Tag Archives: Star Wars

Welcome to Empire In Flames

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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

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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

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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

===

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.  

Friday Feature 11/17/2017: A Chat with Wefi

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Good Mythi… wait.. .Good Friday everyone! In the spirit of it being Friday, I bring you a feature! The EiF Friday Feature is an interview with Wefi! Enjoy getting to know him better!

EiF: Which versions of SWG did you play? pre-CU, CU, NGE?
Wefi: All three versions of the game
EiF: If you played in the pre-CU live, approximately how long did you play in the pre-CU?
Wefi: Started right after Jump to lightspeed was released. My folks bought me the expansion thinking it was the full game, so I had to wait for a while to be able to play.
EiF: Which server did you play on?
Wefi: I started on bria, moved to Radiant during the CU, Naritus when the NGE hit due to a character bug, and finally Starsider after the Server merges.
EiF: Which classes and which was your favorite?
Wefi: Pre-cu/CU I liked Combat Medic, It was an interesting class to me. I played Jedi during the NGE as I liked Melee Combat…. and also Jedi.
EiF: How many accounts did you own/manage?
Wefi: I had 2 Accounts, My  Nge Jedi, and Medic. My 2nd Was a BH/Jedi and a Tailor.
EiF: What type of gameplay style do you most enjoy?
Wefi: I enjoyed PvP the most, but I prefer to Rp now days as I can work on other things at the saame time.
EiF: What’s a typical gaming session for you, what activities?
Wefi: On and off during the day. At night I tend to play EIF a bit more now. Otherwise I play League of Legends, or some VR game.
EiF: What do you most enjoy about SWG?
Wefi: The Open space. A friend of mine showed me Everquest, and how large it was. When SWG was announced, I was excited for it. Being my own Star Wars character is very attractive. I can be A Jedi, or a Tailor. Most MMO’s have a hard time keeping me in due to the lack of freedom. FFXIV comes close.
EiF: What do you enjoy most about Empire in Flames?
Wefi: New Items being added, and the Open RP community.
EiF: When you are not ingame, what do you enjoy doing?
Wefi: Gaming, Or working on new stuff for SWG. Other than that is really just watching TV.
EiF: What do you do outside of EiF / do for a living?
Wefi: Tow Truck driver.
EiF: What is your role with EiF? What does that entail?
Wefi: I am more of a Content Creator for the client. I every so Often I help with adding new things, Like Models, or something I made that impresses our Dear Leader Halyn
EiF: If you could have ANYTHING instantly in EiF, what would it be?]
Wefi: Jedi, 😛 I need to have my lightsaber for Wefi to be Wefi
EiF: If you could find out one thing about our EiF Community, what would it be?
Wefi: Their favorite Star Wars item.
EiF: What gives you Developer’s Crack?
Wefi: Uhh, I often see things in Star Wars games, or shows, and think that be cool to have. Also I like to challenge myself, and try to do things that were thought impossible, or hard to do.
I look forward to see the upcoming updates to EIF, and see where the story goes. With new ways of editing the client, and the work that goes into the Server code. I assure that EIF will be one of the most Unique Server out there.

Sandarie, Community Manager

((for those wondering about the opening… https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_Mythical_Morning ))

Friday Feature 11/10/2017 – A Chat with BluePyros

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This week is another installment in the EiF chats with staff, featuring BluePyros!

EiF: Which versions of SWG did you play? pre-CU, CU, NGE?

Blue: I played from mid CU all the way through the NGE

EiF: Which server did you play on?

Blue: I started on Intrepid but transferred to Starsider, as that server faded a little over a year before the free transfer initiative.

EiF: Which classes and which was your favorite?

Blue: In the CU I was Rifleman/Commando and NGE I favored commando early, but quickly became and stayed smuggler for the majority.

EiF: How many accounts did you own/manage?

Blue: Like many I had 2 accounts and often had both going at once.

EiF: What type of gameplay style do you most enjoy?

Blue: Almost everything, but PVP is my jam and I can find enjoyment in.

EiF: What’s a typical gaming session for you, what activities?

Blue: Its varies from days to days, but I try to set long term objectives and work towards them.

EiF: What do you most enjoy about SWG?

Blue: It’s one of the last real sandboxes out there.  Enough structure that it’s not all DIY, but free enough that almost anything is possible.

EiF: What do you enjoy most about Empire in Flames?

Blue: That we have a chance to do things long thought impossible and make a better galaxy with our own hands.

EiF:  When you are not ingame, what do you enjoy doing?

Blue: I’m still a nerd at heart, so I can usually be found playing some manner of game.

EiF: What do you do outside of EiF / do for a living?

Blue: I work for the IT department of a Health and Human Services org.

EiF: What is your role with EiF? What does that entail?

Blue: Jack of many trades.  The biggest thing I did was converting all the houses into miniature versions, as part of the holo deeds.

EiF: If you could have ANYTHING instantly in EiF, what would it be?

Blue: All the old friends and players we’ve lost and left behind over the years.

EiF: If you could find out one thing about our EiF Community, what would it be?

Blue: What draws in the people who never played SWG when it was live.

EiF: What gives you Developer’s Crack?

Blue: I’m not really a dev, more of a modder at this point.  Bending things to my will so they work how I want.