Strategic Retreat Tour of Duty
For the X-Wing game

(c) 1996, Mark Shenefelt

INTRODUCTION: This new 12-mission tour of duty for X-Wing pits a fleeing Alliance fleet against persistent Imperial and guerrilla pursuers. In this tour you are required to protect convoys, rescue captured personnel, fly emergency missions and strike back hard at enemy battle groups.  

STORY: You get a lot of briefing text in this TOD because there's a story thread to the sequence of missions, just as there should be in any true X-Wing experience. Don't let the "Retreat" title for this TOD mislead you; there's plenty of offense needed to complete these missions. 


MISSIONS

Op 1: X-Wing - Protect a convoy of FRTs and CRVs from GUNs and other enemies. Thoughtful target selection and use of wingmen is important for success. 

Op 2: A-Wing - A well-coordinated Imperial capture raid catches Alliance force off-guard as you're flying escort duty. All you can do is blast as many enemies as possible in your immediate vicinity, allowing small groups of FRTs and CRVs to escape to hyperspace

Op 3: X-Wing - Enough protecting for now. Rescue captured slaves from pilots' retreat. Remember that the Empire and their guerrilla allies can be vengeful.

Op 4: X-Wing - You fly point and escort a unit of Y-Wings to blast escorts, clear mines and recapture an important FRG, then protect the recapture shuttle.

Op 5: X-Wing - Payback time. Punish the enemy with a strike at an Imperial outpost that's being used as a base to pursue the retreating Alliance fleet.

Op 6: A-Wing - Your guidance systems are malfunctioning. Can you get home safely? Along the way you must look for a new-model B-Wing that has been reported missing; that ship must not fall into Imperial hands!

Op 7: Y-Wing - Payback time, part 2. Ambush an enemy force that's planning to strike another fleeing Alliance convoy. You catch them unawares during staging operations. 

Op 8: Y-Wing - Lead an operation to capture Imperial commanders. Achieve fighter superiority in the area and make sure the commanders' ships are boarded and the recapture teams get away without harm. 

Op 9: A-Wing - Use captured commanders and their SHUs as bait to destroy more Imperials. This isn't the smartest op we've ever attempted and the payoff is not extreme, but see what you can do in your "disabled" A-Wing.  

Op 10: Y-Wing - Payack time, part 3. Break up a guerrilla stronghold. We have a narrow window to strike here, so you're on your own in that old Y-Wing. 

Op 11: A-Wing - Tough your way through Imperial fighters to identify and help recapture important cargo freighters. 

Op 12: Y-Wing - Wipe out Imperial pursuers - including captured B-Wings - in the final phase of this tour. If the flagship CRS is protected here, the TOD is a success.  

HOW TO RUN IT: If you have the disk version of X-Wing: MAKE BACKUP COPIES OF THE GAME'S ORIGINAL TOUR I BEFORE YOU DO ANYTHING ELSE! Then move the xwi and brf files from this game into your X-Wing directory to replace them. If you have the CD version of X-Wing: Download the XCD program from the Internet. It's a great little utility that allows you to run homemade missions on the X-Wing CD. After installing XCD according to its creator's specifications, create a MISSION directory on your root drive, then move all the Strategic Retreat TOD xwi and brf files into that directory. Then run the game according to the instructions under the XCD program. You can play these Tour I missions as a new Tour I or in the Historical Missions area.

TECHNICAL: The Strategic Retreat TOD was created on a 486-66. Some slowdown occurs during certain situations in missions with a lot of capital ships, but otherwise it runs great. We would imagine 386s would have few problems, and Pentium users have no worries at all.

DIFFICULTY: This TOD has an overall difficulty assessment of moderate to hard. About half of the missions are of easy to medium difficulty, two or three are quite challenging, and one or two others may be darned near impossible for an average pilot. The author expects that the average pilot will have some fun on this TOD.  

HINTS: Available upon request. Send e-mail to RamsUtes@aol.com

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: This TOD of course would not be possible without LucasArts' great game, X-Wing. The author of this TOD makes no claim infringing upon LucasArts' well-established rights with this program. The author also greatly appreciates the XMB mission builder program by Neal Westfall. His rights also are fully recognized.

DISCLAIMER: This TOD should be accepted or rejected by the user as is, and the author makes no claim to its performance, reliability, etc. The author is under no obligation for any reason to any person who chooses to use it. 

HELP: Questions? Comments? E-mail us at RamsUtes@aol.com

October 1996

