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Now that the NDA is gone, here's a FAQ.

Pilot Professions:
There are 3 pilot factions: Imperial, Freelance and Rebel. Each faction lets you fly ships unique to your faction. You can only belong to one space faction at a time. Your faction on the ground is only loosely tied to your space faction. Ground Imperials can't be space Rebels, and ground Rebels can't be space Imperials.

Within each faction is three squadrons that you can join in order to advance in the profession. For Imperials, you may join factions on Naboo, Tatooine or Talus. For Freelance pilots, you can join factions on Naboo, Tatooine or Corellia. For Rebel scum...I mean pilots, I don't know where your squadrons are. You do not need any ground faction points to join a particular space faction, however you can not have negative Imperial faction and become an Imperial pilot. Same goes for Rebel faction and Rebel pilot.

Some squadrons will require that you progress pretty far in a theme park. The Imperial Inquisition, the Naboo Imperial squadron, will require you to complete almost all of the Imperial theme park. The Tatooine Freelance squadron requires access to Jabba's throne room. One of the Rebel scumdrons...er...squadrons requires access to the 'abandoned' base on Dantooine. The other two squadrons for each faction do not require such access.

The piloting tree consists of 4 different levels of 4 different skills plus the novice and master box, just like most other professions. The first column will get you access to better ships, the 2nd column will get you better equipment, the 3rd column will give you better specials, and the 4th column will give you better astromech programs.

You will receive a series of missions from a series of NPC trainers in order to advance in the pilot profession. Each trainer will teach one "tier", or horizontal line, in the piloting tree. You will have to complete several missions in order to receive any training, 4 missions for tier 1. Pilot skills can only be learned from NPCs, but cost no skill points.

Getting a ship:
Your trainer will give you a "starter" ship. This will be a very basic TIE, Syck (Hutt Light Fighter) or Z-95 depending on your faction. With this ship, you can fly around and complete some early missions. You will have to buy a player-made ship for later missions.

To buy a player-built ship, you buy a set of blueprints from a Shipwright. You then take these blueprints to the "chassis broker", which is stationed in all significantly-sized starports. The chassis broker will turn the blueprints into a deed, for a fee that depends on the level of the chassis. The fee for novice-level ships is 25k.

You now have an empty chassis, which is a ship-shaped hunk of metal, and flies just about as well as a hunk of metal. To actually do anything with your ship, you are going to need to install components. The components are:
Reactor
Engine
Armor (2 slots, 1 for front and 1 for back)
Shield Generator
Weapons (aka blasters)
Ordinance(aka missile launchers)
Weapons capacitor
Countermeasure launcher
Droid Interface

In order to fly your ship, you need to put in a reactor and an engine. However, you may find the other components rather helpful.

There is no "hyperdrive" component. All player-built ships have built-in hyperdrives. Yes, even TIEs. When you buy a player-built ship you are buying a custom version of the vehicle with several extras bolted on.

There are 2 sources for components, shipwrights and loot. There's a lot of low-level loot, so you should have a pretty easy time fitting out a basic ship.

The two stats on a ship chassis are mass limit and hitpoints, each are controlled by experimentation by the shipwright. The mass of the ship limits the components you can put into the ship. Each component has a mass, and the sum of all of the components in the ship must be less than the mass limit of the chassis. Each type of ship has a different mass limit. For example, the mass limit of a TIE Interceptor is around 50-60k. The limit of a TIE Bomber is around 190k.

In addition, most components require energy to operate. This energy comes from the reactor. If your ship does not have enough energy to power all the components, then some components will be inoperable in space.

You have a relatively free hand in deciding what components to place in your ship, provided you stay under the mass limit. The only limitation is the number of "slots" in the chassis for a particular type of component. For example, a TIE fighter can only have 1 weapon (blaster). A Kimogila can have 3. All ships have at least one slot for each of the components listed above.

Each component has a "component use rating", which goes from 1 to 10. Level 1 is granted at novice, Levels 2, 3 and 4 are granted at x2xx, Levels 5, 6 and 7 at x3xx, Level 8 is granted at x4xx, and Levels 9 and 10 are granted at ace (master).

To put the components into your ship, you use a starship terminal, which are near the ticket terminals in every starport. You also can use the starship terminal to launch into space, or to instantly travel to another starport as long as the destination is on Corellia, Naboo or Tatooine.

Message Edited by Nacoa on 10-21-2004 08:38 PM

Piloting:
I really can't give you flight lessons on a message board. Especially because piloting is based on your skill with a joystick, not the skill of your 'toon.

Sectors- There are 10 space sectors. The 8 normal sectors correspond to the planets you are already familiar with in the ground game: Corellia/Talus, Naboo/Rori, Tatooine, Endor, Lok, Yavin, Dantoine and Dathomir. There are 2 special space sectors, Kessel and Deep Space. I'll cover the special sectors later.

Hyperspace- Once you're in space in a player-built ship, you can hyperspace to various points throughout the galaxy. There are 4 hyperspace points in each normal space sector, and you can hyperspace to any of them. Launch from Naboo and hyperspace to Dantooine. Or Launch from Naboo, and hyperspace to a different point in Naboo.

Turning- Your ship's ability to rotate around any axis is modified by the speed at which your ship is flying. When your ship is flying at full speed, it turns more slowly. Reducing your throttle allows you to turn more quickly. You also turn very slowly when stopped, because for some reason the devs decided that it was a "bad thing" to turn while stopped.

Landing- There is a neutral space station that corresponds to every planet in the ground game. To land, you fly close to the space station, and /comm them. You will get a list of cities with starports, and you'll appear in the starport in your chosen city.

Ship storage- You can have 3 ship control devices in your data pad at one time. Your ship is actually stored at the starport where you landed. When you use a starship terminal in the starport, you can only manage and launch in a ship that is stored at that starport. If you no longer want a particular ship in your datapad, you have two choices: Ship control devices can be stored in droid data storage modules, or you can remove all components from the ship and turn it back into a deed. Ship deeds are tradable, as are ship control devices.

Multi-Person ships- There is one multi-person ship for each space faction. To launch several people in one ship, ship must be the group leader's ship. The leader will launch the group from the starship terminal. Once in space, the group leader will be in the pilot seat, and the other group members will be walking around the interior of the ship. Multi-person ships can be decorated using items from the ground game. The only people who can get on to your multi-person ship are members of your group, you can not pick up more passengers in space.

Ship Decorations- Because multi-person ships can be decorated, each multi-person ship in your datapad uses 1 lot, and you may have a maximum of 2 multi-person ships in your datapad. Each multi-person ship can hold 75 items. (/mutter about the people who demanded 2 decorated ships and the screwing crafters got on that one)

Ship stations- There are 4 stations in a multi-person ship. The pilot sits in the pilot seat, and can fly the ship and launch missiles. Next to the pilot is the operations seat. This person can use their special abilities and astromech programs. There is also a top turret gunner and bottom turret gunner, which do exactly what you'd expect. To sit in either seat, use the radial menu on the seat. To get into either turret, use the radial menu on a ladder within the ship. To leave a ship station, use /stand or the button that appears on the UI. The pilot can not fire the turrets, and the ship will stop if the pilot gets out of their seat. Anyone can operate a turret or sit in the operations seat. Anyone who is certified to fly the ship can sit in the pilot's seat.

Turreted Fighters- In addition to the multi-person ships, there are fighters with turrets, the TIE Aggressor and the Y-Wing. You need to group with your gunner and launch as with a multi-person ship. You can not stand up and walk around inside these fighters.

Space missions- NPCs on the ground are currently the only source of space missions. In space, you will get waypoints to objectives, enemies to destroy, ships to escort, and so on. Completing these missions will allow you to train pilot skills, if you have enough piloting experience. Your NPC trainer also will offer "duty" missions. These are open-ended missions that you can end any time you want. The mission will essentially spawn over and over again, allowing you to earn experience. You WILL die when trying to complete your missions. This isn't like the ground game where we're soloing rancors. Several Tier 3 missions are very, very difficult solo. Tier 4 missions are designed to require a group, and for the most part they definately do. Don't get me started on the missions for the master box.

Getting blown up- If your ship is destroyed, it's flaming wreckage is dragged to the nearest neutral space station. You will take 100 wounds to H/A/M and 100 BF.

Repairs- Fighters can be repaired by shipwrights, using repair tools, or by neutral space stations, by paying them credits. In addition, some components in multi-person ships can be repaired in flight by a shipwright on board the ship. Just beware the plasma conduits. If one of them bursts, you will be set on fire if you walk into the room with the burst conduit. There is a plasma conduit repair kit for the brave of heart. Repairs will cause the component to decay, by reducing it's maximum armor points and hitpoints.

PvP- There are also faction space stations. These stations let you go overt in space. Imperial pilots and Rebel pilots can go overt at their appropriate bases. Freelance pilots can go overt as part of either faction by going to the corresponding station. Your ground overt/covert status does not transfer into space, and you are set back to space covert once you land or are destroyed. Faction space stations in normal space sectors are indestructable, but do not fire upon opposing faction players (they're usually surrounded by fighters though).

What if I'm non violent? Bummer. Right now, there's not much to do in space unless you want to unleash flaming death upon a Rebel...er...enemy ship. You can fly around and look at stuff, and it does look very, very good, but it's likely you'll come under fire during your tour. Additional content is supposed to be added later.

Special abilities- Each piloting faction gets access to special abilities that they can use in space. Combat itself is completely twitch-based, so we're not talking "Headshot 3" here. An example of such an ability is Imperial Pilots get a command called "Emergency Weapons". This diverts power from the shield generator into the weapons system, greatly increasing the damage of your weapons. However, your shield generator stops recharging while this command is running. Also, all the special abilities run off of one timer, so you can't spam them. Another example of a special ability that Imperial pilots get is "Bomber Strike", where TIE Bombers hyperspace in and attack your target. By this point, you might be able to guess my faction...

Astromech programs- In addition to special abilities, pilots learn a series of astromech programs. You can teach these commands to your droid, and they will change your ship's performance until you run a program that cancels it. For example, Imperials get "Weapon Overload Four" at xxx4, which increases weapon damage at the cost of higher energy per shot. To turn this off and get back to normal weapons, you have to run the "Weapon Normalizaton" droid program. If a ship does not have an astromech socket, you use a flight computer instead. Any R droid is automatically an astromech, however it has to have a data storage module in order to run any astromech programs. Droid engineers build flight computers. A single astromech or flight computer can be associated with all of your ships.

Chips- Droid Engineers can make "unprogrammed droid command modules". You program this module with an astromech program you wish to run. Once programmed, the module can not be unprogrammed. You can then install the module into your astromech, thus allowing you to run the program in space. Droid programs are tradeable, and can be used by any pilot with sufficient astromech ability. For example, Rebels may attempt to bribe an Imperial pilot to provide modules programmed with "Weapon Overload Four". These Rebel pilots can then use this valuable program in their astromechs, while we hunt down and destroy the vile traitor.

Special Space Sectors- To get to the special space sectors, you have to visit a special faction space station and /comm them. These space stations are in Endor (Imperial), Dathomir (Neutral) and Who-gives-a-d@mn (Rebel). After /comm'ing them, you will be transfered to your choice of Kessel or Deep Space. All player ships in Kessel and Deep Space are overt (PvP enabled). Kessel is the area around the famed planet from SWG lore. Deep Space is a battlefield between Rebels and Imperials. Imperials, destroy the Rebel base, gunboats, corvettes and fighters. Rebels, die a brutal death trying to take down an Imperial Star Destroyer, gunboats and fighters. To get into Deep Space, you have to spend prestige points, which are earned like pilot experience once you become an ace (master).

Notable Ships- The YT-1300 (Millennium Falcon) can be flown by master Freelance pilots. It's their multi-person ship. The Imperials and Rebels have different multi-person ships. The Firespray (Slave 1) can be built from a loot schematic, which I'll cover in more detail when I get to crafting. The Firespray can be flown by any ace (master pilot). The Lambda shuttle can not be flown by players at this time. X-Wings are available to 3xxx Rebel pilots.

Message Edited by Nacoa on 10-21-2004 09:36 PM

Message Edited by Nacoa on 10-21-2004 09:44 PM

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Nacoa wrote:

Ship storage- You can have 3 ship control devices in your data pad at one time. Your ship is actually stored at the starport where you landed. When you use a starship terminal in the starport, you can only manage and launch in a ship that is stored at that starport. If you no longer want a particular ship in your datapad, you have two choices: Ship control devices can be stored in droid data storage modules, or you can remove all components from the ship and turn it back into a deed. Ship deeds are tradable, as are ship control devices.

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Awesome info Nacoa. I already wrote a detailed guide on the pilot stuff, and was going to cover the other major areas, but you beat me to it (or should i say, thanks for saving me a bunch of typing )

5 stars

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MajorReb wrote:

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Nacoa wrote:

Ship storage- You can have 3 ship control devices in your data pad at one time. Your ship is actually stored at the starport where you landed. When you use a starship terminal in the starport, you can only manage and launch in a ship that is stored at that starport. If you no longer want a particular ship in your datapad, you have two choices: Ship control devices can be stored in droid data storage modules, or you can remove all components from the ship and turn it back into a deed. Ship deeds are tradable, as are ship control devices.

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So I can buy like 5 ships, but as long as 2 of them are stored in a droid's data module, I won't have to remove all the components and redeed it?

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Yes. (Subject to change if that's not what the devs intended)

Did a little editing to fix grammar.

Here's a little eye candy:

TIE Interceptor

Kessel

This got rather painful.

ISD with shield towers blown off.

And so you get an idea of scale, here's a shot of me right next to the ISD's bridge.

Message Edited by Nacoa on 10-22-2004 06:45 AM

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Cuality wrote:

quick fix... there are 2 types of armor... primary and secondary. not front and back. it lloks that way on the radar... but they are really primary and secondary (gives you a choice... 2 layers are 1 layer of armor...)

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Actually, no. They are front and back. At various times I've had each hemisphere on the display destroyed without the other being destroyed. And the corresponding front/back shield arc was always empty at the time.

If they were 1 vs 2 layers, then they'd always be destroyed in a particular order.

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Nacoa wrote:

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Cuality wrote:

quick fix... there are 2 types of armor... primary and secondary. not front and back. it lloks that way on the radar... but they are really primary and secondary (gives you a choice... 2 layers are 1 layer of armor...)

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Actually, no. They are front and back. At various times I've had each hemisphere on the display destroyed without the other being destroyed. And the corresponding front/back shield arc was always empty at the time.

If they were 1 vs 2 layers, then they'd always be destroyed in a particular order.

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