First time poster here. For the record, I tried playing Alliance back when it came out, but the whole 1/3 throttle to increase maneuverability thing ruined the game for me. I had loved X-Wing and especially TIE Fighter (thank the gawds for all those anti-frustration measures in TIE Fighter; those really made it a better game than X-Wing), but I just couldn't get into Alliance or XvT because of this then-new maneuverability mechanic. It didn't help that I had a crappy joystick that didn't include programmable buttons. I couldn't afford one because they were ridiculously expensive in 1999 ($200+ for a joystick??? Nuts to you!).
But when I found out that Steam was having a summer sale of all of their old Star Wars games, I went to town and got all the old Star Wars games (X-wing series, Jedi Knight series, KOTOR series, Empire at War and Republic Commando) as well as all the Half-life games, the Thief games and both Portal games. I wound up getting about 30 (yes, 30!) games for only $120 total. I made out like a bandit!
And this time around I needed a joystick to play the X-Wing games and I got myself a Logitech Extreme 3D Pro for only $30 from Best Buy. It was the only joystick available in the entire store; I guess flight sims aren't as popular as they once were, huh? Quelle surprise. But it's by far the best joystick I ever had and the programmable buttons are soooo useful, especially for the 1/3 throttle maneuverability mechanic I found so problematic. This is the joystick I wish I had back in 1999.
So I played through X-Wing and TIE Fighter and got to Alliance. I remember seeing this website on and off through the years and really admiring your work at making all the ships in Alliance look amazing. I figured I'd take the chance of installing the upgrade and seeing how it looked in game. Imagine my amazement when I didn't have any problems dealing with installation at all! (I was expecting at least a few bugs; I had to finagle a few files to get X-Wing and TIE Fighter working right after my Steam installation so I was expecting a fanmade mod to be at least as slightly wonky.) And then I played a skirmish to see if the SSD really did look 19km long. Not only did it really look that long, the model was more detailed than I could ever have imagined! Flying along the SSD superstructure was flat out incredible. (I wasn't expecting the SSD to be able to rotate as fast as it did; that made flying along the superstructure a bit problematic, but what the hell, you can't have everything. )
Anyway, I just want to thank all of you for all your hard work. You've made Alliance a far better game than it was in 1999. And the best part for me? I never got to play through all of Alliance in 1999, so I'm actually getting to play Alliance for the first time with a much better computer, much better graphics and a much better joystick than I had 18 years ago! Because of you guys, Alliance has aged exceptionally well over the years. And I get to play it as if it's brand new!
It's the little things like this that make life worth living.
Thanks again, guys. And I can't wait to see all the space stations (especially the XQ platforms) once they're all done. Keep up the good work!