Patches

 

From time to time, you get to a point in making missions where you wish you had more different ships available. For instance, I was creating a battle, and really wanted a semi-capital ship, which was a lot smaller than a Star Destroyer, but still had shields strong enough so that you wouldn't destroy it with a pair of heavy rockets. The answer can lie in patches.

Patches are a collection of files that add new ships to your game. In my example, I was talking about the Corellian Gunship. It is roughly the size of a Corvette, but where the Corvette can be destroyed with only 2 rockets, or 3 advanced torpedoes, the Gunship can take 6 rockets or 12 torpedoes to destroy. Add to that more turbo laser bateries, and you get a formidable enemy ship that still isn't all that big.

Corellian Gunship A9b Vigilance Intercepor TIE Dragon

There are a few things to keep in mind when using patches in your missions. And probably other things too that are not listed here.

  • If you plan to submit your missions for the Mission Compendium, only patches that have been approved by the Science Office can be used. You can find a listing of all the available patches at their website (choose the patch archive link in the menu).
  • There will always be players who are unwilling to install patches, so some people will not be playing your missions.
  • Strange things can happen when people play your mission without the proper patch installed. For example, if I play my mission without the Corellian Gunship patch, the Gunships are replaced by a container.
  • The approved patches sometimes use an empty slot in the craft list, but most of the time, they replace another craft. For example the Toscan Fighter replaces the TIE Fighter, so you cannot have both craft in the same mission. The same applies to using more than one patch: some patches use the same craft slot so they cannot be used together.
A last word of advise when it comes to patches: don't overdo it. I have seen missions where you fly a TIE Defender in most of the missions, and then suddenly in a major assault on an enemy platform, you get stuck in an A9-B Vigilance Interceptor. That's an unshielded craft, with no warheads and only a single laser cannon. At moments like that, you tend to start thinking what good the patch is, or if it is only used for the using of a patch.

Some patches can also make a mission terribly easy. I once flew a mission where I found myself in an unshielded craft, with only one warhead, alone, facing 5 enemy capital ships. The mission was designed with the TIE Dragon patch. The TIE Dragon is a modified version of the TIE Bomber, and its laser cannons have been replaced with Vulcan Plasma Pulse Generators. Ten hits from these will take down a Calamari cruiser, and suddenly it took less than a minute to take out all the enemy ships. Missions like that are so easy they're hardly enjoyable anymore. So beware...

WARNING

If you use patches, you should be aware that most of the avalable patches only work on TIE95, and most will not work on TIE Disk. That means, that using a patch will mean there are going to be people who will be unable to play the mission as you intended.