Nolan's Intro from Dogs of War

Hi guys, I recently bought Independence War 2 from GOG.com. While I have spent literally hundreds of hours in I-War and Defiance, I had missed the game when it was released, mainly because it looked and felt different and there weren't any Let's Play videos like you find now on YouTube.

Anyway, while browsing the Internet for mods, I found your site. Here, a link for a movie called Nolan's Intro ( www.i-war2.com/downloads/Nolans%20Intro.zip ) is mentioned. What I'd like to know is: is Dogs of War the new Torn Stars/Unstable Space, and if not, there can I download it?

Dogs of War turned into Torn Stars.

In Torn Stars you'll start with the tug you changed for the hulk of the intro.

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There is no safe distance

So, is it necessary to play Torn Stars before attempting Unstable Space? I'm just making my first steps into Independence War 2 (and find it extremely annoying that you are basically left alone after the first real mission - the Maas freighter in the Effrit nebula - I loved the mission based approach of the first 1.5 games). Still, when I'm finished with the game, I'd like to continue playing the various mods, so the question is in what order I should play them.

Hi 7upMan,

If I understand your question rightly (maybe I am misinterpreting), I think that you
need to just keep playing in the EoC mode you are currently in for a while -- new missions
will show up in your email. Be sure to check the base email from time to time. There are
dozens of missions between Acts 1, 2 and 3. Some of them are very difficult, and between
missions you can explore the cluster and engage in a private war against the Marauders,
or whatever faction you take a dislike to. If you have LDSI missiles, you can ambush
convoys by knocking them out of LDS. There are frequently juicy Maas convoys flying out
of the Maas Local Supply Depot which orbits the moon Petra (next to outermost moon of Griffon)

You may need to fly a couple of "do it yourself" missions before the next email shows
up with an assignment or offer. Some of the assignments are quite difficult. I have never
figured out how to defeat the three cruisers and get away with the small arms in the
mission where the Stepsons ask you to "liberate" some new infantry weapons from a convoy.

If you go to the Blackeye L-point, you will find that Marauder convoys come through from
time to time and you can capture some cargo that could be useful for trades later in game.

I have also noticed that if I travel to the Maas Local Supply Depot around Petra (moon of
Griffon), there are occasional Maas convoys to the Junkyard (set your navigation pointer
to the Junkyard after you arrive near the Maas Local Supply Depot -- you can tell which
convoys are travelling toward the Junkyard). If you follow these to the Junkyard, you can sometimes
"harvest" quite nice cargo, including occasionally better weapons than you can easily acquire in Act 1.
This may be an exploit, as it's not obvious to me why Maas weapons convoys would travel
to the Junkyard.

Something that may be of interest is the many mods for EoC that are available at this forum.
I am especially fond of the "Unleashed" mod, which I have been attempting to further mod in
recent months, though Cambragol (admin here and also at the Unstable Space site) has drawn
me into the Unstable Space project, which is slowing my EoC/Unleashed modding agendas.

If you do much lurking at L-points waiting for Marauders to show up, you will like a
mod with a feature that I hope to soon upload to the EoC mods page that will let you walk away
from your PC without fear of something terrible happening to your ship before you return. It
will pause the game if your ship is fired on, or if hostiles show up within your sensor range.
This lets you hang out near an L-point waiting for Marauders to show up, and then you can go
off and do whatever else you need to do. When you return to the PC, if Marauders or other hostiles
have shown up, the game will be paused at the point that they came within your sensor range.

Unfortunately, it's not clear to me whether you can insert an additional mod into a game already
in progress --- others reading this who know better are welcome to speak up. I am building my
mod in such a way that it can easily be upgraded without necessity of restarting one's game,
but you may need to start a new game to get the mod into the game to begin with. Again, people
who know whether it is possible to insert a new mod into a game already in progress are welcome
to clarify this.

But back to your first question, there are plenty of missions for you to try, they just sometimes
do not show up in your base communications email inbox immediately after the current mission has
been successfully completed. Also, it appears to me that some of the missions, such as the invitation
to form an alliance with the Stepson faction, require you to show some public spirit, so you might
want to tackle a few Marauder convoys at the Blackeye L-point as a matter of "civic duty".

Hi SRC, thank you for your reply.

My biggest beef with Independence War 2 (I just now saved the Ambassador's a$$ in Act 2) is that in the beginning, you are left free to roam without being specifically told to do so. It wouldn't have killed the devs to have Clay say a line like "let's check some of the places the Stepsons mentioned in their mails" upon leaving the hangar. I feel there is a general lack of guidance in the game, and that may have contributed to only selling 50,000 copies of the game.

My second beef is the Starmap From Hell. I was hardly a minute into the game when I changed it for Stephen Robertson's location finder. With this mod alone, Independence War 2 became a completely different (and playable) experience. Why, oh why didn't the devs include this mod with the original version? I can absolutely see why this game failed to hard.

My third beef is that you can only save in Lucretia's base. Would it have killed the devs to create more hubs throughout the solar systems where the player can dock and save, like in the X series? Having to fly back to base each time is a major hassle. I can't count the mission I have lost because I was killed mere minutes from reaching Lucretia's base.

This upcoming mod which lets me walk away from my PC is definitely a great idea. I don't like harassing independent freighters, so I'm always waiting to marauders and their transports to arrive.

But back to my first question: is it necessary for me to play Torn Stars before I start playing Unstable Space?

Hi 7upman,

Torn Stars and Unstable Space are earlier and later versions of the "Epic: Middle States" mod. They are the same cluster with the same factions. I have played both, though not very far in either. There are significant detail differences between TS and US, with US having more polish in terms of features. Cambragol could give you more information, as he has been part of the TS/US team from (I think) the beginning.

You can do them in either order. I believe that the developers consider US to be the more nearly "finished" product, though there is still room for a great deal of further development, if coders were available.

I think that Cambragol intends to do a further release revision to Unstable Space in the near future, and it might be good to wait for that before you download and install US.

Perhaps, after you finish vanilla EoC, you might be interested to try Bineshi's "Unleashed" mod. You are given an interesting warship, the "Pinguin" (so named after a famed German sea raider of WWII) armed merchant cruiser which is an intimidating and capable vessel.

Even better, download the POG Software Development Kit and experiment with creating your own enhancements to EoC, and then come join us in further upgrading Unstable Space.

The SDK is attached to my message near the bottom of this page:

www.torn-stars.com/index.php?opt ... topic=64.0

One of the drawbacks of TS and US is that these are "on your own" games. There is a complex world to explore, but there is no story line. I consider the story line to be the most interesting part of both IWar-1 and EoC. The nifty technology and graphics and realistic zero-G flight are more absorbing in the midst of a story that is going somewhere.

So we need "script writers" for US, to create both story lines and the POG scripts that would tell these stories and lead the player through them.

Anyway, enjoy EoC and any EoC mods you care to explore, and then try out US or TS, in any order.

Welcome back to the IWar world