On more than one occasion I have discussed the Batman film Dark Knight Rises as possessing an ability to change cultural opinions in a very dramatic way. I have said the same about the new Superman: Man of Steel. And of course I have professed on for pages and pages the importance of Star Wars and its dire warnings of institutional corruption and need for individual atonement. So it is not a surprise to see the director of the new Star Wars film having fun with the director of the next Superman/Batman film with careful social media plugs that have been going on for weeks. They know what these films mean to several generations of fans—and they are doing a good job of stoking the fires of mythology further. But J.J. Abrams went to another level when he released his latest video of a full scale Millennium Falcon from the set of the new Star Wars film that combined the Batmobile from Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight Trilogy to it. It was exciting to see as the detail on the movie prop was exceedingly meticulous—which was the point of the video which prompted the following reaction from the online site, Clever Movies:
Star Wars VII director JJ Abrams shows off the new/old Millennium Falcon and reveals a connection to a certain Dark Knight. If you’ve been on the internet in the last few weeks, you’ve probably noticed a slew of pics and videos have surfaced showing off the full scale version of Han Solo’s famous ride, the Millennium Falcon that will be part of next year’s Star Wars Episode VII. Well, it looks like director JJ Abrams has seen them too and decided it was time to show off the ship that “made the Kessel Run in less than twelve parsecs” on his terms. Abrams released a video titled “Hunka Junk” on his official Bad Robot channel that shows a close-up view of the Falcon while the classic Star Wars music plays. But things aren’t exactly as they appear as the music quickly changes we pan around the ship. If you don’t recognize the music, it’s the theme to Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight trilogy and as the camera comes to rest underneath the ship, we see Batman’s Tumbler has now become a fixture of the Falcon.
Now, for those of you wondering why on Earth the Batmobile would be on the Millennium Falcon, it’s all part of a Star Wars/Batman/Superman mashup that Abrams and Batman v Superman director Zack Snyder have been playing throughout production on both films. It all started back in July when Snyder tweeted this image of Henry Cavill dressed as a Sith Lord with the caption “#SuperJedi”. Abrams followed that with a photo of new Star Wars cast member John Boyega dressed as Batman holding a blaster with the caption “#BOYEGAMAN”. Snyder than tweeted out an image of Batman and R2-D2 together in a scene resembling that from A New Hope a few weeks later. Abrams countered with his own droid inspired photo featuring C3PO as The Caped Crusader. Things seemed to die down until Snyder once again tweeted out this photo over the weekend. It features a Stormtrooper being arrested by Gotham’s finest with the new Batmobile in view. The photo was a response to recent rumors that one of the Batmobile’s had went missing from the set. It was that photo that lead to today’s Millennium Falcon reveal. These Star Wars/Batman/Superman mashups are definitely unconventional, but considering both filmmakers are notoriously protective when it comes to set leaks, it’s a fun way to tease fans with details from the films and just gives us all a major nerdgasm.
In the past the Millennium Falcon was built for shots in the original trilogy, but certainly not to the detail that Abrams was showing off. The detail was excessive and was a small example of what fans of the new film can expect from the new Star Wars film. I can’t say how many times I have looked at Millennium Falcon models and wondered about what all the hoses and pipes would possibly do on that ship. I once stood at the actual model of the Falcon at the Smithsonian in Washington D.C. trying to look at all the detail underneath the ship in the very area showed off by Abrams just to see what was connected to what and trying to figure out what everything did. But I never imagined that there would ever be a giant model built of the Falcon to this scale where such detail was committed to the smallest detail. That was what Abrams was showing off, and it was quite enticing. I have watched the video now well over 100 times in just one day and I’m not done. It is excessively exciting.
This is just a sample of things to come. It is a very exciting time indeed.
Given my recent comments about the importance of mythology, it should come as no surprise when I do these occasional articles about the Star Wars Miniatures game, X-wing. It is a participatory mythology that is a real step up from the old days of exclusively verbal and written myth. As a strategy game it has a real power to it that never ceases to impress me—as a creative endeavor. I find it an amazing game which I play often. With that said, within the game I have a new love which nearly mimics the response of a new ship called the E-wing from the video below. The Millennium Falcon, which is my favorite ship, now has a rival, the E-Wing fighter has become a close second. A ship for the Rebellion, it is their best offering and fits nicely within a 100 point squad at the lowest pilot rating or the highest which features Corran Horn—one of my favorite Star Wars characters. For anybody who has played the game, the reaction of Steven should not come as a surprise once they have been used in a combat engagement.
I thought the Fantasy Flight Games inclusion of the E-wing was interesting. They have to get all their designs approved through Lucas Licensing—who already knows the contents of the new Star Wars films. Corran Horn and the E-Wing in general are exclusively creations of the Expanded Universe which supposedly Lucasfilm is abandoning with Disney’s urging. I am not one of those people who believe that Disney is scrapping the EU—as the media currently advocates. In fact, I think I know the entire plot—at least how Episode VII begins—but I’m not going to trample on what the filmmakers are trying to do. They are deliberately creating rumors to throw people off the truth of the film’s plot—so it is important to them to maintain that for their own reasons. So don’t believe what the media is reporting—because most of it is wrong. To confirm my beliefs about Episode VII, the inclusion of the E-Wing to the game X-wing speaks loudly about how much value the EU will maintain in the creation of further Star Wars stories. The E-wing was a ship that Corran Horn flew with Rogue Squadron several years after the initial Star Wars films and are comfortably into the years following the original trilogy, which delights me as to how it fits into the overall mythology. But the ship itself is one of the best that the rebels have. All Rebel squads should include at least one after I have spent some considerable time using them.
For those who do not know much about the E-wing this Wiki article should shine some light on how they fit into the EU story. The E-wing escort starfighter was a single-pilotstarfighter developed by FreiTek Inc. It was the first fighter designed entirely under the support of the New Republic.
As designed, the E-wing was intended to match, or exceed, the performance of the preceding X-wing series in nearly every respect, and was originally intended to replace the older design in New Republic service. However, the craft suffered from some significant problems when first deployed among front-line squadrons, including malfunction issues with the laser cannons and the new R7 astromech units. As a result, many pilots continued to fly upgraded versions of the venerable X-wing.
Despite the initial problems, improved models of the E-wing would see wide-spread use by the New Republic, particularly by the Fifth Fleet, and later by the Galactic Alliance. They would play a significant role in every engagement from the Black Fleet Crisis, through the Yuuzhan Vong War, and beyond.
By the time of the Second Galactic Civil War, the E-wing had matured into an excellent starfighter design and equipped several elite squadrons of the Galactic Alliance. However, it never achieved the same popularity or wide-spread use as the X-wing.
The E-wing was considered an excellent combination of firepower, maneuverability, speed, and armor, but initial models required the use of the R7-series astromech droid, which was exclusively built for the E-wing.
The spaceframe of the E-wing was surrounded by two aerodynamic foils which provided stability and increased weapons ability. The nosecone contained the starfighter’s powerful sensors, while a concealed astromech droid could easily be positioned midway through the craft. Directly in front of the astromech slot was the cockpit.
The fighter was heavily armed with three laser cannons and oneproton torpedo launcher with a magazine of sixteen torpedoes. Like most Rebel designs, the lasers were spread out and could be set to converge at varying distances.
Much of the great cost of the E-wing came from the use of the R7 droid, a much more sophisticated and expensive astromech than the classic R2 and R5 astromechs. Later models of the E-wing starfighters were however able to interface with earlier astromech models, such as an R2 or R5 unit.
The Republic introduced the E-wing during Grand AdmiralThrawn‘s campaign to rebuild the fallenEmpire. The fighter later served in the fight against the “resurrected” Palpatine. Built with cutting-edge weapons, shielding, and propulsion systems, the fighter was extremely powerful and well-rounded. It was intended as an escort fighter and could also serve as a medium-range assault craft. It had enough speed to counter TIE/In starfighters and had better armor than other New Republic starfighters, including the X-wing. They were used by the Galactic Federation of Free Alliances during the Second Galactic Civil War, during early skirmishes with Corellia.
The E-wing had some initial teething problems relating to the placement of the wing lasers near the outboard engines. The synthetic Tibanna used for the lasers tended to degrade at accelerated rates, which swiftly rendered those guns near-useless (and cutting gun firepower to a third). Rebel engineers came up with a temporary solution during the World Devastator assault on Mon Calamari. Those problems were eventually resolved and the fighter entered fleet service. It is known to have served at least with the New Republic’s Fifth Fleet as the primary fleet space superiority fighter. When the Fifth Fleet was moved to the Koornacht Cluster during the Black Fleet Crisis, many E-wings saw action against the Yevetha in the conflict that ensued.
Four major models appeared to have been designed; the last (Series IV) was introduced around the time of the capture of Coruscant by the Yuuzhan Vong. By that point in the war, the XJ X-wing was rapidly equipping most squadrons in the massive military expansion; the more sophisticated E-wing may have been limited to some elite squadrons. The Series IV E-wing remained in service through the transition from New Republic to Galactic Alliance, and was still in operation as of the Second Galactic Civil War.
During the era of the New Republic the Rogue Squadron was expanded vastly, turned into a multi-fighter unit based around E-wings and B-wings, and based on Lusankya, which Antilles departed the squadron to command, leaving Celchu as Rogue Leader. This unit first saw combat conquering Phaeda.[30] Shortly after that campaign, the last leaders of the unified Empire were defeated, and the former galactic power dissolved into warlordism.[29] Horn stayed and weathered these changes, which were only temporary, as the squadron was back in X-wings and at regular strength within the year.[8]
After reading all that it is quickly evident that if Disney were abandoning the EU, they would not have approved the inclusion of the E-wing into the canon of the X-wing Miniatures game. The game will continue selling for years and once the story is out upon the release of the new Star Wars film, the market potential for a non canon ship would be extremely weak. There is just too much story and history present to abandon those stories in favor of an alternate timeline within the Star Wars Universe. Time will tell the truth but for now, the E-wing is encouraging and brings with it a very rich history directly from the EU. There is so much potential for Disney and Lucasfilm to explode their merchandising base off the EU it would seem evident that the E-wing is just the tip of an iceberg. There should be much more to come. It is possible the decision to use the E-wing was exclusively to milk everything that could be milked to bring forth new ships for the hot selling strategy game, but as important as story has always been, and will always be in Star Wars—the E-wing is an exciting inclusion that points to wonderful things on the horizon.
For one of my nephews, Corran Horn was his favorite character created during an Expanded Universe novel series called X-wing. Corran would later become a Jedi Knight under Luke Skywalker and eventually serve on the council being a big part of the Yuuzhan Vong War. The literature produced for Star Wars far exceeds the content of the movies, so watching those EU elements percolate into the gaming world is a lot of fun.
Strategically speaking however, the E-wing is one of the best ships made in the game. It is a must for any collector and player. I doubt ever again I will create a squad of ships that does not in some way include an E-wing—they are just too powerful and nimble not to. I have spent many hours dazzled by mine and enjoyed the immense game play that they bring to a table. But what is most fun of all is knowing that the X-wing game is reflecting all the wonderful aspects of that larger world which is the Expanded Universe. While reporters are hinging on every morsel of information and scrap photo taken from the paparazzi about the new Episode VII movie, some of the best secrets are those hidden in plain site. Behind the E-wing are the answers that many Star Wars fans are looking for. Nobody is hiding the information, it’s there for all to see—if you know a little about the mythology of Star Wars—and in our house, we have one room full of every Star Wars book ever written, then its obvious. Nobody in the business of making money—which Disney is—would let those rich stories fall into decline and disrespect. The E-wing is a part of the EU that is very important only to the values of events after the movie Return of the Jedi. And it was given a dominate role in X-wing which greatly enhances the game play. Needless to say, Steven was right about that ship—it is a thing of wonder and beauty for more reasons than that it gives players a strategic advantage. It is a member of the cherished EU and hopefully a sign of great things to come.
Charity is only a bad thing when the altruism involved masks other behavior designed to win social favor instead of genuinely using productive excess to help those suffering from stifled freedom. The Star Wars: Force for Change initiative, linked below, is one of the good ones. The intent is to bring the benefits of capitalism to the far reaches of planet earth, and that is wonderful. There are many children suffering under countries with poor political philosophies or economic systems that do not capture the natural innovation of their inhabitants—but instead stifles them needlessly. Force for Change is intended to use the excess of capitalism created by the mythology of Star Wars into actually making people’s lives better which is something everyone should emphatically support. And as usual, J.J. Abrams has provided a teaser of the new movie, Episode VII in a final week push to drive up the numbers.
The new ship looks like a classic Z-95 Headhunter from the pre-years of the X-Wing fighter seen in the original trilogy. But the claims are that it is a new kind of updated X-Wing—whatever the case it looks fantastic and is proof that the crew working on the new Star Wars film is going to extraordinary measures to produce something wonderful. The clever presentation of the Force for Change material during the production of Star Wars hints at the level of creativity emerging from the endeavor and is truly something to be excited about.
It will be hard to avoid this new Star Wars movie once it is released—so news from it is important to everyone, even those who are not dedicated fans of the series. Star Wars is a direct creation of capitalism and without it there would not be a Force for Change initiative and a number of other charities which trickle off the mythology that takes place “a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.” Certainly under no socialist government could Star Wars have been made, and it is particularly under socialist style governments that many of the children the Force for Change is attempting to help. England is hardly a bastion of capitalism, but they are also directly benefiting from the production of Star Wars being shot in their country—in England over a billion pounds of wealth was created by production companies filming in and around London—Star Wars among the most notable and Abu Dhabi has seen an increase by 19% in hotel reservations from fans all over the world traveling to the left behind film sites to visit the location of the Episode VII props. Without a story nothing would be shot in London or Abu Dhabi and without that story meaning anything to anybody, there would be no desire to pay money to buy plane tickets to fly to such places just to take pictures of what was left behind during the creation process.
And that is what J.J. Abrams is doing in his Force for Change videos; he is using the props created for the film—which will be seen by hundreds of millions of people the world over. The film may generate $1 billion in global revenue just in the first two weeks—which is astonishing. It will likely go on to make several billion more dollars dwarfing anything previously done by any film anywhere, because the buildup is so intense. But on top of that Walmart, Target, and anywhere Star Wars toys are sold will see sharp increases in profit. Fast-food tie-ins will dramatically increase their sales with promotional campaigns. And the Disney Parks will also see spikes in attendance and interest in their new property from t-shirts to DVD sales. J.J. Abrams knowing all this is using the props from the film already used to tell the story as a way to help some kids suffering from the lack of creativity their economies have imprisoned them to—and that is a wonderful thing.
Star Wars is capitalism at its best and is something worthy of support not just of the product itself—but the spillover it has which helps feed and clothe many millions who otherwise would not have the opportunity. Because of Star Wars, there is a Force for Change—and the nature of that change is one of depravity to fulfillment through investment driven by passion for the subject matter. And in that regard it is very exciting to see a new ship from a future Star Wars film. I’m sure Fantasy Flight Games is already making plans to have it in their miniatures game which is so much fun.
In the context of my lifelong interest in global mythology and comparative religion, I see all the news coming out about Star Wars as infinitely good in so many ways. When Harrison Ford was injured recently filming the new Star Wars Episode 7 movie, the world stopped as he was airlifted to the hospital in England. With all the news going on globally, terrorists taking over Iraq, Obama’s parade of scandals, election impact of new blood in the Republican Party, it was Harrison Ford’s injury which captured the headlines of virtually every news source. Some of that is deliberate misdirection, but a lot of it is genuine interest, and concern for a mythology which touches the heart of so many people. On the same day as this terrible news about Harrison Ford, who will bounce back from such things as he always does—came the latest news from Fantasy Flight Games popular X-Wing Miniatures game. For Father’s Day my wife hosted a big party for our family, which was wonderful. But much of the best parts of it were the weekend of playing X-Wing Miniatures with the people who came.
Every time I turn around starting about a year ago, Fantasy Flight Games has been improving their product line. What they are doing with X-Wing Miniatures is cutting edge stuff that is launching tabletop gaming into a whole new dimension. I’ve never seen anything like it. There have been for years great games like Warhammer, Dungeons and Dragons, and Magic the Gathering, but this effort with X-Wing Miniatures is game changing. As the new films hit the marketplace and return to the mind of society in general as part of their daily dialogue—which is already happening, this Fantasy Flight Games production of X-Wing Miniatures is about to explode. Mythologically speaking, I think FFG’s relatively new game is the best vehicle to express and maintain new mythological trends that exist. It is more powerful than novels, more relevant than the films themselves, and more participatory than video games. Playing the game does essentially what some of the highest minds in the world do at Esalan at the Mythological Roundtable sponsored by the Joseph Campbell Foundation. X-Wing Miniatures recreates myth and allows players to directly participate actively, as opposed to passively. They take control of their own mythology, which is what I think is the key to the success of the Fantasy Flight Games venture.
During Father’s Day my family played the game extensively, and as we played we talked heavily about the new ships coming out in Wave 4, in just a few weeks, and we discussed the very exciting news about Wave 5 set to hit the marketplace later this year—2014. The most exciting news of that announcement is the YT-2400 from the old video game Shadows of the Empire from Nintendo 64. That particular ship will go well with my Millennium Falcon to cause all kinds of trouble in a game that has become a mild obsession. Here is the press release from Fantasy Flight Games published as news poured out to the world the Harrison Ford would quickly recover from his injury.
Fantasy Flight Games is proud to announce the upcoming release of two new starships for X-Wing™!
In this, the game’s fifth wave, two large starships arrive ready for the heat of battle: the Rebellion’s YT-2400 and the Imperial’s VT-49 Decimator.
In addition to their starships, each of which is sculpted faithfully at the game’s standard 1/270 scale, the YT-2400 Freighter Expansion Pack and VT-49 Decimator Expansion Pack introduce a host of new upgrades and terrain pieces that allow you to explore a wide range of new tactics in your space battles.
You’ll also find a large cast of characters drawn from the expanded Star Wars universe, the first Imperial turret weapon, and upgrade cards designed by the game’s first two World Champions.
YT-2400 Freighter Expansion Pack
A fast and resilient light freighter, the YT-2400 features no fewer than thirteen weapon emplacement points, making it an attractive vessel for smugglers, mercenaries, and other individuals looking for a heavily armed “transport.” Although a stock YT-2400 light freighter has plenty of space for cargo, much of that space is often annexed to support modified weapon systems and oversized engines.
The YT-2400 Freighter Expansion Pack brings this formidable light freighter to your table as a Rebel starship with two attack, two agility, five hull, and five shields.
The highlight of the YT-2400 Freighter Expansion Pack is its detailed miniature starship, which is enhanced by one new mission, three debris cloud tokens, a maneuver dial, all requisite tokens, and four ship cards, including one for the famed smuggler Dash Rendar.
VT-49 Decimator Expansion Pack
To be granted command of a VT-49 Decimator is seen as a significant promotion for a middling officer of the Imperial Navy. A heavily armed transport, the VT-49 Decimator is one of the Empire’s most feared warships, often used to provide long-range reconnaissance or to deploy raiding parties past enemy forces.
The VT-49 Decimator Expansion Pack brings this intimidating Imperial gunboat to X-Wing as the game’s largest ship yet designed for Standard Play. Even at the game’s signature 1/270 scale, the expansion pack’s detailed miniature towers over its base and smaller starfighters.
In addition to its imposing, pre-painted miniature, the VT-49 Decimator Expansion Pack introduces four ship cards, three debris cloud tokens, a new mission, a maneuver dial, and all the tokens you need to fly your Decimator into the thick of combat. Finally, you’ll find thirteen upgrade cards, which introduce a variety of crew members like Mara Jade and Fleet Officer designed to help you fill out the Decimator’s three crew member slots.
X-Wing Miniatures as it stands today is one of the coolest games on the market. I have never seen something like it which has united my family the way it has—from young to old and all economic groups. Everyone who plays the game loves the game—even if they aren’t very good at it. I would say that is because of the strength of the mythological nature of it—it pulls players into a story which they control, and that is what separates it away from novels, movies, and video games. In those forums, participants simply unlock what someone else created, but with X-Wing Miniatures, Fantasy Flight Games simply provides the tool box–the players use the tools for their own stories.
In my personal story arc, I’m a YT guy in every way possible—and to get my hands on a YT-2400 that barrel rolls and has a turret that can equip a secondary weapon is extremely powerful. This will be the build that replaces the twin Falcons and with the meta game moving away from TIE swarms and toward the devastating aspects of Whisper who flies the upcoming Phantom Wave 4 ship shooting with 4 dice. The game is getting faster and more maneuverable. Rebel ships can’t just sit around with no agility waiting to get picked off. They will also have to be able to shoot every turn just to survive the weapons the Imperial players are throwing at them—and that is where the fun begins. Figuring out those types of problems and letting the mythology play out based on the thought of the players.
I think this game X-Wing Miniatures will replace Monopoly as the newest, hottest selling game that brings families to the kitchen table to play—because as the new films hit the market over the next 6 years, and the new Rebels television show on Disney XD gains in popularity, the innovation created by Fantasy Flight Games will have hit critical mass and the general population will find themselves every bit as addicted to the sheer joy that the game brings—only for them the learning curve will be steep. What started as a simple game with just a few ships has turned into a very complex web of tactical entertainment with a seemingly infinite combination of strategic options which can keep a mind occupied for years. But beyond that—there is a story to this game which has more power than Chess, all the ambition of a novel, and more edge of the seat excitement than a year’s worth of video games—and the new additions never stop coming—the most exciting for me yet is the YT-2400.
As dire as things may seem socio-economically, politically, and philosophically, there are a number of truly wonderful developments which are taking mankind on a marvelous journey. My enthusiasm for the Star Wars space vessel, The Millennium Falcon is well chronicled, and one of the most obvious reasons for it is shown during the development of a brand new computer game called Space Engineers. A very clever player in that game during its development phase—as the game is not yet completed–has done in that computer realm what I have long thought will actually happen in the not so distant future. Space vehicles will no longer resemble the old shapes of the past created by stuffy German engineers from the World War II generation, but the ambitious children who grew up on the popular movie series Star Wars. For many years I have thought that the most practical ship design to carry travelers from some space port in Florida, or New York to say a Hilton on the Moon, then to a series of exotic space stations circling the Earth as luxurious resorts was a real Millennium Falcon. Once antigravity technology is mastered, there really isn’t any reason that such a design could not be implemented for such journeys. This is essentially what a player of the new game did; they built a Millennium Falcon in the game and actually made it so it could fly practically with a series of reactors and gyroscopes. The surface propulsion units are distributed the way they actually would be in order to fly through space—and actually solves some of the initial design concerns for future space travel. Have a look.
The new game is exciting to me because it is a prequel to what is coming for the human race. Once human minds behold such concepts, real life implementation is not far behind. Chris Lee is already building a full-sized Millennium Falcon in Nashville, Tennessee and private investors are moving into independent space travel presently eclipsing the efforts of governments over the years. It is not so outlandish any longer to behold that a real Millennium Falcon could be built and flown about in space. The new game Space Engineers allows for such things. It looks to be the new Minecraft, a game so popular that school teachers are often playing it during their class time in school from their laptops. Minecraft is not popular because the graphics are so pristine, but because the creativity the game allows encourages thought, and human beings in spite of the trends in the other direction which are mostly self-imposed destruction—love to think. In Space Engineers one of the most dominant early designs of ships which can fly are those from Star Wars. The mechanics in Space Engineers are like Lego blocks, only in a computer environment. This allows human beings to build virtually anything and everything they desire—much the way children do. Adults have the same yearnings, and it is not an accident that one of the first ships built-in Space Engineers is a Millennium Falcon, one that can be walked around in, and flown from one point to another. Other ships built have been some of the large capital ships fully rendered in scale which can actually be piloted.
From the game designer’s website a space engineer is a professional practitioner who uses scientific knowledge, mathematics, physics, astronomy, propulsion technology, materials science, structural analysis, manufacturing and ingenuity to solve practical problems in space.
Space engineers design materials, structures and systems while considering the limitations imposed by practicality, regulation, safety, ethicality and cost. Space engineers are grounded in applied sciences and their work in research and development is distinct from the basic research focus of space scientists.
Practical solutions:
engineering, construction and maintenance of space works: open-space stations, asteroid stations, space crafts of all sizes and utilization (civil and military), remote sensing technology, artificial gravity generators
asteroid mining (mostly near a construction site)
maintaining lines of transport and communications
industrial and scientific research, development and exploration
In war times, space engineering involves military engineering as well. Such tasks typically include construction and demolition tasks under combat conditions. Military engineers use practices and techniques of camouflage, reconnaissance, communication methods and enhancement of survival by other troops. They are also responsible for construction rigging, the use of explosives and carrying out demolitions, camouflage erection, battleship construction and design, field fortification construction, artillery outpost construction, obstacle clearance, obstacle construction, assault of fortifications, the use of assault ships in obstacle crossings, expedient space station construction, general construction, route reconnaissance, and communication installations. They are also responsible for logistics behind military tactics.
Space engineers are in a high demand, especially since the Second Space Race of 2029. They take pride in their ability to get the job done right—no matter how big, how complex or how remote.
The word “engineer” derives from the Latin root ingeniare (“to contrive, devise”) and ingenium (“cleverness”).
FEATURES
Game modes
– Creative – unlimited resources, instant building, no death – Survival – realistic management of resources and inventory capacity; manual building; death/respawn
Single-player – you are the sole space engineer
Multiplayer
– Creative and survival mode with your friends
– Cooperative and competitive
– Privacy customization: offline, private, friends only, public
– Max 16 players (this may increase in the future)
– Weapons on/off
– Copy-paste on/off
Scenarios
– Easy Start 1 – start on an asteroid platform with one large ship and two small ships
– Easy Start 2 – start in a green asteroid station with several large and small ships (large scene!)
– Lone Survivor – start on an abandoned asteroid platform with no ships
– Crashed Red Ship – your mother ship just crashed…
– Two Platforms – competitive two-team multi-player world
– Asteroids – start in a rescue ship with very limited resources
– Empty World – no asteroids, no ships; suitable for creative mode
Dedicated servers – allow players to connect to a third-party host, rather than using a player-host, in a peer-to-peer set-up. The result is a faster connection and a more fluent multiplayer performance with less lag
Ships (small and large) – build and pilot them
Space stations
First-person & Third-person
Drilling / harvesting
Manual building in survival mode – use welder to assemble blocks from components; use grinder to disassemble and reuse components
Deformable and destructible objects – real proportions, mass, storage capacity, integrity
Building blocks – light armor (cube, slope, corner), heavy armor, interior wall, interior light, small cockpit, large cockpit, cargo container(s), drill, ore detector, gravity generator, nuclear reactor, thruster, gyroscope, assembler, medical room, magnetic landing gears, spotlight, catwalk, cover wall, stairs, ramp, window(s), pillar, decoy, wheels, automated turrets, weapons, artificial mass, conveyor, collector, connector, merge block
Magnetic landing gears – attach your ship to a surface (another ship or asteroid)
Electricity – all blocks in a grid are wired in an electrical and computer network; electricity is generated by nuclear reactors
Gravity – produced by gravity generators
Rotors – create rotating objects
Refinery – process harvested ore to ingots
Assembler – manufacture components from ingots
Symmetry/Mirroring – useful in creative mode when building structures that require symmetry
Weapons – automatic rifle, small and large explosive warheads, small ship gatling gun, small ship missile launcher
Large weapons – missile launcher (for large ships)
Solar panels – produce energy depending on the amount of light that they catch from the sun
World management – generate new worlds, “save as” to multiple copies, auto-save every 5 minutes (can be turned on/off), edit world settings
32-bit & 64-bit – 64-bit version expands the amount of objects, ships and asteroids (almost unlimited)
Steam Workshop – share your creations with the Community (upload and download worlds)
Modding – world files, shaders, textures, 3D models
Custom colors for blocks – Customize your creations by using any color you like
Cargo ships – auto-piloted vessels (miners, freighters and military) that carry ore, ingots, constructions components and other materials from sector to sector. They can be looted but beware, they often contain booby traps!
Environmental hazards – protect your character and your creations from meteor storms (Safe, Normal, Cataclysm, Armageddon)
Conveyor, Collector, Connector (IMPORTANT: this is a first work-in-progress version and a realistic version will be added later) – Conveyors move items from inventory to inventory. Collectors can collect small objects (ore, ingots, components, tools) into inventory. Connectors can throw items from inventory to space (in future update could be used to connect two ships/stations and transfer items). Gameplay note: Explanation of pull & push principles in conveyor system
Artificial mass – can be used to add gravity-affected mass to ships, useful in machine ships or cars
Wheels – use them with rotors and artificial mass to build vehicles
Automated turrets – gatling, missile and interior. Turrets are used mostly as defense mechanism rather than shooting other players. They aim on decoys (automatically by default), meteorites, missiles or all moving objects (eg. small/large ships) – targeting can be changed in the control panel
Large/small ship grinder and welder – assemble and disassemble blocks faster and in larger amount
Now, what can be better than all of that! What’s best is the game is designed to be step over between the science past and the science future. It is a new generation of massive online gaming that is intelligently based, and it is certain that current players will be tomorrow’s actual Space Engineers—who will realistically design these kinds of things in the next couple of decades. It would not surprise me to find that in the not too distant future, I will be able to build a real Millennium Falcon and actually fly it around from colonies on Mars, to the Moon and anywhere else human beings settle in space within the next 100 years.
Imagination is taking us to that space destination. Education systems have not kept up and have outdated themselves to inventions like this latest remarkable game. Humans are naturally inclined to the kind of creativity they can experience in these types of games, and are quickly outgrowing the terrestrial limits of earth and its small-minded politics. Seeing The Millennium Falcon flying around in Space Engineers is the first indication of what the future will look like as today’s game players invent a reality to play out the images painted across their minds born of creativity. The origin of much of this creativity will be the familiar Millennium Falcon as millions share with me the desire to actually walk around and fly the real thing first introduced to their imaginations in the Star Wars saga. Space Engineers is an exciting game, and is a step into a future that is much more ambitious than anyone previously thought. It is a window into a future that will not be rooted in the limitations of oppression driven by ignorance, but the unknowable extension of the human imagination and what it can build if restrictions are removed.
( I originally wrote this article a year and a half ago, but after seeing a preview of the film, can confirm that Han Solo does die in The Force Awakens. So read the rest of this knowing that it has happened, and that it will have an impact on the franchise going forward. While Harrison Ford was reluctant to play the part in the past, the death of that character will be difficult for Disney’s expectations in the future. They should have waited, but they did it, and now Star Wars fans will have to deal with it. For me personally, a long time Star Wars fan–so much so that it has been a major part of my family’s life for three decades–I’m out. That did it for me.) December 16th, 2015. I feel like a real sucker waiting three damn years for that shitting revelation. Bad move Disney……..It was good while it lasted.
(I guess I’ll burn my favorite shirt now)
Apparently word from inside the Episode VII Star Wars film has leaked that Han Solo will die in the upcoming trilogy, and while this doesn’t surprise me given that such a plot point gives weight to the plight of the next generation and their tasks during the mythic journey which they are a part of—I can’t say that I will enjoy the films because of it. If not for Han Solo, I would likely not enjoy Star Wars so much. From those films Solo’s prized pirate ship The Millennium Falcon is the symbol of those famous films which have changed pop culture. I have written about this before—actually extensively and I realized just how important The Millennium Falcon and Han Solo was to society when I saw a Falcon shirt at Target of all places the other day. Solo is the glue that holds Star Wars together and without him—and his common sense of “shooting first” the popular space opera is just another movie. So I can’t image Star Wars without Han Solo. I’ll give it a shot, but likely it will be earth shattering for millions of fans when he dies on-screen.
The Falcon is in the news this week because the Internet was on fire regarding news of the full-sized Falcon being built for Episode VII. I have thought for years of doing just what Chris Lee from Nashville is currently doing—and that is building a full-sized Millennium Falcon. I have priced the project at around $15 million dollars to do it the way I want to do it, and Chris is attempting to build one with volunteer help and donations, which can be seen at his website shown at the link below. Chris just spoke at a TED Talks event and is preparing to show parts of his full-sized Falcon build—including the landing gear, the turret, dish, and cockpit at Star Wars Celebration in 2015 in Anaheim, California. Lee’s work is very impressive and is on track to build a full-sized Falcon within a decade at this pace. He still needs funding, but the resurgence of Star Wars should help keep things going—slowly. But no matter what level of love for The Millennium Falcon that there is, all fans loved the pictures seen of the full-sized set being built-in England which can be seen on Lee’s site:
Of late, my relationship to the Falcon has been that I fly one nearly exclusively in the Star Wars Miniatures Game: X-Wing. I flew in my first tournament over the previous weekend and had a tremendous amount of fun. I currently am running a build that allows Han Solo to be the pilot, and for the Falcon to perform barrel rolls, evasion, and engine upgrades based on my experience after the tournament. It is an expensive build for the tabletop role-playing game that is essentially a tactical exercise, but the goal is to make the Falcon as close to the speed and flexibility of a TIE Interceptor, which is actually more appropriate for its role in the movies. The reason it isn’t done more often is because it is hard to fly. One thing that I noticed during the tournament even though I lacked experience at playing at that level, I was able to fly much better than average—so it would be wise to play to that strength.
For that same game I created a build called the “Corellian Massacre” which consists of the speedy and agile YT-1300 along with two escort ships consisting of two HWK-290s, one flown by Kyle Katarn. The two HWK-290s are designed to slow down my opponent long enough for the Falcon to chip away at their ships from outside their firing arcs—with the extra speed and agility for such a large ship. The risk is bouncing off the board or into asteroids, but that is where the pilot skill comes into play. It’s not a build for everyone—but it is one that I love. I have even bigger plans for the Wave 4 ships again capitalizing off the Falcon which has me very excited.
That’s why it would surprise me if Disney allowed Han Solo or the Falcon to be killed off. I think Harrison Ford wants it. I think the writers feel they must do it so to give a proper story context to the crises of the children in the series—the whole mythic atonement with the father issue which drives most mythology. After all, a healthy happy family between Han, Leia and their children does not bring crises to the situation enough to merit a sense of peril. The Empire Strikes Back has long been considered not just the best Star Wars film, but one of the best films of all time—and in it Han Solo was tortured and frozen, so surely the Star Wars team thinks that the series can survive without the character—but I’m not so sure. At least then there was a hope of coming back, and The Millennium Falcon was still the vehicle for all the heroes. If one or both of those elements are missing in the upcoming trilogy it will be a massive loss to the gravitas of the overall fan experience.
There will be stand alone films, Boba Fett is set to get one probably directed by the current Godzilla director and Han Solo will get his own film around 2018 playing a much younger man—obviously not Harrison Ford. Disney is planning to still give fans their Han Solo fix, but it will come after the tragedy that will occur in the upcoming series. Disney is planning their amusement park centered around a Star Wars theme and there will likely be a full-sized Falcon there for fans to tour and walk around which will be fantastic. Hopefully by that time Chris will be nearly complete in his own version of the classic Corellian pirate vessel. There will be a lot of Falcons out there in the world in new spectacular ways that many never thought possible before. But Han Solo’s future adventures will be coming to an end and that is a possibility that will be difficult to overcome thematically. The Jedi are a neat concept, but Star Wars gets it’s teeth through pirates, scoundrels, and rebels, and Han Solo is a bit of all those characters rolled up into one. He is essentially an Ayn Rand character meant to achieve a character arc of sacrifice who took over the series in popularity against the wishes of creator George Lucas. Han Solo was an accident—a good accident because through him millions of people gravitated to Star Wars as a mythology exploring good against evil in the context of gigantic galaxy spanning politics.
For me the love of Star Wars will likely die when Han Solo does and I will still fly the Falcon in X-Wing Miniatures 30 years from now refusing to acknowledge the history of Star Wars after the death of Han Solo. And a certain amount of the magic for me will die with the character as I’m sure it will for millions of similar fans. The question will be–can Star Wars live on without Han Solo? Just look at the Prequels and the answer will tell the story and those results may not be what Disney is looking for.
After so many years of shouting to the wind regarding politics, business, and other enterprises that always point to the same human failures and finding the temptation to become bitter about it very overwhelming—I have immersed myself into this new X-Wing Miniatures game at a level that made me want to participate in my first ever tournament for X-Wing which took place all over the world during the last weekend of May 2014. Before the tournament, just to get a feel for how things would be I was watching footage from a German group of players as the time zones were that far ahead of my location in the Eastern United States. It was truly a global event which centered around another mythic relic from my past experienced with those same aforementioned nephews. These tournaments were played in gaming stores—in Cincinnati it was Yottaquest in Mt. Healthy which held the regional. My son-in-law and I played in it and it was a wonderful experience. The main thing that attracted me to this one was that it was named Assault on Imdaar Alpha and provided an opportunity to see the new ships coming out for Wave 4 specifically featuring the TIE Phantom.
I ran across the term Imdaar Alpha during the 90s playing a game with my nephews when they were little boys called Rebel Assault II. The nephew who had the HeroScape game in Florida last summer used to stay up with me playing Star Wars: X-Wing and its sequel—Tie Fighter all night on the weekends—which was a computer flight simulator, and of course we played Rebel Assault nearly burning a hole in the CD disk that played over and over in the newly formed home PCs at the time. So these names were familiar to me.
Imdaar Alpha was a moon of Imdaar. Grand AdmiralMartio Batch had a massive research station there which was fastened on the most part of one of the moon’s hemispheres. It developed an advanced cloaking device and the first of the TIE Phantoms. However the moon appeared empty since the station itself made use of the cloaking technology, being thus invisible.
The moon lost a significant part of its mass when the Imperial facility exploded.
The development process began in response to the Rebel victory at the Battle of Yavin. After some initial troubles, Batch was able to secure a supply of the stygium crystals required by the cloaking device, and the fighters entered production on Imdaar Alpha. When the testing process was completed following the Battle of Hoth, Darth Vader intended to use the new starfighter in a devastating assault on the Rebel Alliance Fleet. However, over a series of encounters, the Rebels learned of the new threat. Recognizing the danger, the Alliance dispatched pilotsRookie One and Ru Murleen to capture one of the fighters for study.
The Rebels successfully infiltrated the Super Star DestroyerTerroras it prepared to launch the fighters against the Alliance and escaped with one of them, which they used to destroy both the Terror and the facility where the fighters were produced. However, the Rebels’ acquisition of the fighter was short-lived—when the stolen TIE Phantom’s self-destruct mechanism activated before the Rebels could examine the fighter, the technology was lost.
Fast forward to the Fantasy Flight event nearly 15 years later taking place all over the world at the same time and it was obvious that the makers of the new tabletop game loved the old video games as much as I did and have carried over the mythology explored there into this new—and better X-Wing Miniatures game. So with all those events culminating together, I attended my first tournament and found layers of hope in the back room of Yottaquest in the players I met during the event. I learned a lot of cool little tricks that I had not even considered until competition brought the issues to the surface. But most pleasurable to me was in seeing how much reading comprehension goes on at these events from the players. I had been to gaming stores like Yottaquest because I have went to them with my kids a few times, but while playing in that tournament I was impressed by the level of reading comprehension that the players who averaged from their late 20s to mid-30s displayed and it was obvious that the recent explosion in tabletop gaming which Yottaquest represents is satisfying the deep human yearning for participatory mythology that cannot be experienced by just passively watching a movie—or even reading a book. X-Wing like the other games at Yottaquest is a recent rendition of pure mythology which is my primary interest due to my own background in comparative mythology through the Joseph Campbell Foundation. The players all shared a love for mythology as the game experience pulled them into that world to resolve a story driven by human need—not fulfilled by any other social mechanism.
After watching the final match between the store’s best two players that day, it was clear that out of the four new ships coming out during the upcoming Wave 4 release from Fantasy Flight Games that the TIE Phantom was the dominate ship. It is firing five dice at Range 1 with a gunner and a cloaking device. In the game I watched, it easily tore through the other ships flown by a very good player. It was obvious that once again, Fantasy Flight Games has managed to up the bar with their tabletop gaming experience and the new latest trend will be those TIE Phantoms. Three of those flying in formation will be terribly hard to beat—but that is the fun of the game after all—seeing what your opponent puts on the table and figuring out ways to beat it with all the variables available.
For me, it was wonderful to step away from the world of problems which is a daily burden and live in a functioning mythology with my son-in-law and those other X-Wing game players in that back room of Yottaquest. We had a uniquely bottled Coke imported from Mexico and enjoyed watching that final match learning more in just that one day than I had managed to learn over the whole previous year about some of the nuances of the game itself—that can only be realized through competition. If I were in my mid-twenties and did not have nearly the amount of responsibility that I do now, I would be inclined to travel the world playing in those types of tournaments every weekend—I enjoyed it that much. There wasn’t anything like that around when I was that age, not at this level. Places like Yottaquest and games like X-Wing are a fairly new invention driven purely by human desire for a mythic experience and I love it enough to spend as much of my time as possible experiencing them.
But the early scouting report is that the TIE Phantom will be dominate—very much so. If I were an Imperial player—which I’m not, I’d get four of them. Likely, I will get that many anyway just to practice against—because they will be hard to beat with their clocking device which grants two extra evasion dice when used. But their sheer firepower is so far the best in the game—which is saying a lot. They will have to be countered with pilots of a high rating shooting decent firepower at close range—and that will be a challenge. But that is what is wonderful about events like Assault at Imdaar Alpha and the world of X-Wing Miniatures in general. This game is far more enjoyable than the old video games and the interaction with other players also on similar mythic journeys is unique and indicates a major change in human value that is very positive. It gives me hope where it is difficult to find elsewhere.
My friends at Nostalgic Ink in Mason, Ohio promised that they would have a Tantive IV Blockade Runner for my upcoming game with X-Wing Miniatures—the popular new tabletop game featuring Star Wars dog fighting tactical strategy. I checked around lunch on Thursday the 22nd and the store sorrowfully told me that their truck had not yet arrived with their deliveries. But they informed me a few hours later that it had arrived, and I promptly drove my motorcycle back there to pick it up. They had it waiting for me behind the counter and for a $100 dollars, it might have been one of the most glorious things I can remember beholding my eyes upon. My next thought was how I was going to get that package home on my motorcycle—because it was so big. You can see it in the picture below.
As much as I dislike progressive politics, a failed teaching system world-wide, socialism and all forms of statism my first love is not politics or even conservativism—but mythology. I am not a huge supporter of group behavior and love my independence, but there are a few groups I support, and one of the organizations I have the most reverence for is the Joseph Campbell Foundation. My love of mythology is my number one enjoyment without there being a close second. My love of the Star Wars Miniatures game, X-Wing has a deep history in the old X-Wing computer games I used to play with my nephews all hours of the day for entire weekends. Many times we had to run missions against those Corellian Corvettes and they were at times, very difficult—which is why I still remember them 15 years later. The wonderful people at Fantasy Flight Games have found a modern—low tech way of re-inventing the great mythological storytelling of that old video game with new gorgeously detailed models that really make modern mythology come alive in that game. That’s why I love Nostalgic Ink and many of the people who frequent those places. Likely they wouldn’t agree with me on my views on modern education, politics, drugs, and even traditional values—but they love the mythology evoked in many of the tabletop games sold in that palace of thought—giving us common ground.
But Star Wars isn’t just about spaceships and fantasy as I have elaborated often. It is about modern mythology and the perpetuation of goodness and as I have stated—the filmmakers of the series and the people at Disney now behind it—wish very much to use mythology to be a force for good in the entire world. I have said it many times, there isn’t anything happening in the world right now that will eclipse the good work that will come from the Star Wars partnership with Disney. The first traces of this attempt at goodness through mythology can be seen in the J.J.Abrams message below while on the new Star Wars set for the seventh film. The video was posted on May 21st and by the time I picked up the Tantive IV at Nostalgic Ink it had seen nearly 2 million views within that 24 hour span on YouTube. There isn’t a government on earth or organization anywhere that has the kind of ability to reach so many people. Star Wars advocates itself to be a force for good by advocating a force for change. The change they are talking about in the video is not silly progressive politics for the sake of social alliances—but real, genuine change born from human innovation to benefit all of humanity with the gifts of creativity.
Star Wars: Force for Change wants to create a brighter tomorrow for thousands of kids and families around the world. With your help and creativity we can develop innovative solutions to some of the world’s biggest challenges. By acting as a Force for Change, your contribution to support UNICEF’s Innovation Labs and other innovative work for children will fund dozens of life-changing projects like these in communities across the globe: • Portable, solar-powered learning kits being built-in China, Uganda, and Burundi to ensure underprivileged children in these countries have access to relevant, high-quality educational materials. • Mobile phone application developed in South Sudan and Uganda, and used in the Philippines, that helps reunite children with their families after an emergency. • A text messaging solution in Zambia that helps families receive infant medical test results from clinics, in half the time, through mobile phones. Join us! Help create a brighter tomorrow for thousands of kids and families. Be a force for change.
Immediately following that message Lucasfilm sent me this press release which did not surprise me at all. As much as I have raved about Gareth Edwards after his spectacular work directing the new Godzilla movie he was named as the new director of the first Star Wars standalone film—staring either Han Solo or Yoda—likely the later. This to me was tremendous news as I had been saying that Disney was positioning Star Wars to be more than just a huge money-maker for their company—but again, a force for good by using mythology to reach behind political ideologies to get the human race pointed in the right direction. The hiring of Edwards and his response to the alignment I think will have a major impact on the mythmaking experience and the results on a worldwide audience.
Gareth Edwards and Gary Whitta Onboard for Star Wars Stand-Alone Film
May 22, 2014
In addition to the episodes of a new Star Wars trilogy, Lucasfilm and Disney have begun development on multiple stand-alone movies that will offer new stories beyond the core Saga. Gareth Edwards will direct the first stand-alone film, with a screenplay by Gary Whitta. The film is due out December 16, 2016.
Gareth Edwards blazed into the filmmaking forefront with his acclaimed work on Monsters, a film he wrote, directed and served on as cinematographer and visual effects artist. The skill and vision readily apparent in Monsters earned him the high-profile spot directing this year’s smash hit Godzilla.
“Ever since I saw Star Wars I knew exactly what I wanted to do for the rest of my life — join the Rebel Alliance! I could not be more excited and honored to go on this mission with Lucasfilm,” said Edwards.
Gary Whitta’s screenwriting credits include 2010’s The Book of Eli starring Denzel Washington. He is also well-known as a journalist and editor in the video game industry, as well as part of the BAFTA award-winning team on Telltale Games adaptation of The Walking Dead.
Whitta states, “From the moment I first saw the original movie as a wide-eyed kid, Star Wars has been the single most profound inspiration to my imagination and to my career as a writer. It is deeply special to me, so to be given the opportunity to contribute to its ongoing legacy, especially in collaboration with a film-maker as talented as Gareth, is literally a dream come true. I’m still pinching myself.”
So there was a lot to be excited about this week, and especially over the last 24 hours. Through all the years that I have been a member of the Joseph Campbell Foundation, George Lucas—the creator of Star Wars—has been on the advisory board so that he could help guide teaching mythology to a new generation. People like me and Edwards are the obvious benefactors. Edwards makes a living from his education in mythology, where I use mine in real world application—both I would consider equally important. If there was ever a man who deeply cared about the direction of society in a positive way—in a way that Walt Disney did—it is George Lucas. Through his deep commitment to mythology he not only produced films like Star Wars which take story telling to powerful new places—but inspired through the Joseph Campbell Foundation to teach a new generation of filmmakers like Gareth Edwards and J.J. Abrams to take movies to places that Lucas and Steven Spielberg could only dream of. Even small little companies like Fantasy Flight Games in Minnesota are helping advance a mythology that literally touches every corner of the world with messages advocating goodness through their table top game X-Wing Miniatures. As for the Force for Change campaign mentioned by Abrams, that is something I can certainly support. I could care less about being in the new movie, but I do care deeply about the advancement of goodness throughout the world, and there isn’t any vehicle anywhere but Star Wars with Disney at its back that has the power to pull it off. It is for those reasons that the new Tantive IV by Fantasy Flight Games is one of the neatest things I have ever seen for the price of $100.
The Tantive is just a model, but it’s what it represents that matters. It is a force for change that leads to good—and that makes it wonderful and worth pursuing on the cusp of a wave that is hitting the world in very positive ways.
I work hard, and I am involved in a lot of real life crusading on many fronts, and part of my stress management—especially lately—for the last year has been the new Fantasy Flight Game, X-Wing Miniatures. It is so fun, and so exciting, that I could literally speak on it for hours and hours without a single pause. It is good in so many ways that I find it’s creativity and contents redeeming in intellectual recharging leaving me to spend much of my spare time in the world one can create within its framework as a tabletop game. My love of the game has been so intense that due to the new Epic Play format which requires a tabletop play area of 3’ X 6’ I had to find something better to set up these huge games involving the new capital ships and rules associated with them. My wife found some really large fold up tables and benches that will allow the setup of this massive game just in time for the new Corellian CR90 Corvette which is coming out this week and has had my interest for nearly a year now.
The next two weeks for me involves a lot of X-Wing playing, some of it requiring traveling. So it’s been on my mind. This very interesting Corellian Corvette ship is coming out right in time for some of these events, and just weeks after this release is the distribution of the Wave 4 ships, which will feature the E-Wing—specifically the Corren Horn card I am very eager to put my hands on. My previous weekend was busy learning how to fly these big ships, and tracking down a second game mat to encompass the second half of the gigantic play area for Epic Play and Cinematic play. My wife found a match to the one we already have from a remote distributer out-of-state and ordered it ahead of our pressing weekend events. But that left us looking for a proper set of tables that could be set up and moved around easily depending on where we were playing.
I love that the game is getting so big. It is exciting for me, because I love all the complexity of having massive scenarios of strategic opportunity. It is interesting to me to have so many variables above and beyond a few ships dog fighting to the death. And my collection is getting so large, that setting up everything literally takes up an entire large room. The Rebel Transport which came out a few weeks ago showed me quickly that more space would be needed because once the Corellian Corvette comes out; space would become a necessity leaving me scrambling for solutions ahead of its release. Below are the stats and benefits of the new CR90 as described by Fantasy Flight Games.
The Corellian CR90 Corvette in Combat
At ninety squad points, the Corellian CR90 Corvette eats up a massive chunk of your available resources, so how does it hold up in battle?
For starters, the CR90 features a primary weapon with an attack value of “4” that can fire at enemy ships as far away as Range “5.” Accordingly, if you’re approaching your squad-building with an eye toward your economy of attack dice, shields, and hull points, the CR90 forces another wrinkle into the equations. By firing before other ships are even in range, the CR90 is effectively adding actions and attack dice to your squad.
Then, how about those shields and hull points? Both the fore and aft sections of the CR90 feature their own shield and hull point values, and altogether, between the two, the ninety points you spend on the CR90 nets you eight shields and sixteen hull points. That makes the CR90 a rather difficult starship to destroy, especially when you factor in the ability to reinforce either the fore or aft section, adding an evade result to each attack against that section made during the round.
Even after the CR90 takes a pounding, it can use the recover action to spend energy to recover shields. The result is that if your opponent doesn’t throw absolutely everything against your CR90, it has a good chance of surviving and recovering to turn the tide back in your favor. Of course, if your opponent does focus all of his guns against the CR90, that means your other ships are free to wreak havoc.
Meanwhile, the CR90 can spend energy to fire powerful secondary weapons like Single Turbolasers and Quad Laser Cannons. Because you can equip up to two of these hardpoint weapons on the CR90’s fore section and another on the aft section, your CR90 may perform as many as four attacks each turn, all with attack values starting at three or four.
The CR90 also has access to a number of upgrades that simply aren’t available to smaller ships. For example, the Rebel Transport Expansion Pack introduced several members of the Echo Base command, including Toryn Farr, Carlist Rieekan, and Jan Dodonna. It also introduced the WED-15 Repair Droid, which could partner with the R2-D2 from the Tantive IV Expansion Pack to work fast repairs on your ship every turn. Also in the Tantive IV Expansion Pack, Raymus Antilles works wonders when his CR90 is supported by starfighters with Ion Cannon Turrets or Ion Cannons.
Finally, as a huge ship, the CR90 simply obliterates any small or large starships that get in its way. If a small or large starship gets caught in its path, that ship is destroyed… no attack rolls necessary. This means that the mere presence of a Corellian CR90 Corvette in your squad is likely to force your opponent to adjust his intended flight patterns.
All together, the CR90 can harness its raw bulk, its primary and secondary weapons, and its many possible crew options in order to punch gaping holes in enemy squadrons.
The new Epic Rules allow for up to 300 point squads which means there will be a lot going on during a game which can quickly become overwhelming. So it was refreshing that my wife found such a wonderful solution at Wal-Mart—of all places. For just over $300 dollars I had my problem solved so that 12 people could sit around this massive table top and play X-Wing Miniatures comfortably—and still spread out all our stat cards and squad builds without struggling to find space around the periphery of the game mats. The tables work so well I would have paid $1,000 for them—they are that good.
For me this whole hobby experience has become a bit like a model train obsession. Fantasy Flight Games has done such a good job of hitting that market and giving such well made models something useful to do. The CR90 will just add a tremendous layer of mythology to an already deeply involving game. I probably spent 6 hours alone over this past Saturday just reading through all my cards in preparation for the events coming up over the next couple of weekends. The game itself isn’t that expensive, but with ships like the CR90 costing around a hundred dollars of actual money, this is a hobby that can chew through several thousand dollars, which is where I’m at.
The money is worth it because when I set up that world and play the game, a lot of the nonsense going on outside in reality gets put on pause for me. It manages stress in ways that might otherwise become unbearably overwhelming. It allows players to live in a mythology that isn’t imposed upon by a story teller, but is happing by the decisions made by the players and it has a logic to it that fits my real world concerns. So it’s an exciting time for me—especially in the world X-Wing Miniatures. There is a lot for me to look forward to regarding that hobby, and I am so happy to have the leisure which that game brings to spend my time with and share with the people who matter most to me.
Sometimes the best things in life are the smallest—and this is one of them which ironically is growing in EPIC proportions.
I speak often about Star Wars not just because it is a cool story or that society has a need for escapism but that it has entered the realm of myth which will affect human civilization for millenniums going forward. Star Wars has more power than all the stories of the King Author legends, all the tribulations of Siddhārtha Gautama Buddha, the Greek gods of Athens or the gods of Norse legend. Star Wars has had such an impact on global youth from 1977 that we are now seeing the effects of a new generation of invention which is only just now manifesting. A few months ago I told the story of Leia Display Systems, CLICK HERE FOR REVIEW. That communication device is directly influenced by Star Wars. It is a case where the mind of invention desires to make mythology into reality. With just six films and a handful of television shows accompanied by books and comics, Star Wars over the last 30 years has had a major impact on world culture. And now, under Disney—it will become much more pronounced. I predict within ten years that Star Wars will inspire changes in religion, philosophy, education, science, politics, and every creative endeavor from architecture to engineering. Star Wars is reaching a critical mass in its mythological development that is driving us all in a new direction.
Yet again, Star Wars has inspired a new invention, this time a device for amputees. Anyone who knows the Star Wars films understands that both Anakin and his son Luke Skywalker both had to make use of robotic arms and hands to overcome handicaps. One of the central themes of the films are the reasons that individuals become mechanical—whether literally—biologically, or metaphorically by surrendering individual will to institutional necessity. Star Wars tackles a lot of deep issues including handicaps—and this has driven many science obsessed minds to solving these problems in the real world. CNN is among the many media outlets covering the results of this breakthrough endeavor.
(CNN) — Amputees will soon get help from a groundbreaking bionic arm, thanks to the inventor of the Segway and a little inspiration from “Star Wars.”
After almost eight years of research and testing, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved the DEKA arm, a prosthetic controlled by signals from the brain. Unlike most current prostheses, the DEKA can perform such delicate tasks as zipping up a coat, unlocking a door with a key or handling an egg without breaking it.
The FDA is calling the device the first prosthetic arm that can perform multiple, simultaneous movements via electromyogram electrodes, which detect electrical signals from the contraction of muscles close to where the prosthesis is attached.
I see this device as a rather primitive version of a coming reality that is before us all. It is only a matter of a few years where there will be robots driven by complicated processors that can articulate movement as well as these prosthetic arms. Humans will simply grow new body parts in the future. But what is driving this science is the mythology of Star Wars. More and more we are seeing inventions dedicated to the inventor’s favorite film—often Star Wars and the frequency level is increasing.
When I speak so often about the miracle of Fantasy Flight Games X-Wing Miniatures table top game I am not just talking about a neat game—but a mythology that is boiling over into other aspects of culture where more inventive activity will transpire. My excitement about these events is that there is a creation of new things that will pave the way for a new kind of renaissance in human thinking. For instance, it does no good to have a great economic system like capitalism if philosophically society is following Immanuel Kant and is held by back religiously by a Roman interpretation of Christianity calling for sacrifice and altruism as the building blocks of civilization. Star Wars deals with these problems in a modern way that has more relevance. Adversely, it does no good to give away ourselves in sacrifice if nobody makes anything. In Star Wars, without Han Solo—the equivocal capitalist—Star Wars would fall apart. In fact, of the two most popular Star Wars characters are Han Solo and Boba Fett—both capitalists who are the most valued characters. The self-sacrifice of Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia, Senator Amidala, or even Obi Wan Kenobi are not as respected. Fans of the movies generally feel reverence for these characters, but they don’t respect them in the same way. This is an important distinction that sets Star Wars apart from other entertainment venues.
I read the early script of Star Wars as George Lucas intended it, and let me tell you—it sucks—“may the force of others be with you.” Yuck. Lucas needed the hot rod hero of Han Solo to give context to Star Wars—and to his own life. After all, here was a deeply concerned young hippie from the USC film program learning about the values of socialism in college who became one of the biggest and richest capitalists on planet earth. There is a lot of Han Solo in George Lucas—more than he’d like to admit. He wanted to think of himself as Luke Skywalker, but deep down inside, Lucas is still the race car driver from Modesto, California who wanted to grow up to be an anthropologist. So he took those two traits and put them together in the character played by Harrison Ford—Indiana Jones and science was changed forever for all different reasons. But Lucas was rich, and Star Wars to the business world is about making money by selling mythology to a world hungry for every morsel of value enshrined from it. Star Wars cannot be described by generalizations—because it is concerned with deep-seated primordial necessity.
Inventions dedicated to Star Wars will explode under the new Disney ownership and let me say—I am extremely happy about it. This new prosthetic arm is just the tip of the iceberg. I can see it as clearly as the words on this page. The next 50 years of human evolution will be among the most exciting in all history—and Star Wars will be a tremendous part of it—it will touch even casual fans in ways they cannot possibly imagine.
For those who are looking around and wondering if there is any hope……………there is. It’s not just in invention that Star Wars is reshaping the way we see the world. I think philosophy will be far more impacted than even science, invention and religion will mold itself around these new philosophies introduced by Star Wars. Those philosophies will not be limited the way humans have confined themselves under Kant, or Marx, but will prosper in a ways that Aristotle always intended. There is real power in the teachings of Yoda that extend well beyond conventional science fiction, and those lessons have raised a new generation who thinks nothing of naming their new prosthetic arm after Luke Skywalker. Behind these new ideas are parades of new inventions that will flood the marketplace with a new kind of human being—who have been taught to be a little bit like Han Solo, a bit like Luke Skywalker, wise like Ben Kenobi and even efficient like Darth Vader. It is OK to invent things that help all of society, and it is OK to make money at it. George Lucas did both with Star Wars, and all those who have been inspired by it have learned to walk that balance leading to a prosperous future in more ways than one. That future is an exciting one.
The Overmanwarrior 
