I am pleased to anounce that my latest EV plug-in, EMPIRE OF CRIME, is now up and available from the add-ons section for your enjoyment. Those who have played my "Empire Trilogy" plugs in the past will recognize the universe, but the story this time is from an "all-pirate" perspective.

Here is the description of the final product:

EMPIRE OF CRIME (version 1.0) The war between the rebellious Weave Alliance and the hegemony of the Terran Star Empire has reached a critical point, with either side poised for victory. However, as resources are increasingly seconded to the front lines, the only true victor has been intergalactic organised crime, which has profited and risen to infamy in the absence of any real law enforcement. Tiring of the increasingly dangerous life of a merchant trader, you decide to abandon the world of legitimate business and forge your own path to glory. The game can be played from the viewpoint of three very different perspectives: an association with the upstart Serpens Triumvirate the thankless task of an intergalactic bounty hunter, or an allegiance with the mysterious Mafia. This will be a galaxy in which you will have a multitude of enemies and precious few friends... though who can you really trust, for in a time of near anarchy and golden opportunity, friendship and comradery are the rarest of all commodities. This plug offers more than 200 original missions, a multitude of new weapons and outfits, over 100 new worlds and systems and more than 40 new and altered ships, including seven formidable "bosses". Indeed, this plug-in should prove to be an absolute must-have for the 'hardcore' EV player.

I should warn that as this is an all-pirate scenario, it does contain some descriptive violence and mild profanity some may find offensive.

It's been available for only a couple of days and I see it is ranked number two on the "highest ranked" plugs list. My thanks to all who voted! I hope you all enjoy playing it as much as I enjoyed writing it

Kindest Regards,

Tim

islest@tnet.net (url="http://"http://www.geocities.com/empire_trilogy")http://www.geocities.../empire_trilogy(/url)

------------------

Quote

Originally posted by Tim:
**...

It's been available for only a couple of days and I see it is ranked number two on the "highest ranked" plugs list. My thanks to all who voted! I hope you all enjoy playing it as much as I enjoyed writing it

Kindest Regards,
**

It's ranked number two because it is VERY GOOD. I've just been investigating stuff, but the quality is very high. If you do one thing this week, download this and play all the threads.

martin

------------------
mner, mner, mner

I d/l this today and have played to the stage where I can start getting missions. Took a while to get enough cash to upgrade my ship but it now looks promising. It is quite consistent with the quality of previous Empire plugs. A great galaxy and imaginative governments. Well done, Tim.
Hint : upgrade your ship on neutral planets. Otherwise you are tainted with the Govt of the planet where you bought it and everybody thumps you

------------------

A good plug, like the rest of the Empire series. One of the few plugs where missions are actually playable without battering the computer.

Thanks for the small credit as well.

RMA

------------------

Quote

Originally posted by Tim:
**I am pleased to anounce that my latest EV plug-in, EMPIRE OF CRIME, is now up and available from the add-ons section for your enjoyment. Those who have played my "Empire Trilogy" plugs in the past will recognize the universe, but the story this time is from an "all-pirate" perspective.

Here is the description of the final product:

EMPIRE OF CRIME (version 1.0) The war between the rebellious Weave Alliance and the hegemony of the Terran Star Empire has reached a critical point, with either side poised for victory. However, as resources are increasingly seconded to the front lines, the only true victor has been intergalactic organised crime, which has profited and risen to infamy in the absence of any real law enforcement. Tiring of the increasingly dangerous life of a merchant trader, you decide to abandon the world of legitimate business and forge your own path to glory. The game can be played from the viewpoint of three very different perspectives: an association with the upstart Serpens Triumvirate the thankless task of an intergalactic bounty hunter, or an allegiance with the mysterious Mafia. This will be a galaxy in which you will have a multitude of enemies and precious few friends... though who can you really trust, for in a time of near anarchy and golden opportunity, friendship and comradery are the rarest of all commodities. This plug offers more than 200 original missions, a multitude of new weapons and outfits, over 100 new worlds and systems and more than 40 new and altered ships, including seven formidable "bosses". Indeed, this plug-in should prove to be an absolute must-have for the 'hardcore' EV player.

I should warn that as this is an all-pirate scenario, it does contain some descriptive violence and mild profanity some may find offensive.

It's been available for only a couple of days and I see it is ranked number two on the "highest ranked" plugs list. My thanks to all who voted! I hope you all enjoy playing it as much as I enjoyed writing it

Kindest Regards,

Tim

islest@tnet.net http://www.geocities.../empire_trilogy

**

I Will start out with a few positive comments: While I have only played one of the threads, (the Serpens Triumvirate missions that begin on Blackthorne), the plug was fun to play and the storyline was interesting enough to make me want to finish the thread to find out how it resolved itself in the end.

Now for some negative stuff:
1. Was this plug tested before release by anyone besides yourself? and if so, how many?
The reason I asked is that I found it strange that four quite obvious bugs were
encountered in the first thread I tried (two situations where you had set mission
breafs to refer to DST and DSY stuff when the actual missions were set to RST and
RSY and therefore caused <error> messages to appear in the brief.
2. One case where the actual game sprites do not match up to the targeting pic (The
rectangular ship that when it was first created was referred to as a heavy shielded
freighter by its creator I think.)
3. I'm not sure this is a bug, but it is annoying: I was able to keep getting the entry
offering mission to join the Mafia all the way through the Serpens thread. After I
had really started pounding on the Mafia, it seems totally unrealistic that I should
still be offered the opening gambit to start the sequence to play for them.

All in all, the above are very minor problems and fixable in very little time. (I fixed the
message brief errors myself by using Smelta V to see how you had set the missions and changed the mission code to match what you had set in the missioin itself.

To keep this on a positive note, I enjoyed your original Empire Trilogy series very much and was pleased when I noticed your post about releasing a new one in the series.

Have a .

I just downloaded EOC and so far it's great! Thanks for the good work. I only have one complaint though-I've started the mafia missions and yet in the system Evildrome is in, there are Mafia ships that attack me (I think they're strike cruisers). Also, the darn things are too powerful ;).

------------------
Thank you for your time,
Slider
If a butterfly flaps its wings,
Leave Central America and South-East Asia immediately:

Quote

Originally posted by ChristopherRH:
**I Will start out with a few positive comments: While I have only played one of the threads, (the Serpens Triumvirate missions that begin on Blackthorne), the plug was fun to play and the storyline was interesting enough to make me want to finish the thread to find out how it resolved itself in the end.

Now for some negative stuff:
1. Was this plug tested before release by anyone besides yourself? and if so, how many?
The reason I asked is that I found it strange that four quite obvious bugs were
encountered in the first thread I tried (two situations where you had set mission
breafs to refer to DST and DSY stuff when the actual missions were set to RST and
RSY and therefore caused <error> messages to appear in the brief.
2. One case where the actual game sprites do not match up to the targeting pic (The
rectangular ship that when it was first created was referred to as a heavy shielded
freighter by its creator I think.)
3. I'm not sure this is a bug, but it is annoying: I was able to keep getting the entry
offering mission to join the Mafia all the way through the Serpens thread. After I
had really started pounding on the Mafia, it seems totally unrealistic that I should
still be offered the opening gambit to start the sequence to play for them.

All in all, the above are very minor problems and fixable in very little time. (I fixed the
message brief errors myself by using Smelta V to see how you had set the missions and changed the mission code to match what you had set in the missioin itself.

To keep this on a positive note, I enjoyed your original Empire Trilogy series very much and was pleased when I noticed your post about releasing a new one in the series.

Have a . **

Sorry for the delay in responding to your observations, but I don't get to check on the Ambrosia webboards as often as I'd like to. In response to your notes:

(1) You mentioned "<error> messages appearing in the mision briefs". Could you please let me know which mission(s) in particular? I checked over the initial mission strings of the Triumvirate offerings and could not find such a bug.

(2) As for "game sprites (that) do not match up to the targeting pic", you've got me confused here. Which ship was causing you trouble? The "bulk freighter" I assume, based on your decription? I've checked over the graphics part of the plug and everything seems to be matching up.

(3) You noted that you "kept getting the entry offering mission to join the Mafia all the way through the Serpens thread". This is an unfortunate artifact of the way the EV game engine seems to handle multiple governments (as opposed to the typical Confed versus Rebel dichotomy). The Mafia is alligned directly with the Empire yet, during beta testing, regardless as to how many Weave and Triad ships I attacked, my legal standing in Mafia systems remained "Clean". The same happened when I test piloted the Triad and Guild lines. In the end, I had no choice but to set the required legal status to "Clean" or higher to get missions. Luckily, the Mafia first mission is set to a very low 8%. If you've played this string and don't want to see it again, your best bet is to use Schmela-V to change the mission probability to "zero".

If anyone else is having similar problems please contact me here or at islest@tnet.net as it may be that the player suffered from a corrupted pilot file. I'd really appreciate any similar bug reports.

In the meantime, enjoy your romp through the EOC galaxy!

Kindest Regards,

Tim

(url="http://"http://www.geocities.com/empire_trilogy")http://www.geocities.../empire_trilogy(/url)

Tim I have to say this is a great plug although I didn't play any of your privious plugs. Though I have found irrelavant mistakes (some one spelled ply insted of fly) wich don't change the fact that the plug is awesome.

------------------
Join Starbase Delta at
(url="http://"http://pub101.ezboard.com/bstarbasedelta")http://pub101.ezboar.../bstarbasedelta(/url)

Its quite a fun plug, as have been the Empire trilogy.
(So far have played much through the merc string from Gridrunner station)

My only qualm, and this might seem like an odd one, is that there a lot of
cash in this game, almost too much. As many of one's opponents are nasty
upgraded kestrels, getting an uberpowerful ship early in the game will surely
help....but I missed exploring the capabilities of the midrange ships. Possible
culprits that could be toned down might be removing (if possible) the carried fighters
from the derelict warships. (Stumbling onto 14 sellable fighters in a shuttle will
make you quite rich.) Another might be reducing the cash of all the kestrels and mod-kestrels out there that one fights(if possible), and there are many. It put a damper on
bothering to take the bounty hunting type missions from the list, since one could easily go into the next system where pirates abound, board one, and make multiples more money than an offer to go kill same such ships for some poor system.

This just boils down to a request to somehow make the plugin harder. (Other ideas might
be to slow down some of the larger modified ships: destroyers, widowmaker)

Otherwise, this plugin can be a therapeutic experience, as one gets to mow down lots and
lots and lots of bad guys (or make that good guys) in a fast powerful ship. Keep up the good work.

I had a slight problem with downloading this plug. It finished downloading, but turned into an application that I couldn't launch (it gave me a -39 error).

Anybody have any information on this problem, or is it just me?

------------------
If we're "talented" the world is doomed.

Quote

Originally posted by Sattomax:
**I had a slight problem with downloading this plug. It finished downloading, but turned into an application that I couldn't launch (it gave me a -39 error).

Anybody have any information on this problem, or is it just me?

**

Sounds like you had a problem with the download itself. I believe a "Type -39 Error" has to do with an incomplete file, or something to that extent. Try downloading it again and see what happens.

Kindest Regards,

Tim

(url="http://"http://www.geocities.com/empire_trilogy")http://www.geocities.../empire_trilogy(/url)

------------------

Quote

Originally posted by Tim:
**Sounds like you had a problem with the download itself. I believe a "Type -39 Error" has to do with an incomplete file, or something to that extent. Try downloading it again and see what happens.

Kindest Regards,

Tim

http://www.geocities.../empire_trilogy

**

I have a downloading problem too. I can't download it with my usual version of netscape(4.73) or version 6. I triesd IE and I get that wierd application that won't launch as well. Same error too I believe. I've tried both Ambrosia's dl page and your own page.

------------------
Knowledge is power, but ignorance is bliss.

I had the same problem (exact same: -39 and all) downloading as sattomax. I tried from EV's page and your own, and the problem continues. I did notice that while on EV's site the plug is 3.14 mb, when i'm finished downloading i've only downloaded 3.0 mb. This is, in all probability, the root of the problem. Now how to fix it?

------------------