Good news! After much demand, MySQL database support has been implemented on the MinosNIC hosting service. The system has been set up to allow for instant database creation and management over the web.

The domains tiecorps.net and squadron.org have also recently been added to the MinosNIC service.

For more information, please see the MinosNIC website.

XvT Week of War ended Friday, and we had great turnout!

The top three EH pilots were:
1. COL Tarkin
2. LT Heinrich Margul
3. GN Kaerner

As a club, it was our biggest war yet in terms of games and players. Good job everyone!

Some changes about mission skipping. From now, skipping missions is strictly forbidden, various abuses led me to this decision.

Skipping Missions

You are not allowed to skip a mission in a battle whatever the reason is. All missions of a battle must be completed. You are not to use the ingame 'skipping mission' option of X-Wing Alliance. If you encounter a battle that has a fatal bug in it that prevents you from playing the rest of the battle, you cannot edit your pilot file to skip the mission. If you encounter a fatal bug, fill out a Bug Report on the Battle Center to explain why you could not finish a mission, and save a backup of your pilot file so you can finish the battle after it has been repaired. Skipping missions may lead to have the batle removed from your combat profile.

Membership: 128 active, 156 total

1) Active membership has moved up a bit, although a running AWOL check may pull that own in next report. Since last check, we have seen a slow but steady weekly increase in membership.

2) There are two medals available for HF roleplaying now: one for surviving a mission (and playing from start to finish), and one for the first successful game a game referee runs.

3) Our next big Operation, Op:Dark Screen, is set for June 1st. The long-running One Shot, One Kill operation has ended. A special thanks goes out to Specialist Dante for his hard work in bringing the operation to a successful conclusion.

Prefect of the Legion
Field Marshal Ares

Foget May 16. This year there is only one date to look forward to.

June 1.

Operation Dark Screen.

After the recent departure of my CA, now GMF Keldorn... I have taken the step of looking actively for a new one. ISB have been notified already and been asked to submit any plans they want... The job description will be to run ISB smoothly and effectively, whilst contributing to general juditial findings. The position shall be similar in power to the former SEC. Here's a quick run-down of what I'll expect from my new Director of Imperial Security (DIS).

- Clean Disiplinary Record
- Mature attitude
- Good Knowledge of the majority of the EH subgroups
- Minimum of 1 years membership in the EH
- Minimum rank of CM (MAJ for current non-ISB members)
- Minimum of an hours online time every day, more at weekends
- Ability to be flexible
- Proven record of management and activity
- Plan for the development of ISB
- Experience in Intelligence/Security (such as INTEL would be advantageous but not required)

Deadline for applications is 6th May 2002, EST 00:00

The PL scores have been updated. Vendetta is winning thanks to Silent and Shadowmaker (A.K.A. Kuro). Theres been a great amount of participation from the platoons and the staff. Keep it up.

<-- Handy PL link on menu bar somewhere. Check it.

Also there will soon be tournements for Jedi Knight and Jedi Knight 2. If you would like to participate drop me an e-mail (Martlander@hotmail.com) by friday next week.

Slight change in plans for the upcoming Imperial Storm Battles. The big contest between the Sovereign and the Battle Groups has been postponed until Wednesday, at 1800 Eastern time, as the Battle Groups have decided to take a gamble, and perform a Hit-and-Fade attack on the Sovereign itself. The Battle Groups vs. ATF contest has now ben resolved diplomatically. If you are unsure what to do, ask your Commanding Officer.

Turn 3 of Imperial Storm. The BGCOMs continue their "turf war" while the Command Staff is away. Forces from the Battlegroups have conquered a new Planet, giving them an edge on production. Elsewhere Battlegroup vessels have encountered Ships from the Sovereign Group, and seperately, the ATF. Can the Battlegroups knock the Sov out of First place? Will the ATF survive until next week? Find out on Monday April 29th. As always details are at the Official IS3 Site. If you are a stationed on the Sov, in the Battlegroups, or in the ATF, and do not know what to do, ask your Commanding Officer.

Some promotions I...uh, forgot to mention :P

Many congratulations go out to the Wing Commander of Wing X, Colonel Mairin. who has been promoted to the coveted rank of General. Since her appointment to WC, Mairin's work has been tireless in supporting and building her Wing. Congrats Mai!

Also congrats go out to the new Wing VIII WC, Colonel Indaro Gallia. A long standing member of the Wing, I'm sure the Colonel will prove to be a fine choice for Wing Commander.

Executive Orders are orders created by XOs for wide-scale enforcement of policy. They can be considered as good as any rule in the EH. I've done up a page listing all these and they're available at http://www.emperorshammer.net/orders.asp. A link is also available under the "Rules and Regulations" part of the menu.

Thanks to the efforts of Primarch Koral of the BHG, the TIE Corps now has a new battles mirror. It's available as the first link when you view a battle. Also, in order to even out the downloads for all the mirrors, I'd ask that if you link to a battle for a competition, please link to the battle's page (with the download link) rather than directly to the battle's zip file itself. Thanks.

The Training Manual has moved location. You can now access it at http://www.emperorshammer.net/to/manual/. It has been updated with the latest medal and rank images too.

You may notice that Zsinj has added handy links to the menu bar for the Platoon League and the Operations Office. So now you have no excuse for not participating in the PL. :P

Thank Zsinj

<-- Handy Menu bar.

As of April 24, 2002, members will lose the ability to use a POP Mail Client (Outlook, Outlook Express) to access mail through your Yahoo email account. I guess that those at Yahoo finally realized that they were missing out on making the all powerful dollar and have now decided to charge a fee for anything and everything.

So if you rely on an email client, as many of us do, please make the necessary changes before the 24th.

I have changed my E-Mail Address. My new mail address is Drake@EHnet.org

The first ever XWA Combined Arms Battle has been finally released ! Involving the BHG, IW, ID, DB and TC, this 9-mission long battle is my latest creation, and I hope the more achieved. The battle is available at http://www.emperorshammer.net/battles/battle.asp?record=727 and should be an example of what can be done with XWA ! Some screenshots are available at http://www.emperorshammer.net/tac/sal2/...

A timely reminder that Imperial Storm III begins tomorrow!

Just a reminder that XvT Week of War started today. Be sure to get out and support the EH. As usual, the competition is hosted on Battlestats, and LoCs, DFCs and ISs will be offered to winning participants!

Membership: 118 active, 147 total

1) The HF RPG project is shaping up. An award for HF roleplaying is the Bard
Star. It is given for playing through an entire RPG mission.

2) Platoon League standings have been updated. The HF Operations Office,
which houses the Platoon League, is at:
http://www.users.myisp.co.uk/~mclander/

3) A new medal for playing JK and JK2 is awardable now. It is the Medal of
Courage (MoC) and is awarded for every 30 online matches played.

This is a very short report, but it has been a quiet week.


Prefect of the Legion
Field Marshal Ares

Last months JK Ladder results have been added to the operations section of the Main HF page.

Enjoy.

Due to problems with his ISP, SA Astatine is unable to access several sites hosted in the United States, including this one, and will be unable to post news or make updates. There is no ETA on when the problem will be fixed.

The Platoon League scores are now up. Sorry about the delay. I've been busy with University assignments.

http://www.users.myisp.co.uk/~mclander/pl/

The following updates have been made to the site:

• Updated rank images
• Updated medal images (all awards except the IC, GOE and commendations)
• Addition of the TIE Shadow to the craft list
• Addition of Jedi Knight 2 to the game platforms list

As promised, I've decided on a new BGCOM for the TIE Corps Battlegroups: Many congratulations go out to the former Wing VIII Wing Commander, Vice Admiral Drake! Apart from coming highly recommended from the departing BGCOM, I've known Drake and his work for a while, and I'm more than confident that he has the motivation and abilities to make an excellent BGCOM. Congrats Drake!

The new version of Tempest's Tailoring Tool, 0.8, with lightsaber support (for Dark Jedi Knights) is out. Some minor bugs were also fixed. Thanks to VA Khaine for mailing the templates!

The new TTT is available for download, as always, at http://www.ehnet.org/~ttt/

Under the direction of Major RogueWing, Project Segway has begun... this is basically an Imperial conversion of XWA project, more details at http://www30.brinkster.com/roguewing/. Any help is needed !

Something I missed in my report: Congratulations to the PraeCMDR, Commander Loor, who I've promoted to the rank of Captain. Since his appointment as Commander of the Elite Praetorian Squadron, he's performed his duties consistently and admirably. Congrats Loor and thank you!

Carl Lost has found his Baron title back again... Just thought I'd announce that so that people might stop congratulating me on a very short term title :P

I'd also like to thank Striker for at least giving me half a week before approving Carl's new high scores ;)

As many of you will know by now, a couple of days ago, Admiral Mell announced his decision to step down as BGCOM of the TIE Corps Battlegroup. During the time he held the position, Mell proved himself many times over to be one of the hardest working and most dedicated people in the EH, and we're all sorry to lose him.

A new BGCOM will be announced very shortly - please do NOT send me any applications for the position.

After due consideration and reading through several excellent applications, a new Wing Commander for Wing IX has been selected. Congratulations to Major Mosh!

Due to real life obligations, Major Talek Dei has stepped down as Wing Commander of Wing XVIII. In his place, we welcome back to the position Lieutenant Colonel Fenn Logan. Congratulations!

Membership: 118 active, 146 total

1) More details on our Dragoons online Jedi Knight / Jedi Knight 2 unit have been hammered out.

2) We now have a searchable Medal Board on the HF website, thanks to Zsinj for coding it.

3) Some of the bigger items in the fictional HF Store have been adjusted to make them harder to aquire or have been removed.

4) I am looking into HF skins for Jedi Knight 2 so members, AGS/Staff Officers, and General Staff can be accurately represented in the game. Currently, the closest model/skin that matches the GS uniforms is the "shadow trooper" which is a far cry from your standard trooper.


Prefect of the Legion
Field Marshal Ares

I've gone through and fixed up all the code-related issues (I think). However, there may still be some bugs hiding somewhere. If you do run into an error, the information in the previous news posting still applies.

About 12 hours ago, the server hosting the TIE Corps site experienced a hardware failure. As things in IT tend to snowball, there was an issue with the backups. Fortunately, the database is hosted on a totally seperate machine and all the files been restored. On the down side, there is an error with the code responsible for talking to the database. This code will give an error similar to this:

Microsoft OLE DB Provider for ODBC Drivers error '80004005'
[Microsoft][ODBC SQL Server Driver][Named Pipes]SQL Server does not exist or access denied.
/rosters/combatratings.asp, line 83

In addition, to this, there is another main error message, which is relating to permissions being denied. I am working as fast as I can to fix these errors. If you encounter an error, do not come on IRC or email me with "it doesn't work!". This wastes my time as it could be literally hundreds of possible things making it "not work". Instead, be useful and include the following items:

• The exact error message you got
• The URL of the page you were accessing
• What you were doing prior to the error coming up

This information allows me to directly target which file could be the problem (and there's thousands on here). Hopefully, I'll have the site up and running in the next few hours.

I now have a new email address:
alduin@t-3.cc
The old one will work for another week or two but I won't be checking it much, so start using the above address right away.

Prefect of the Legion
Field Marshal Ares

Colonel Brucmack has just become the new Baron! This title recognizes the pilot holding the most high scores.. but beware, Captain Carl Lost hasn't said his last word...

For those who've been checking the roster totals the last week, you'll notice that the total EH membership is now past 4,000. The primary reason for the growth has been the subgroups recently. Hopefully with JK2 and possibly more games of similar calibre coming out, we'll continue to see the membership increase.

While the Command Staff is away at a Conference, the BattleGroup Commanders decide they want to take over. Join in the fun and excitement as your team fights to conquer all.

That's right, it's the annual Fleet exercise, Imperial Storm III (IS3). This time it's a little different, basic rules can be found in the War Manual. Details are to be found at the IS3 Site. If you want to know more about Imperial Storm, contact your superior officer, or the War Officer, VA Pel.

In conjunction with the Imperial Technology Commission (ITC) Banner comp, a new comp is being created to make the best design for the new ITC database.

You may make your site designs in HTML, Java, whichever you know how to do. If it's in asp or php it would be even better!

Also, if you can put the layout onto a site to be viewed, it would be excellent!

The winner's design will be used for the ITC database page.

BEGINNING: 4.1.2002
ENDING: 4.20.2002

Awards:
-1st Place - IS-GR
-2nd Place - IS-SR
-3rd Place - IS-BR

Please send your submissions to Rear Admiral Aylius Khan and High Admiral Keiran Idanian.

For the newly created Imperial Technology Commission, a division that will serve the EH with downloads of demos and some programs as well as reviews for the EH's members.

The comp is to design a banner for the website, a normal banner (400x40 pixels). Try to have it reflect technology...

BEGINNING: 4.1.2002
ENDING: 5.1.2002

Awards:
-1st Place - IS-GR
-2nd Place - IS-SR
-3rd Place - IS-BR

Please send your submissions to Rear Admiral Aylius Khan and High Admiral Keiran Idanian.

Greetings,

This is a subject I don't particularly like bringing up, but I really feel strongly that we should remember our friends that have pasted away from this world.

We are currently working on compiling a list of members that have passed away called the EH Memorium - as some of you may know.

I would like to ask that if you know anyone from the Emperor's Hammer that has ever past away from this world, please e-mail me! ROKeiranIdanian@aol.com Thank you!

It is with great pleasure I announce that the new HCI site is ready to go completely public.

The URL is http://hci.mental-case.com

Please update any links to the HCI site so that they point there.

I'd like to specially thank INQ Moreco for his hard work and dedication to the php side of this project. Without him, the site wouldn't be anywhere near as dynamic as it is.

The Combat Operations Office is proud to announce the release of two new weekly Multiplayer competitions for pilots to participate in. The first is the Sovereign
Nighthawk Competition, which will take place Fridays from 3:00 PM EST - 6:00 PM EST in #EHCOC. Second, the popular competition Thursday Night Training will be
returning in a new form, Saturday Night Training, which will be held on Saturdays from 8:00 PM EST - 11:00 PM EST in #EHCOC. I hope to see everyone there to help
make these new competitions a success!

10 people have signed up already to attend EH Day at Kennywood Park in Pittsburgh, PA. The target total is 25, so we can get a group discount.

The people who have been to Kennywood say, on average, that your first visit is worth a 6 hour drive. If you live inside a 6 hour radius of Pittsburgh, you should attend. For information on the rides, and some excellent Pictures, Visit http://www.kennywood.com

If you can attend, or need more info, contact CPT PhoenixMan at GMFPhoenix@aol.com Hope to see you there!!

A little thing to remember when creating a custom mission: there is a maximum number of crafts the game can support at one time ! This limit is 28/32 for TIE Fighter (TIE Disk/TIECD-95), 32 for Xwing vs TIE Fighter, 96 per region in X-Wing Alliance...

Membership: 115 active, 142 total

1) The new Commander, Development is FM Kryder, former CD and Prefect. Welcome back to a commander rank! Others considered for the post were BG Vradin Jonusk, MAJ Aglen, and CPT Astix who currently holds the Assistant CD post.

2) The new Commander, Training is MAJ Algen. He is taking over from COL Phennir. With CT comes a promotion to MAJ. Congratulations to him!

3) One thing that has always been a problem, probably with any subgroup, is the time it takes to grade and return test for courses. An idea is floating around the CT office on making the tests all online with PHP or ASP, thereby allowing the test correction to be done at the time the test is taken.

4) We held our monthly awards ceremony for March. The following members were honored:

PROMOTIONS:
SPL Silent --> SGT Silent
SPL Liandri --> SGT Liandri
SPL Amada --> SGT Amada
LCP Sturm --> CPL Sturm
PFC Talek --> LCP Talek
PFC Crespe --> LCP Crespe

MEDALS:
FM Ares --> Distinguished Service Star (DsS)
HC Zsinj --> Distinguished Service Star (DsS)
LTC Mordred --> Cross of Obedience (CoO)
HC Ironfist --> Star of Valor (SoV)
2LT Halcyon --> Cross of Obedience (CoO), Iron Helmet (IH)
SGT Liandri --> Cross of Obedience (CoO)
SGT Silent --> Cross of Obedience (CoO), Medal of Darkness (MoD)
SGT Amada --> Iron Order (IO)
PTE Shadowmaker --> Iron Order (IO)

Prefect of the Legion
Field Marshal Ares

There was some confusion this morning over the time of the COO-run comp. The confusion is based on the fact that North America has not yet gone to Daylight Saving Time, and the rest of the world has :)

As of tomorrow, we will be on DST though, so consider all competition times on TC.org to be Eastern Daylight Time. In other words, comps are now at GMT -4. For most people, this will mean the comps are at the same time as they were prior to this week. For anyone in zones that do not switch to DST, the comps will be one hour earlier.

So, in other words, just consider the times listed in this database as being GMT -4 now :)

I have written up a list of Internet Guidelines for the entire fleet. You can always check them out at http://www.ehnet.org/guidelines.php. Sites MUST follow the rules laid out in the guidelines, and we at the Internet Office highly recommend considering the suggestions.

Rules:

• Sites MUST have links to the EH Disclaimers (http://www.emperorshammer.org/disclaim.htm) and EH Privacy Policy (http://www.emperorshammer.org/privacy.htm) pages displayed on the main page of their site or on the navbar.
• Sites may NOT use tsx.org as a redirection service.
• Obviously, all sites must abide by Bylaws and AoWs.
• Sites who do not obey these rules will not be linked to by any major EH site. Webmasters who do not comply after being asked to may be subject to Security Officer action.
• The Internet Officer reserves the right to add rules to these at any time.

Strong Suggestions:

• Sites with excessively long URLs should consider domain redirection provided by http://www.stardestroyer.org.
• All sites should be compatible with the latest version of major browsers (IE 6 and Netscape 6).
• Sites should preferably be optimized for 800x600 resolution, but if it is necessary, 1024x768 is also acceptable.
• A good idea is to run your site through the W3C HTML Validator (http://validator.w3.org/) and CSS Validator (http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/).
• Do not have unnecessary large images, popups, or Java applets on your page. They slow down loading time tremendously.
• A warning about using MS Word and older versions of Frontpage to create websites: they add in large amounts of unnecessary tags, which slow down loading times.

These aren't too much to ask for I hope, but all EH sites MUST follow these rules.

Plans are in the works for an EH Day in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It will be held at the world-famous Kennywood Park. The park contains the famed ThunderBolt and Steel Phantom (remodelled and called Phantom's Revenge), which the Discovery Channel rated as the #1 and #5 best coasters in the entire world!

The likely date will be in July/August. Please contact gmfphoenix@aol.com and BradTack@isdcolossus.com if you'd be able to attend so it can be scheduled when it's most accomodating. We hope to see many EH members there!

This (sort of) goes along with my last note about our club's Battlestats roster...

BSC has a system that runs once per day and removes all members inactive for 100 days or more from their club rosters. The profiles remain, but they are removed from the club roster. So if you want to avoid this, do some activity on BSC before that happens, or resubmit your signup to the EH roster after being removed. Again, things like editing your profile and posting a message on BSC message boards also count towards activity there, and will reset the timer. On your player profile at BSC, you can see your last activity date as well.

Now, I have a request about new signups to the roster. Currently, I hunt for the new pilots in the TC database to see which division they should go in. It would do me a great help though if everyone could enter their ID line in the comment section of the signup. This comment is only seen by the person approving your signup, and will make sure that you aren't mistaken for someone else or (worse) not found in the TC DB. Thank you :)

Yes, those rumours are true. Yesterday, Wing VI onboard the SSSD Sovereign was officially closed down. Increasingly, the number of TIE pilots coming into the TC has declined and both myself and the SovCOM, Vice Admiral Proton, agreed that the Sovereign could no longer support so many TIE Wings. It was not an easy decision, but one we hope will strengthen the other Sov Wings. VI's former WC, Colonel Gen Es'mith, takes over the position of Wing I WC and all VI pilots have been transferred across the other Sov Wings. If anyone has a question or comment about what has happened, then please don't hesitate to email myself and the SovCOM.

Our new Commander, Development is FM Kryder. Most know he was the CD before, and then Prefect for a time. His judgement and abilities qualify him well for the post. My thanks to those who tried for the job:
BG Vradin
CPT Astix
LT Aglen

The Commander Training post is now also filled by LT Aglen. With his appointment, Aglen is promoted to the rank of Major.

Congratulations to FM Kryder and MAJ Aglen.

Prefect, Hammer's Fist
PRF/FM Ares/GS-1/DREAD Retribution =MS=
[LC/OGD/DSS/HCx3/LoSx5/MoD-GC/CoOx2]
IC/GOE/SS/CoL/LoAx2
{IWATS-M/1-IIC1/2-RT}

Earlier this week, Vice Admiral Lohr Zadash announced his decision to retire as Commodore of the ISD Relentless. In his place, congratulations to the former Wing IX WC, Rear Admiral Krax Tarnisar, someone who has proven his command competency in his previous position. Applications for a new Wing Commander are now being accepted with the following requirements:

• Proven Command history - at least 4 months experience as a Squadron Commander.
• Absolute reliability in turning in weekly Wing reports and prompt email reply times.
• Good knowledge of all TIE Corps standing orders and policies.
• No serious/recent HCI convictions.
• These, in addition to all other Wing Commander duties as detailed in the Training Manual entry.

Wing IX is a single player T/F Wing in the TIE Corps Battlegroups. All applications should be sent to RA Krax Tarnisar and AD Mell by the end of the week, with "I wanna be WC!" in the subject of the email. Good luck if you choose to apply.

Congratulations to Colonel Wil Striker on his promotion to Wing Commander of Wing XIV onboard the ISD Intrepid.

Yet another new IWATS course is out. This time its IWATS Flash, Take it today at http://iwats.stardestroyer.org!

The Imperial Storm III website is now online for viewing. It contains the rules, fleet lists and all the other resources pilots need to take part in this TIE Corps-wide wargame. If you have any questions about ImpStorm, then please email the Flight Officer or WO/VA Pel.

The Aggressor Strike Force Squadron Competition started approx. 2.5 - 3 years ago under then AD Priyum. Its goal was to create an atmosphere for the ASF where everysingle piece of activity was graded or scored, and each and every pilot had an opportunity to gain medals for this activity. It sought to find which squadron was the best in the ASF.

Of the activities graded: MP, SP, mission creation, battle creation, fiction, medals earned, Iwats courses completed, Recruitment, Graphics, to name a few are scored. I have also included WoW standings (1st,2nd,3rd asf pilots in the WoWs). Good luck to all ASF Squadrons and Pilots in this competition.

With the resignation of Colonel Garik Hizad earlier this week, a new Wing Commander for Wing XV is already in place...congratulations to the former Scorpion Commander, Major Ekim Yellek!