Chapter 11: The Battle of Echo Base goes live today! Players will finally get the chance to experience Hoth in the form of a heroic encounter in Star Wars Galaxies.

Holo-beasts, minor profession changes, and improvements to the Character Transfer Service are just some of the other updates involved in this patch.

The full update notes can be found here or below.

Chapter 11: The Battle of Echo Base
Publish Notes, November 20, 2008

Highlights:

• A new heroic encounter on the famous planet of Hoth, holo-beasts, minor profession changes, and improvements to the Character Transfer Service.

The Battle of Echo Base:

• The Battle of Echo Base is the newest heroic encounter in Star Wars Galaxies. Those sympathetic to the Rebel Alliance or Galactic Empire begin their journey to Hoth at the Adventurers' Guildhall in Aurilia.
• Only those who have chosen a side in the Galactic Civil War can take part in the battle, and all group members must be the same faction in order to enter the encounter together. A recruiter is available within the Guildhall.
• Each stage of the battle has its own objectives and goals, so keep an eye on both your comm window and the Quest Journal for important updates!

• The Rebel and Imperial troopers in the Adventurers' Guildhall of Aurilia offer a number of goods in exchange for these valuable tokens, including special armor and DNA that can't be found anywhere else in the galaxy. You must be the same faction as the vendor to purchase his wares.
• A minimum of four players in the group are required to begin the Battle of Echo Base.
• You must have at least four players in Echo Base or the instance will close after 15 minutes.
• An Accomplishment window at the end of the encounter displays to show you how well your group did for each goal during the instance.
• A total of nine tokens can be earned during the Battle of Echo Base. Players who earn nine tokens are rewarded with the Hero of Echo Base badge. If all phases of the Battle of Echo Base are failed, then no tokens will be awarded.
• New collections within the Battle of Echo Base heroic encounter have been added.

Holo-Beasts:

• A beast master with one point spent in Incubation sees a new option in the radial menu on an unhatched egg. Select Convert Egg to Holo-Pet to change the egg from a beast to a holo-beast.
• The holo-pet cannot be changed back into a beast, so take care when converting a beast into a holographic companion.

• Holo-beast data cubes can be traded and can be used in the Chapter 4 publish gift emitter as well as the new Chapter 11 emitter earned by completing a collection.

Game Play:

• New collections have been added.
• Trading Card Game loot reward vehicles Sith Speeder, Mechno Chair, and XJ-2 Airspeeder now have a maximum health of 15,000.
• Housing items that use ground based particle effects (such as the Trick or Treat Projector III) now work properly below ground.
• Bandoliers can be hidden from display with /showBackpack.
• Fixed an issue that would sometimes cause a command to fail to execute but still trigger the cooldown.
• The Elite Tusken Rifle now correctly sounds like a Tusken rifle.
• Xeno furniture obtained by the House Pack Up event is no longer No Trade.
• The sounds of doors opening and closing in player houses have been reduced in volume by 35%.
• The winning paintings from the Create a Painting contest are no longer available.
• Grenades in the world will now disappear after they have exploded.
• A new character age title, <#> Years of Experience, is now available to display the age of your character in years. This title is available once your character reaches one year old. You can determine your character's age from the Birthdate field in the Character Community tab. The character's age is preserved when the character is transferred. Note that this title is based on the character age, not the account age.
• An "N Year Veteran" account age title is now available to display the age of your account in years. This title is available once your account reaches 1 year old. /getVeteranRewardTime will display your account age.

Beast Master:

• Fixed Enfeeble line of abilities that were buffing the target instead of de-buffing them.

Bounty Hunter:

• Shields now absorb 99% damage when activated. On hit the damage reduction is lowered by 1% and applies the energy reservoir effect which increases damage dealt by 1%. Changed from increases armor by 10,000 and glancing blow by 80%.

Medic:

• If a medic buff is used on a group member, it applies to all group members within 72m.
• Medic group buffs also buff beasts.
• Reduced action cost of medic buffs by 90%.
• Fixed buffs with shorter duration overwriting longer duration ones.

Munitions Trader:

• The Nova Edge Sword can now be deconstructed.
• All weapons that are flagged as deconstructable can now be deconstructed whether they have been biolinked or not.

Officer:

• /sysgroup no longer attempts to parse targets unless an other type code actually appears in the string. This means that "/sysgroup Luke go stand by the door" now results in "Luke go stand by the door" but "/sysgroup Luke %TO is a %RO" still converts to "Luke is a Human".

Spy:

• Advanced Strikes now increases all damage taken by the target by 2% in addition to increasing damage done by Blaster Burst and Razor Slash by 20%. This effect stacks up to 5 times. (Changed from increases damage done by Blaster Burst and Razor Slash by 10% stacking 10 times.)
• Avoid Damage and most GCW commands can be activated while stealthed.

Role-Playing:

• Typing /ooc now sets your player status as "OOC" (out of character).

User Interface:

• The comm window can now be moved and locked/unlocked.

• The lower limit for the Nebula Density slider has been reduced.
• Fixed an issue in the space toolbar that caused icons to be positioned incorrectly.
• Clicking the Keymap button in the Controls Options window should now properly take you to the Keymap page.
• The OK and Cancel buttons in the Trade and Chat Tab Management windows should behave properly when the window is resized.
• Overhead map labels should no longer move as you approach them.
• Added a small faction icon to the status window, similar to the icon on the target window.
• Meatlump Doll Collector title has been corrected.

Graphics:

• Added support to recognize higher resolution graphics settings. These higher resolutions are available when using the Matrox TripleHead2GO product.

Character Transfer Service:

• Resource crates now transfer. An "imported" resource crate will be uniquely identified on the foreign galaxy by having the originating galaxy name in front of the resource name, like (Europe-Chimaera)Arou. "Imported" resources are not available from the 30K resource deed veteran reward. Recycled resources (like homogenized milk, processed meat, processed seafood, ground bones, smelted copper, etc.), because they are the same on all the galaxies, will be converted to the corresponding native recycled resource of the destination galaxy.
• Factory crates now transfer.
• Manufacturing schematics now transfer.
• Please note that vendors (and vendor contents) are not transferred. If you have a TCG loot vendor, destroy the vendor before transferring to regain the ability to create the TCG loot vendor. The ability to create the TCG loot vendor will transfer so that on the destination galaxy you can create the TCG loot vendor again.
• Packed factories should properly transfer, including the maintenance pool, power reserves, installed manufacturing schematic, contents of ingredient hopper, and contents of output hopper.
• The maintenance pool of a packed house should transfer.
• The contents of crafting station should properly transfer.
• Titles are now available to indicate the galaxy/galaxies you have transferred from. A title is not granted for a same galaxy transfer. It will be granted retroactively. For each galaxy that the character has transferred from, you can choose from 3 different titles to indicate a particular galaxy that you have transferred from. The available titles are “Fugitive from <galaxy>”, “Traveler from <galaxy>”, and “from <galaxy>”.
• You can now search for characters who transferred from a common galaxy as your character, but only if that character wants to be searched for by "transferred from" galaxy. This functionality is retroactive.
• Enable your character to be searched for by "transferred from" galaxy by other characters who also transferred from a common galaxy by checking the "Allow my character to be searched by "transferred from" galaxy" checkbox in the Character Community tab.
• In the Search Community tab, under the "Character Data" search node, select the "Common Transfer Galaxy" search item to search for characters who transferred from a common galaxy as your character and are marked as searchable by "transferred from" galaxy.
• When the search contains the "Common Transfer Galaxy" search item, the common "transferred from" galaxy(ies) of each matching character will be displayed in the matching character popup tooltip in the Search Results window.
• A /showCtsHistory command has been added to display the CTS history of the character. This command is retroactive.
• Fixed an issue with some mounts and deconstructed weapons displaying the wrong name after a transfer.
• Fixed an issue with not transferring with Death Watch Bunker entrance identifiers.
• Enzymes and DNA should transfer correctly now.
• Fixed an issue that can sometimes cause the Sorosuub Luxury Yacht to be transferred with its components in the character's inventory, causing it to be unusable.
• Missions, except for bounty missions, should now transfer correctly. Bounty missions are not transferred.
• An incubator with power should transfer with the power.
• Fixed an issue where an incubator with power won't allow you to remove the power after the transfer.
• Fixed an issue where the transfer failed if there is an item in the reverse engineering tool. The contents of the reverse engineering tool should now transfer.
• Fixed an issue that can sometimes cause a ship in the datapad not to transfer.
• An account that has the maximum 8 characters will be allowed to do a same account transfer without having to delete a character to temporarily "make room" for the new character.
• Most transferred characters should be available for login within 15 minutes after the transfer request. If you try to login the just transferred character before the transfer has completed, no harm will be done to the just transferred character, but you will receive a message saying that you cannot login the just transferred character yet, and to try again later.
• Your character must be logged out on one of the 10 original ground planets (Tatooine, Naboo, Corellia, Rori, Talus, Yavin 4, Endor, Lok, Dantooine, Dathomir) in order to be able to transfer the character.
• Previously transferred characters that had their birth date incorrectly reset to the transfer date are automatically fixed to the character's correct birth date (i.e. the birth date of the original character) at the next login. In game mail with the subject "Birth Date Fixup" will be sent if/when the character's birth date is fixed.

Chapter Gift - Hoth Snow Machine:

• The chapter gift for Chapter 11: The Battle of Echo Base is a Hoth Snow Machine! Bring a little bit of Hoth home with you.

• You can use the snow machine in two different ways:
  • Inventory: If you have the snow machine in your inventory, you can activate the machine to receive a stack of snowballs. These snowballs can then be thrown at other players.
  • In a Structure: If you place the snow machine in your house, you can activate the snow machine to give the illusion of it snowing inside. The snow machine even has different settings so you can control how much snow falls inside.
• Characters must be at least 10 days old to receive the snow machine.

In Memoriam:

• The Aurilia guildhall has a new memorial to a fallen hero, named "The Freeman."