Alliance at War... Anniversary update... Apparently news

Hi hi, community. I hope all is well. I know I stated how there would not be an update for a long while, but here is the thing... March 3rd is the 6th anniversary for Alliance at War. I had forgotten about that.. When I realized March 3rd is today (when I am posting this) I immediately said to myself, oh blast I forgot, and raced to upload any sort of update... And here I am, ha.

This update is... very unfinished. It is playable -- and there should not be any bugs -- but it is very unfinished. I sort of just took AaW -- including what little I did -- wrapped it in a nice Zip folder, then preceded to upload it on Mod DB.

Alright, so now for changes. I removed the auto-fire option for most starfighters with payloads. Previously, any starfighter with missiles or torpedoes could auto-fire them. I removed it. The reason being is that I did not like them continuously spamming them; especially sense most of them only hold so many. I thought about making their auto-fire recharge longer, but they would still fire at targets I did not want them to, and I would need to wait longer for them to actually use the ability again. They will not spam their missiles and torpedoes, and you can better prioritize targets. From my point of view, this made things more realistic.

Next is the U-wing. It is still unfinished, but if I had to say how completed it is, I would say... 80%. The U-wing was difficult to code in. When I first began coding it in, I wanted it to do so many things at once. The problem was that so many things were overlapping, it was seriously glitching. So, I coded it in twice. And even though it is not finished, it is still fully usable.

Now for the MC80a. There are now two versions of it -- both models were already in AaW, though. A Destroyer version, with no hanger of starfighters, yet more guns; and a Carrier version, with two hangers of starfighters, and fewer guns. I wanted to move closer to Cannon, so this was the best choice I could think of. Also, because the MC80a is a heavily upgraded stock MC80, and in Cannon the Rebel Alliance did not field as many of them compared to the stock version, the MC80a can only be constructed at Mon Cala.

I worked on the trade route/hyperlanes a bit more. Most are still the same, but there have been a few changes here and there. Do not be surprised if there are further changes in the future, though. I am still working on them.

Shields have also gone through some stat changes based on the Anaxes War College System. I reset them back to their base-game strength, then multiplied them by their class. Corvettes, Frigates, and Cruisers were doubled by 2; Heavy Cruisers and Star Destroyers are doubled by 3; Dreadnaughts were doubled by 4; and because the game list space stations as "Capital" I increased their shielding by a factor of 3. Space stations now put up much more of a fight. Especially their highest levels.

Mass Drivers will not bypass shields anymore. I know most ships in Star Wars absorb both energy, and matter moving at high speeds, so it did not make much sense for fast moving metal projectiles to bypass shields. I am still reviewing Mass Drivers, though. So do not be surprised if I change something else on them.

And finally for right now, I changed some of the button audio, and also added a bit of new music... Mostly for the Empire.

Now there is still a lot I have yet to do. I know this does not seem like much, but I was not preparing for an update, the Alliance at War anniversary kind of showed up out of nowhere, I had only been casually doing things ever so often. The anniversary kind of caught me off guard. It is not that I am mad, just that things were not ready for it. But I am happy I was able to upload at least a little bit. There is still a lot I have yet to do; off of the top of my head, fix the Shadow Trooper spam and work on Thrawn. I am admitting that there is a lot of I have yet to fix, change, add, and work on. But something for an anniversary is better than nothing, right?

I will stress this again, this is a very unfinished update. I am ONLY, and I repeat, ONLY uploading this because it is the 6th anniversary for Alliance at War. There is a lot for me to add, work on... Et cetera. But I want my anyone who took the time to follow my mod to enjoy something for it on its 6th birthday.

If you have any questions, feel free to ask.