting.   

Whether you’re an old-hand at Pre-CU combat, an NGE player visiting the past, or completely new to SWG, there are some things that you should know! But where should we begin?   First things first! Before you can fight you need a weapon! If you’re a bareknuckle brawler or an inveterate sniper, your attacks follow the same formula! So, here’s the rundown on your hardware:

1.       Weapon type – This one is the most obvious. A pistol, a carbine, a sword, et cetera. These weapons have their corresponding abilities in their respective professions but here at Empire in Flames we have some special-case scenarios! If you’re a Bounty Hunter, or a Smuggler, your weapon skills are “weapon agnostic” which means you can use these abilities with any weapon equipped! 

2.       Damage type – All incoming and outgoing damage in SWG is “typed” and is compared against a variety of resistances. Not all guns do energy damage, and not all melee weapons will do kinetic. To ensure maximum effectiveness, examine your target (in the case of PvE) to see your opponents’ resistances and equip yourself accordingly!   

3.       Armor Piercing – This is a stat you’ll see on all weapons but you can completely ignore this as Empire in Flames removed Armor Levels from all damage equations!   

4.       Attack speed – This is the base delay for your attacks (in seconds). The CDEF Pistol that you start with, for example, has a speed of 3. Without any skills, you will auto-attack every 3 seconds. But all weapon-specific professions come with a speed stat boost that modifies this value as a percentage. More on this later!   

5.       Damage range – Minimum and maximum damage is self-explanatory.   

6.       Wound chance – Whenever an attack lands, it has a chance to impart a wound to a specific HAM pool. While higher percentages are better, the actual effect is rather small.   

7.       Range modifiers – Ok, so this one might not be super clear as to how exactly it works but it is simply a +/- modification to your attack’s accuracy. Ideally you want to be at the ideal (hehe) range but in most cases you can get away with any spot that’s not a massive penalty (like the -120 @ 64 meters on the starter CDEF pistol).   

8.       Special Attack Cost – These are the base values for the consumption of your HAM pools when you use special attacks. Each special attack has a multiplier that can leave you with an empty action pool in the case of high special costs on your weapons.   

Okay! So that’s a quick review of the weapons and how their stats function. Let’s get started with the combat mechanics and how your skills tie into them. I’m going to start with the novice box of the Swordsman profession because it’s what I have in front of me and it gives me a wide variety of skills to use as examples. In the novice box we have the following skills:

Counterattack, Defense vs. Blind, Defense vs Dizzy, Defense vs Intimidate, Defense vs Stun, Melee Defense, Ranged Defense, Two-handed Melee Accuracy, Two-handed melee Center of Being [duration], Two-handed Melee Center of Being Efficacy, Two-handed Melee Speed, and Two-handed Melee Toughness… whew! That’s a lot of stats! It might be a bit overwhelming, but they’re very straightforward once you get the hang of it!   

Counterattack is one of the three “secondary” defense skills, alongside Dodge, and Block. The way these work is that upon receiving a “successful” attack, you have a chance to react to the incoming damage with these skills.

  • Counterattack allows you to make a free basic attack against your opponent.
  • Dodge always you to sidestep the incoming damage entirely.
  • Block reduces the incoming damage by 75% and has the added bonus on Empire in Flames of making a second block attempt if the first one fails.

These three defense skills are limited to their respective weapons – Counterattack for Carbineer and Swordsman, Dodge for Pistoleer and Fencer, Block for Rifleman and Pikeman.

Note: Heavy Weapons are considered as Rifles by the game and allow you to make use of Block when wielding the Commando’s arsenal. Teras Kasi Artists have a special defense stat called Defensive Acuity which allows you to react to incoming damage with either Counterattack, Dodge, or Block.   

Defense vs [XXXXXX] – These are stats that are generally referred to as “State Defense”. Certain abilities have the benefit of attempting to apply a variety of these states and that is compared against your state defense to determine whether or not it is successfully applied.             

You’re probably curious as to how these states affect you or your target – here’s the hot-skinny.           

    • Intimidate – This state reduces the maximum damage of outgoing attacks\
    • Dizzy – When dizzied, posture changes can cause you to be knocked down.
    • Knockdown– Flat on your back! You are incapable of acting while knocked down and you take extra damage. –          It’s important to note that the way Dizzy/KD works on Empire in Flames is different from SWGEmu in that it is impossible to lock anyone into a Dizzy/KD loop (because this is just no fun!)
    • Stun – Reduces outgoing damage by 10% and lowers Primary Defense (more on what that is in a bit).
    • Blind – Reduces accuracy. Posture change (up/down) – This causes the receiving party to change their posture (standing, kneeling, or prone). Coupled with dizzy, this has the chance to knockdown.   

Next on the list is Ranged/Melee Defense – These are your so-called primary defenses which is what your accuracy is compared against when attempting to hit something. These primary defenses reduce the likelihood of being hit by most, if not all, attacks.

  • Accuracy – This makes your attacks more likely to be successful.
  • Center of Being –  Duration and Efficacy are modifiers to the Center of Being skill (which has just received some interesting changes from Anishor). Duration is in seconds, and the efficacy now functions by way of reducing the players outgoing damage by 25% and increasing their toughness by [Efficacy / 3]. Weapon Speed – This is a percentage modifier to your weapon’s attack speed before ability multipliers. It caps out at +75 which translates to 75% * attack speed (or 1/4 of your weapons attack speed as your effective attack speed).
  • And finally we have Toughness – This is a flat percentage reduction on incoming damage. It makes you “tankier”.   

In addition to all of the above, an important consideration (especially for PvP) is the Ranged and Melee Mitigation skills that come with the combat professions. The way this works is it reduces the damage range of the attacker’s weapon making it less likely for you to receive random “big hits”. Ranged Mitigation applies to incoming ranged attacks, and Melee Mitigation applies to incoming melee attacks.

For the curious, or the mathematically inclined, the formula is [Max Damage = MinDmg + ((MaxDmg-MinDmg)*(<20% for Mitigation 1, 40% for Mitigation 2, and 60% for Mitigation 3>)]   

Now that we have all that out of the way you might be wondering “What the hell do all these abilities do?!” because the tooltips may not accurately reflect what is actually happening. Each special attack ability has a damage multiplier, and an attack delay modifier. Some attacks have a specific pool they target, while others will hit a random pool. Some attacks might even apply a state. Unfortunately due to the changes made by the Empire in Flames team, I don’t have access to the definitive numbers, or what abilities apply what states, but I can give a “broad-strokes” answer regarding the ability choices available.

Higher tiered attacks will generally do more damage, with a higher special ability cost, and a larger attack delay. This means you have the luxury of tailoring your attacks based on your playstyle! Like hitting hard, but maybe not so often? Use the higher tiered attacks! Want to spam specials, as much as possible, or slip in a few extras while your action or mind pool is low? The lower tier specials will fit that niche. Every special has a trade-off which makes using something like SpinAttack1 useful even when you have AreaAttack3.   

That’s all for now! I hope it answers more questions than it creates. Happy hunting and May the Force Be With You!

With Love,              Pizza The Hutt.