XW-CD 1: IBC: Paper Round

Battle Information

Game platform: X-Wing
Missions: 9
Release date: 2004-07-16
Last updated: 2014-11-29
Creator:

HA Ender mBind

Average rating 1.2
Reviews: 6
Bug reports: 0
Times completed: 7
Battle Medal: Your first IBC Pay Check

Battle Reviews

VA Locke Setzer

1

2023-04-25

There is a term we used to throw around a lot, back in the day in the TAC office. It's called "creator intent". Comes up when discussing bugs. Is something a bug, or did the creator intend for that? Was this done unintentionally, or was it done with the full intention of the creator behind it. Bugs can be fixed. Creator intent is trickier.

This battle is, without question, everything Ender intended it to be. And I absolutely respect his commitment to do something he wanted to do because it made him happy.

I would still argue, in 2023, it's probably not something that should exist on the compendium.

This requires the X-Wing Ship Patch, which is probably one of the worst officially supported patches we have - to the point that it honestly should not be officially supported. To install it on a modern operating system is a significant task (I used DosBox to run the patching tool, and it still required some elbow grease to get it to run). As indicated elsewhere, flying any non-standard craft results in a 0 score, with no mission completion registered. You must take screenshots of your mission completion to prove that you flew this battle. You'll still have a score of 0.

This is not the worst part.

The battle is built around flying a TRN, the most broken ship in the X-Wing Ship patch. Your cockpit is covered in errors. Your front radar is nearly unreadable most of the times. Your screen will constantly flicker back to broken parts instead. This is mitigated in X-Wing CD (the intended platform, truthfully) to some degree, but not so much so that you won't still find yourself cursing the day you decided to jump into the cockpit of a transport.

This is not the worst part.

The worst part is that I'm not sure that the battle gains anything from flying a Transport. I think it'd be perfectly fine and fun with a Y-Wing. I enjoy the story and humor of it. I think a battle about delivering holonews is pretty silly, in a good way. But I'm not sure that there's any reason to fly a transport other than the idea of flying a transport is fun. And that's what Ender wanted to do.

So, I will give it a point for being exactly what the creator intended. But it's also perhaps a good argument that there might be some times when creator intent should be overridden


LC andr3

0

2022-10-23

Asside from the missions being a pain and the cockpit being a broken B-Wing w/ the TRN patch, from missions five on they will complete successfully w/ 0 point score and no mission complete tag in the pilot file. So you have to submit them w/ screenshots via the technical officer. Conclusion: don't play if you don't have to.


LCM Marek Ny`Irfa

1

2020-09-13

Looking at the previous reviews I can say this battle CAN be completed now as of 2020. Yey! It's biggest problem is the required patch though. Not only patching modern releases (like Steam I am using) is a nightmare, but the patch itself has some problems that are known. Cockpit is all messed up and switching the weapons causes even more display glitches. This battle features nine missions in which you are piloting a Delta-class Transport, ok. Problem is that while this can be done, it likely should not be. If it was up to me I'd likely drop this battle and perhaps remake it for a more suitable engine, like XWA. On top of the graphical bugs that come with the patch, the score for each mission is not evaluated at all. You get a nice round 0 whatever you do. That's why I suggest turning on the in-game cheats for this one (I kind of realized about it mid mission 3, duh!) However, since it's more a problem with the patch for the X-Wing game and not the battle design itself I will exclude this from my rating for this one.

What I will include is how the missions are actually designed. The first mission is a capture operation, that's okay. For the next four missions you kind of babysit a convoy through overly persistent forces. In my opinion at least three missions out of this group are too similar and the whole part could have been combined into two instead. The next two missions are recovery operations. Somehow, despite all your best efforts the Corporate Division managed to lose its assets, yey! Again these two missions are very much alike and should be combined into one. The last two missions are again babysitting while stuff is being delivered. Interesting is that the first six missions of this battle feature quite tight timers for them. But the last three are all set for 60 min, even if they can easily be done much earlier. Overall it's quite a poor battle with a weird plot as well. It's odd to what lengths the EH has to go, in order to acquire paper to print and deliver newspapper... In age of FTL spacecraft.

You should probably avoid flying this one cause of the patch installation being annoying to do. But even if you manage to get it working, it's really not worth the time.


FA Brukhar

5

2005-11-29

Good title. :P And Impulse, this battle basically needs to be totally remade, because the goals are such that they can't actually be completed and the mission doesn't count.


AD Impulse

0

2005-11-26

So when I would be able to download and play this battle ?


COL Rau Aznable

0

2005-01-08

So... this battle was only completed once and by the mission creator himself, and I share the same bug as SavageAz. Do I see a pattern here? Or is it related to the fact that there's no way to get highscores in this battle?


Battle Bug Reports

There are currently no open bug reports for this battle.

High Scores

Battle Total: 0 HA Anahorn Dempsey 2014-11-29
Mission 1: 0 HA Anahorn Dempsey 2014-11-29
Mission 2: 0 HA Anahorn Dempsey 2014-11-29
Mission 3: 0 HA Anahorn Dempsey 2014-11-29
Mission 4: 0 HA Anahorn Dempsey 2014-11-29
Mission 5: 0 HA Anahorn Dempsey 2014-11-29
Mission 6: 0 HA Anahorn Dempsey 2014-11-29
Mission 7: 0 HA Anahorn Dempsey 2014-11-29
Mission 8: 0 HA Anahorn Dempsey 2014-11-29
Mission 9: 0 HA Anahorn Dempsey 2014-11-29

Top Ten

(of available records)

There are no recorded scores

Battle Completion Statistics

This battle has been flown by 7 pilots a total of 7 times.

HA Anahorn Dempsey - 2014-11-29

LC andr3 - 2022-10-22

HA Ender mBind

MAJ Hermann - 2021-02-27

VA Locke Setzer - 2023-04-27

LCM LPhoenix - 2023-09-30

LCM Marek Ny`Irfa - 2020-09-13

X-Wing Custom Missions

Battle Name:     "IBC: Paper Round"
Created By:      EO/TCH Ender mBind/HARA/IBC/FAC Broadcaster
		 (mindb_ender@hotmail.com)
Release Date:    18/jan/2003
                 
Ships:           Transport
Difficulty:      Playable to Hard.
SP Missions:	 9 including briefings
Medal:		 Your first IBC Pay Check (included)
               
THESE LEVELS ARE NOT MADE, DISTRIBUTED, OR SUPPORTED BY LUCASARTS ENTERTAINMENT COMPANY.
ELEMENTS TM & (c) LUCASARTS ENTERTAINMENT COMPANY.

Installation:
----------------------
note: the original mission files will be overwritten, back up any files with the same
names.

X-Wing CD Installation: 
1. Download and install XCD from the SCO Site (http://sco.minos.net), files archive, the editors section. (6k.) This will let you run custom missions. There is a full guide available at the SCO site as well. 
2. Put the *.BRF and *.XWI files in your new "C:\Mission" folder and put the *.LFD files in your new "C:\Resource" folder
3. Use XCD to start X-Wing CD. Create a new pilot based on your pin and the battle's type and name. For example: 2883tc01.plt if I would be flying the first XW-TC battle. 
4. Fly the X-wing Historical Missions, and the first 3 Y-wing Historical Missions
  
X-Wing 95/Disk Installation: 
1. Run full install of the game so the mission files will be on your hard drive. The game will take its mission information by preference from the hard disc, but might still give a warning. In that case - Ignore. 
-- Additional for X-Wing 95: install the included transport flyable patch if you want. It will also work without it, just "better" with. (Depending on choice.)
2. Locate your X-W Directory and open the folder labelled "Mission", or "Classic" in X-W95. Copy the *.xwi, *.brf files of this custom battle into it. 
3. Locate the folder labelled "Resource". Copy the *.LFD files of this custom battle into it. 
4. Create a new pilot based on your pin and the battle's type and name. For example: 2883tc01.plt if I would be flying the first XW-TC battle. 
5. Fly the X-wing Historical Missions, and the first 3 Y-wing Historical Missions 

NOTE 
-------------------
1. You need X-W CD or '95, as far as i know no other patches are needed. I cannot assure it will run on X-W disk as it might exceed its maximum craft amounts. You'd need the B-Wing and Imperial Pursuit add-ons to play.
2. Because you fly the Transport there are some minor problems: 
- The pilot file format of XWCD does not record mission scores flown in a TRN, so no high scores are possible.
- Because the TRN uses the X-W cockpit this cockpit looks damaged, and messes up when you use ions. To clear up the mess press M for Map, D for Damages or another screen that's not in-flight. This is also solved by using the included patch.
- The transport in X-W acts mostly like a slower but more heavily armoured T/D.
3. The battle has a custom beginning "cutscene".

Description
-----------
This battle is about the Corporate Division "Imperial Broadcasting Corporation" and its CDNG subcomponent, which makes newspapers. In this battle you get to deliver these:)

Story Line
----------

MISSION 1: "IBC: Retrieve Paper"
The Broken Wrench is a Financial Newspaper preferred by all traders in this sector for its up to date business reports. The Broken Wrench is printed by the CDNG, which is owned by the IBC. The Imperial Broadcasting Company is responsible for most media services in the Emperor's Hammer Territories - like HARA, its radio station.
As a CDNG employee you are fellow responsible for the printing and delivering of the "Broken Wrench" in the Phare System. We encountered a problem halfway through printing today's issue: We ran out of paper. Luckily the CD has a small cache of raw materials near Phare VII so if we're quick we might be able to retrieve that in time for our deadline.

MISSION 2: "IBC: Clearing the Way"
After we had delivered the last batch of paper the full issue of the "Broken Wrench" had soon been printed and loaded over into IBC Bulk Freighters for transport deeper into the Phare System - after which we'll use our Transports for the actual delivery runs.
We need to make 3 hyper jumps at predetermined hyper points to get into the populated heart of the Phare System, where most our corporations are. The IBC and CDNG Staff, Thorin and Haztix, have thus decided to fly in convoy with 2 of the IBC Picket Fleet Corvettes. Because the news papers are in the freighters this also gives the Transports a chance to give extra cover.

MISSION 3: "IBC: The Next Step"
The mines that blocked our way on the last jump point were Corporate Division made and deployed by the TIE Corps ISD Vanguard just a few hours ago as Phare "Border Defences". They claim pirates have been using this route to attack freighters headed for Phare IV.
Coincidentally one of our competitors, "the Vanguard", is printed on that same ship - which sounds a bit too suspicious. Business is rough here in the Outer Rim and they wouldn't be the first to use such tactics. Rest assured that this will be investigated, but please do pay attention at the next jump point - they might try more tricks.

MISSION 4: "IBC: The last Jump"
The fighters that attacked us at the last jump were Rebel ones, sent after us by the local Rebel Big Cheese: Duke Perlemian, Fleet Admiral of the "Spine Security Force" and born and raised to be the financial mogul he is now. His companies are into everything and via the New Republic's budgets and imaginative banking he can even give himself orders and long term contracts.
One of the Duke's proven business methods, besides "liberating a planet" and then forcing long term repair contracts on them, is using his military forces to bully competitors into going bankrupt, or worse. One of his many business area's is newspapers, among which his own "Nisterstreet Journal"; the second largest financial newspaper in this Sector. We're in trouble....

MISSION 5: "IBC: VSD Warhammer"
When we arrived at Phare III, we split the convoy up into its separate destinations. One of these destinations is the VSD Warhammer, the Corporate Division Flagship. The Command Staff always wants to receive the "Broken Wrench" first, but then again: they pay our wages - so why not?
The VSD Warhammer is escorted by the CD elite squadron, Core, which specializes in test flying the newest Science Office creations. With them in the area you should have no problems might the NR-SSF forces try to pull a stunt again.

MISSION 6: "IBC: Rescue Freighter"
While you were delivering papers to the Warhammer, the freighter CD-IBC-BW 2-1 was on its way to Nova Shipyards for its own delivery. At a hyper point it had to cross it was apparently ambushed by NR-SSF Shuttles and captured. You are sent in immediately to recapture it before it hypers out to an unknown location and we loose track of it.
The plan is for our first three Transports to provide cover while number four recaptures the freighter. The moment we have more transports ready these will be send in to help you along. Do not forget to help disabling the freighter so it doesn't hyper out before we can catch it.

MISSION 7: "IBC: Rescue Transports"
Two of our Transports also got themselves captured by the duke's forces while on their way to deliver the paper to the iBank. The plan is practically the same as before, only more speed is required, as the Transports will reach their hyper point a lot more quickly then the freighter did. As such speed is of the essence in this operation.
Apparently the Duke Perlemian doesn't give up lightly and just won't just let us do our paper round. Strangely he is set on capturing our cargo... probably so his own papers can use the articles as their own, or print on the recycled paper. Do not underestimate his efforts; it seems like he has put an entire Battle group on the case... And as businessmen we're not exactly equipped for this type of combat.

MISSION 8: "IBC: EPS Arkenstone"
The Cosmic Holonet Corporation designs, builds and maintains Holonet services for EH units and offices. It is lead by CEO Johann Glorick and based on the EPS Arkenstone. As one of the older Corporate Division corporations its shares are a pretty steady and safe buy, unlike our own IBC ones - which have been dropping all day.
We are going to deliver newspapers to the Corvette Group "Annex" of the CHC. Since we are weary of more NR-SSF attacks, which lower our share value, and cannot get TIE Corps support at the moment, we will run this like a semi-military operation. Team One, which includes you, are on escort while Team Two delivers the papers. For clarity the craft that need to be boarded have a blue IFF code.

MISSION 9: "IBC: EPS Accession"
It was a lot of trouble but we finally got to our last delivery. Our shares are on the rise again as a result, which protects us from a hostile take over... by for example the Duke Perlemian - which might have been his plan all along. We still can't get TIE Corps support so you and Core Squadron will be our defence against any more attacks by his forces.
The Fleet Imaging Corporation is a collective of artists that is responsible for most of the holographs and advertising graphics you see in our newspaper and other media outlets. Its CEO is Monsh Fesou and the net worth of the entire corporation is about 1.2 million IC's... As you can see they have been doing well for themselves... This explains their large order of newspapers this morning.


EO/TCH Ender mBind/HARA/IBC/FAC Broadcaster
BoM/CDM/MoA
{CDBASE}