Two people were talking to me about patches this week, suggesting they could be the theme for this report.

XWAHacker is a popular tool for increasing XWA to a modern (HD) resolution and tweaking other settings, but be aware this may cause issues with our XWA ship patches. The safest thing is always to do them on a completely vanilla install. This was first discovered when trying to use the MC-90 patch but may apply equally to others.

For other platforms, our patch files are in the .EHF Emperor's Hammer Patch Format. These are a special kind of file designed to work with the Emperor's Hammer Ship Patcher (EHSP) which you get from https://tc.emperorshammer.org/patcharchive.php

This is a special program to manage your patches for TIE, XvT, etc. It is separate to the Emperor's Hammer Battle Launcher (EHBL).

First, you install the EHSP.

Second, you download whatever patches you want and put them in the My Documents/EH Ship Patches folder.

Third, open the EHSP and toggle whichever patches you want.

Simpleton that I am (don't tell LC Tempest), I've been perfectly happy to play the TIE95 release from GOG.com. I didn't realise until recently that I didn't have access to the '1995' release, which is how GOG refers to TIECD. (It uses 1994, 1995 and 1998 for what we call TIEDOS, TIECD and TIE95)

This is because GOG.com first published TIE Fighter in 2014 but only added TIECD in 2015 after some complaints. When I submitted a support request, they said that everyone should already have access, but that going to https://www.gog.com/account/refresh should fix it... and it did.

So if you bought TIE Fighter from GOG when it released, check that you have all 3 versions. The same goes for X-Wing. They're still missing from my GOG Galaxy but I assume that'll sync up at some point.

Keep an eye out for long battles in TIE - anything with more than 8 missions will mean that you need to go on to the second battle. TIECAB5 has tripped up several people already, and no doubt the other long CABs and FCHG battles will be popular for Raise the Flag.

I got some enthusiastic attempts for this comp, and you'll all get the hang it as we go along. A decent start, I think.

First: the answers. Remember, part of it is the definition or meaning, and part of it is some wordplay.

Flip around the TCCOM (4) is PLIF. Flip (source letters) around (indicates you have to mix around / anagram) = the TCCOM (definition - the TCCOM is Plif).

Clark? Almost. Nearly. (3) is SOO. Clark (definition) = Almost (almost all of the letters of...) Nearly (SOON).

Admiral Hunter lost left leg following strange smile (5, 6) Admiral (definition) = Hunter (PROWLER) lost (take away) left leg (left letter of leg is L) following (put afterwards) strange (anagram / mix around) smile (MILES). So, PROWLER minus L after MILES = MILES PROWER.

Obviously, these were based on the TIE Corps Admiralty. I didn't make it easy, there are a lot of different styles in there.

The current point totals are: Doyon 6 (bonus for first), Laan 3 (only answered one, but explained it), Dempsey 1 (correct but emailed everyone).

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This week's clues:

Tool found in Clapham Mercy Hospital (6)

Samurai starts walking around royal residence, inspecting operational readiness (7)

Clan el'Ghe fights opposition (9)

Reminder: feel free to poke me directly via email or discord about mission critical bugs that should be fixed. The database has a long queue, but you can jump it.

I've been working on my code generator and it can now spit out TypeScript (for front-end stuff) and PHP (backend stuff) code to read X-Wing and TIE pilot and game files, amongst other things.

I think a lot of the foundational stuff is done, allowing some more visible results soon. One of these will be in the area of custom audio for TIE while I'm verifying Hawkins' X-Wing in TIE Fighter campaign.

I've processed a lot of stuff in the BSF queue. Please feel free to not fly X-Wing, it's annoying. But if you do, include the pilot file alongside the screenshots so I can try out the pilot file reader I'm working on.

TAC/AD Pickled Yoda/CS-6/VSDII Sinister

IC/GOE/GSx5/SSx15/BSx14/PCx20/ISMx26/IS-3PW-36GW-132SW-200BW-5PR-43GR-114SR-137BR/MoI/MoT-6rh/LoC-RS-TS-IS-CSx5-Rx4/LoS-PS-RSx2-CSx5-Rx3/DFC-SW-Rx2/MoC-8doc-8poc-9goc-8soc-70boc/CoLx14/CoEx2/CoSx2/CoB/LoAx50/OV-17E

Imperator | Veteran 4th | Ranger 2nd

{TCCORE-MCBS-MP/1/2-SM/3/4-TM/1/3-WIKI-XAM-XMD-XTM/1}