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FAQ
 
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These are answers to some of the most common questions I receive, which I believe are correct according to what is currently known about the game. If anything here is incorrect, or you have more information, please let me know.



 
 
Q: How do I add the missions I create to XWA?
A: Check out the Adding Missions page.

 

Q: My mission crashes when I try to view the briefing, what's wrong?
A: Your mission file name must have the correct format. Check here for details. 

 

Q: Can I write multi-player custom missions?
A: Yes, to a certain extent, but it's not as easy as just adding more players to a mission. Trying to play a mission with more than 1 player in a campaign or through the combat simulator will crash the game.

Multiplayer games in XWA can only be played in skirmish mode, but you don't need to be limited to missions created with the skirmish editor. What happens when you play a skirmish is that the .skm file currently selected is converted into a .tie file by the game engine (it's call temp.tie in the Skirmish folder.) That temp mission can actually be edited by AlliED. The catch is that the game generates the temp file each time you enter a .skm mission, so to edit the current mission you can play a skirmish mission, exit it, then edit or replace temp.tie, then chose to Play the skirmish file again and you'll be playing the edited version. Alternately, you can replace temp.tie before you enter a skirmish, but give it the property of read-only (right click on it and select Properties) so the game engine can't overwrite it and you will go straight into your edited mission. Also, if you are going to play multiplayer I think all players have to have the same temp.tie.

Draconious and others have done a lot of experimenting with multiplayer and have even discovered ways to have skirmishes over multiple regions. For more information check out  http://members.home.net/draconious/XW or  http://go.to/Draconious.

 

Q: When I fly a Missile Boat or Gunboat, I can't fire because it says  "S-foils are closed". Can I fix this?
A: This problem is in the exe because Imperial ships were never intended to be flown in campaigns. You can get around it by giving the mission one of the "quick start - in space" mission types in Mission Parameters so that you start in space with the S foils already open. However this will only work through the simulator as you will start in a hanger regardless when playing a campaign.

The good news is that I believe the offset for fixing this problem has recently been discovered. Check out the OPT Project boards at Datamaster's Website.

 

Q: Why can't I hyper jump when I get up near the hyper buoy?
A: Your craft is probably not on Team 1 - you must be on Team 1 in order to hyper jump. 

 

Q: How can I set which region a ship starts in?
A: The simplest way is to choose from the region buttons on the "Ships" page of the Datapad (not the ones on the side of the Map).   Alternatively, you can go to the WP toolbox and set the "Region" drop box next to Waypoint 1 to the Region you want it to start in. You must also enable the WPs you want to use my clicking on their name so they are highlighted in blue.

 

Q: Why don't my briefing strings appear in the "review briefing" section while the mission is loading?
A: You need to have a "page break" instruction between each text string for it to appear in the briefing review.

 

Q: How do I add more ships to XWA?
A: I'm certainly not the best person to answer this :) I believe the best explanation around is in the help section at Steele Aerospace Homepage. 

 

Q: When I finish a mission, my craft finishes up in space way behind the hanger. Why?
A: This seems to happen if you use any ship other than a Calamari Cruiser as a mothership. No known cure.

 

Q: In the "review briefing" when the mission is loading, the text is doubled up. Why?
A: This seems to be a rare problem, but so far I don't know the cause of it.

 

Q: I complete all the goals in my mission, the goal window says "Victory", but when I return to the hangar it says I've failed the mission. Why?
A: I've seem this problem a few times, but haven't been able to work out the precise cause. With one of them, I could fix the problem by deleting all the messages, with another I played around changing Global Goals and FG goals slightly until it worked. I've heard from people who say they've recreated a mission with this problem and it worked the second time. If you have a working/non-working pair of the same mission, please send them to me and I may be able to narrow down the cause of this problem.

 

Q: Can I make ships appear in the "Mission Craft" list before the mission starts?
A: At this stage I don't think anyone has discovered how to do this. 

 

Q: Can I assign wavs to briefings?
A: Unfortunately, there seems to be no way of assigning wavs to briefings. XWA looks for briefing wavs on the CD but never on the hard drive. Some people are trying to find a way to alter the exe for it to look on the hard drive but so far no luck. 

 

Q: Can I start in the Family Base hangar for my custom missions?
A: I think the answer is no - not for missions numbered higher than 6 in your Mission.lst.

 

Q: Where can I find the cheat codes for XWA?
A: Despite what you might hear, there are NO cheat codes for XWA.