STAR WARS™ Empire at War: Gold Pack

STAR WARS™ Empire at War: Gold Pack

ESB to RotJ
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srd2k7  [developer] 24 Nov, 2017 @ 5:14pm
Dev Diary - Rebel Campaign - The Battle of Endor and the second Death Star
This mod's purpose is to give a fun and lore-friendly campaign covering the time period leading up to the Battle of Hoth on through to the end of Return of the Jedi.

The real capstone of course is the Battle of Endor. The epic struggle to destroy the superweapon, eliminate the Emperor, and all that good stuff.

When playing the Rebel version of the campaign, the goal of the campaign is to either kill Palpatine or destroy the Death Star. One set of difficulties I encountered in setting up the mod was that the AI could be a bit funny about production, so I resolved to dealing with this via events. When playing as the Empire, no worries, there are no event handcuffs. So feel free to dominate the galaxy as you like.

The rebels will have the chance to eliminate the Emperor during any point in the campaign until the Empire reaches tech 5 (technically a little bit after reaching level 5). The Emperor starts in his well defended Capital of Coruscant so it would be tough going there. I imagine a really great player could probably storm the Core and try to assasinate him but I suspect the Empire will be keeping folks on their toes. Eventually the AI, if it is feeling ballsy will send the Emperor himself to deal with the rebel scum. This is a great way to win the scenario as the Emperor has now put himself in danger.

All of this changes in tech 5. Once tech 5 is reached a timer starts off. When a time limit is reached the player will be made aware that the Empire is currently constructing the second Death Star. From here, 8 game-days will pass. Use this oportunity to gather the Rebel Fleet, build more units, etc. Once the 8 days are up, the Emperor and Darth Vader will go to Endor. The Palpatine unit itself is actually removed, as from here on out it is assumed he is onboard the Death Star. So if you wanted to end the campaign before the Death Star arrives you have until then to do it. To avoid wacky situations Endor is actually restricted until this point is reached, so no early squatting.

The Imperial fleet and DSII above Endor will stick around for a little bit before the AI will decide to send it around. This is your opportunity to strike since you know where it is. Keep in mind that Rogue Squadron is the only available unit that can destroy the Death Star once its escort fleet is destroyed in tactical combat. I may add the super weapon killer trait to other units to help balance things, we will see. Keep Wedge safe until the critical time arrives. If you don't catch it at Endor you can always track it down elsewhere, but we all love Endor, don't we?

At some point I may try to add some events to insure the Battle of Hoth happens, as right now it is just up to the AI to decide to assault the Rebel Base. It will certainly do so eventually, so it is just a question of how much railroading is really desired.

Hope you all enjoy! As always, let me know about play balance, etc.
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Showing 1-15 of 17 comments
Nice.
In the game luke just hops on the bigest ship if hes in space, unless there is nothing bigger than a fighter squadrun where he flies around a x wing. Maybe give him a full x wing squadrun (and then a extra x wing or 2) and allow him to destroy the death star.
Luke's X-wing squadron is a good Idea but what if the Falcon also got the ability to destroy the 2nd death star considering since it did help destroy it from the inside.
Yeah. I pretty much won (I took out the 2nd death star and the executor, but long after it was constructed). But I dident have rouge squadrun, since they died in the battle.
Timerunner 25 Nov, 2017 @ 12:18pm 
Rogue Squadron survived Both Deathstars.
I mean they died in the battle to kill the people defending the death star.
srd2k7  [developer] 25 Nov, 2017 @ 2:08pm 
Did you get a game over victory screen, Banana?
No. But that makes sense since rouge squadrun died, it just means that the death star is indestructible and I have to kill everyone. Though I just figured "hey, if I had rouge squadrun id of won, so im just going to treat it as me wining.
srd2k7  [developer] 25 Nov, 2017 @ 7:11pm 
Okay, I'll see about adding the super weapon killer trait to other folks. I may even just apply it to all Rebellion fighter squadrons, because in theory any pilot striking an unescorted Death Star II could do it.
Last edited by srd2k7; 25 Nov, 2017 @ 7:11pm
RevanNaut 26 Nov, 2017 @ 6:41am 
Makes sense. It wasn't just Wedge & Lando trying to destroy the Second Death Star. Other fighters flew in with them.
The balancing related to the original game was Red Squadron (later of course formed into Rogue Squadron) being able to respawn to take down the Death Star, evetually.

While I haven't yet tried the mod, I do want to give an idea. A personal recommendation would be to make it a, three strikes sort of thing. Rogue Squadron can take down the DSII, Han Solo in the Falcon can take down the DSII, and at Tech 5 for the Rebellion they get a space only clone of the Falcon that's captained by Lando. Not the most canonical of ideas for Lando, but it could be useful.
The lando thing would require some new asests.
srd2k7  [developer] 26 Nov, 2017 @ 11:36am 
Giving the superweapon killer tag to Han & Chewie would make sense. I'm also considering putting an 'Ace' squadron unit in, which would be an X-Wing or something, unique unit. It could be rebuilt but only one can be on the map at a time. That way you have Rogue Squadron, Han & Chewie, and at the very least a repeatable 'Ace' unit so you are not locked out of victory forever.
Originally posted by srd2k7:
Giving the superweapon killer tag to Han & Chewie would make sense. I'm also considering putting an 'Ace' squadron unit in, which would be an X-Wing or something, unique unit. It could be rebuilt but only one can be on the map at a time. That way you have Rogue Squadron, Han & Chewie, and at the very least a repeatable 'Ace' unit so you are not locked out of victory forever.
Well if you conquer all the Empire's planets even if the DSII you would still win I think, so there is that option.
Benjin 29 Nov, 2017 @ 6:37am 
I do think Rogue Squadron should be a land unit (Airspeeders) as well as a space unit (X-Wing Squadron). I mean, they were in Empire Strikes Back destroying AT-ATs, after all.
Last edited by Benjin; 29 Nov, 2017 @ 6:37am
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