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by Johann Glorick
 
  X-Wing Alliance Battle
 
Battle Title: Imperial Storm II:Dark Horizon
Missions: 9 including full descriptions, radiomessages and (simple) briefings
Medal: ISII Dark Horizon Medal (Medal and ribbon included)
Author: FL/LT Ender mBind/Echo 2-2/Wing XV/ISD Vanguard
(A.C.W.T.Zwegers@student.tudelft.nl)
Site By: FO-TCCOM/FA Priyum Patel/CS-4/SSSD Sovereign
(spellfire@btinternet.com)
[Taken from http://www.btinternet.com/%7Espellfire/impstorm.html]
ISII Article By: FL/CM Johann Glorick/Python 2-1/Wing XV/ISD Vanguard
(Valehope03@yahoo.com)
[Taken from "The Vanguard" http://www.lincowski.org/vib/news.htm]
Soundfragments: Voice acting by Tarkin, Ender and Marvin Gaye (?) All other wavs generated by At&T labs and Bell Labs Text to sound generators. All have been reduced to at max. 11.025Hz 8bit Mono (EH TAC requirement) with Windows Media Recorder, sometimes editted (trimming, amplification).
 
Ships: TIE Defender, TIE Advanced, Interdictor
Difficulty: Playable to hard.
Skirmishes: 9 straight from the wargame when possible
Battles: 1, with for each team 3 missions.
Release Date: 22/jan/2002
 
Filename: IS2DHXWA.zip
File contents: 1B8M1IS2XB1W1.TIE, 1B8M2IS2XB1W2.TIE, 1B8M3IS2XB3W1.TIE, 1B8M4IS2XB2W1.TIE, 1B8M5IS2XB2W2.TIE, 1B8M6IS2XB4W1.TIE, 1B8M7IS2XB5W1.TIE, 1B8M8IS2XB6W1.TIE, 1B8M9IS2XB6W2.TIE, is2b1w1.skm, is2b1w2.skm, is2b2w1.skm, is2b2w2.skm, is2b3w1.skm, is2b4w1.skm, is2b5w1.skm, is2b6w1.skm, is2b6w2.skm, xxxxIS2DH0.PLT, EMAIL.TXT, SHIPLIST.TXT, Mission.lst, readme.html, IMPSTORM.gif, IMPSTORM.jpg, patchImpStormBlu.jpg, bluecounter2-5.jpg, A Folder called /site/ containing the Imperial Storm II site. and a folder called Wave/Mission Voice/IS2B?/ filled with up to 16 wavs per mission,
Hardware used: Celleron 450Mhz, GForce II Ultra, 194Mb
Software used: AlliED, XWA, Notepad, Windows Media Recorder, Paint Shop Pro..
 
THESE LEVELS ARE NOT MADE, DISTRIBUTED, OR SUPPORTED BY LUCASARTS ENTERTAINMENT COMPANY. ELEMENTS TM & (c) LUCASARTS ENTERTAINMENT COMPANY.
 
Installation:
  1. Copy the 1B8M1IS2XB1W1.TIE, 1B8M2IS2XB1W2.TIE, 1B8M3IS2XB3W1.TIE, 1B8M4IS2XB2W1.TIE, 1B8M5IS2XB2W2.TIE, 1B8M6IS2XB4W1.TIE, 1B8M7IS2XB5W1.TIE, 1B8M8IS2XB6W1.TIE and 1B8M9IS2XB6W2.TIE files and the Mission.lst and EMAIL.TXT files of this custom mission into your "MISSIONS" folder.
  2. Copy the xxxxIS2DH0.PLT and SHIPLIST.TXT files of this custom mission into your Main XWA folder.
  3. Copy the  is2b1w1.skm, is2b1w2.skm, is2b2w1.skm, is2b2w2.skm, is2b3w1.skm, is2b4w1.skm, is2b5w1.skm, is2b6w1.skm and is2b6w2.skm files of this custom mission into your "SKIRMISH" folder.
  4. Copy the folder called Wave/Mission Voice/ of this custom mission into your "Wave" folder. (create it if needed)
  5. Load the pilot for the mission,  xxxxIS2DH0.PLT, in XWA and begin flying Battle Eight, play on till you've flown the 9th mission.
  6. Rename xxxxIS2DH0.PLT based on your PIN. For example, a Pilot with PIN 2883 playing this battle would rename it to "2883IS2DH0.PLT", zip it and send it off to your direct commanding officer.
note: the original .lst and .txt files in your MISSIONS and main XWA folders will be overwritten.
Combat Notes:
  • IMPORTANT! ONLY USE THE SINGLE PLAYER MISSIONS (TRAINING MISSIONS) FOR HIGH SCORE SUBMISSION.
  • For the skirmishes to work in MP, the host needs to copy the .skm files to his SKIRMISH folder and load them before playing.
  • TAC won't let you fly XWA Skirmishes for FCHG Points, use the Single player mission for all TC flying outside of combat competitions.
Battle Description:  This battle is based upon the TIE Corps wargame "Imperial Storm II: Dark Horizon" (IS2:DH), conceived and run by Flight Officer, Fleet Admiral Priyum Patel. IS2:DH was a follow-up to the wargame "Exercise: Imperial Storm" which was conceived and run by former Flight Officer, Fleet Admiral Kessler (ret). The wargame was based on Project: Faithful - which was originally designed & run by Vice Admiral IQ Pierce (ret).

The battle is a conversion of the original XWA skirmish files used (as far as available) to test this mission type's usefulness in Sinle Player war gaming situations with the ultimate goal to come to war games with more platforms then just Multi Play. This offers some limitations towards this battle as a Single-Player experience:

  • The goal in a Skirmish is to destroy all opposing forces - as such all the missions have a Primary Goal of destroying 100% of the opposition.
  • War gaming Skirmishes hold almost 200 craft (2x94) - which means that some of the larger scale battles make for very long missions with quite a lot of waves. 
  • War gaming Skirmishes hold also a maximum of almost 200 craft - this means larger battles are split up in waves. To keep in with the full conversion these waves have not been combined to single missions - which means that you will probably have a larger mission in the first wave then in the last. (When both forces have been depleted)
  • Because the story line is based on actual tactics and strategies it doesn't hold to the classical battle structure of going towards a climactic final battle and you won't always have the opposition you'd wish you have - this is more realistic but it might cause strange effects for the classic mission flier. See it as "story driven"
  • Wargames have players flying capital ships as well, which is the reason for the required use of the updated shiplist.txt file.
  • Skirmishes have no briefings to speak of, the "animated" briefing still reflects this, Officer Questions, Radio Messages and such have been added.
  • The single player is always on the side of the winning team - or it could be next to impossible to complete. This is why the battle has been cut into 3 pieces of 3 missions each in which you fly for each of the 3 teams of IS2:DH. This means that the player doesn't follow the events of the wargame in complete chronological order (going through battle 1,3,2,4,5,6 in that order).
 
Story Line: The "basic way" of your Story line you can find on the Imperial Storm 2 site which is included. The "Battles" page gives a step by step description of each battle and which I updated to include all 6 battles, the "Map" page shows you where you are in the galaxy plus data on the planets involved, the "Forces" page shows you what craft to expect in the combat area and the rest is there to show you how a wargame like this is run and what it was all about.
The next way is to read the articles on IS2:DH in "The Vanguard", a ships newspaper of one of the TC ISDs which is set in the Star Wars Universe so you can get the fictional feel of things as well. A cutting of the newspaper has been added courtesy of CM Johann Glorick.
The most obvious way is to read the Officer Briefing and Debriefings of the Missions as well, there has been added some "Imperial Storm Data" in the debriefings too which elaborates on the goings on around each mission from a war gaming point of view. The Officer Briefings, Debriefings and Hints have been set up in a Question (Q) and Answer (A) system. Additionally to this all missions have emails added to them - and I've gotten you a subscription to "the Vanguard"'s email service.;)
 
NOTES: You need the XWA (or at least all the ships involved there) AND the updated shiplist. To fly in Combat all players need the same version, make sure you all have the update by lucasarts installed.
Other Information: This is the first release of a  testing purpose battle - it's main use was mostly to examine the possibilities of SP war gaming and the usefulness of converting skirmishes to missions in war gaming in general. Bugs could arise  - please mail me if they do - also if you have hints, death threats, questions or appraisals.
 
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