Characters & the Officer Corps¶

Characters are not just flavor. Every significant action in the game—running a mission, commanding a fleet, leading a ground assault, advancing research—is executed by a named officer. Who you assign, and where, determines what gets done and how well.

The Roster¶

Characters come in two tiers: major characters (six per faction, with fixed identities and locked stats) and minor characters (generic officers generated with randomized skills at scenario start).

Alliance Major Characters¶

Character	Role	Notable Skills
Luke Skywalker	Jedi candidate, fleet officer	Combat, Leadership, Force potential
Han Solo	Admiral, smuggler	Leadership; hyperdrive bonus for fleet speed
Princess Leia	Diplomat, leader	Diplomacy, Leadership
Mon Mothma	Political leader	Diplomacy
Admiral Ackbar	Fleet commander	Ship Design, Leadership
Chewbacca	General, infiltrator	Combat

Imperial Major Characters¶

Character	Role	Notable Skills
Darth Vader	Admiral, commander	Combat, Leadership; experienced Force user
Grand Admiral Thrawn	Fleet commander	Ship Design, Leadership, Combat
Emperor Palpatine	Political supremacy	Diplomacy, Espionage
Boba Fett	Bounty hunter, operative	Espionage, Combat
Mara Jade	Agent	Espionage, Combat
General Veers	Ground commander	Combat, Troop Training

Minor Characters¶

Each faction starts with a pool of 54 minor characters total (from MNCHARSD.DAT), distributed across both factions. Their skill values are randomized within a base + variance range at game start—two games will never have identical minor characters. They are expendable in the sense that their deaths are setbacks, not narrative disasters, but losing a character with high ship_design mid-research is a real strategic cost.

The Eight Skills¶

Every character has 8 skill pairs, each stored as a base value plus a variance component. At scenario start, the actual skill is drawn from base + random(0, variance). Major characters typically have zero variance—their stats are fixed.

Skill	What It Does
Diplomacy	Mission success for Diplomacy and Incite Uprising missions; population persuasion
Espionage	Mission success for Sabotage, Abduction, and Espionage missions
Ship Design	Drives the Ship tech tree—how fast new capital ship classes unlock
Troop Training	Drives the Troop tech tree—how fast advanced ground units become available
Facility Design	Drives the Facility tech tree—shipyards, shields, defensive structures
Combat	Effectiveness in space and ground combat; required for Assassination and Rescue missions
Leadership	Fleet morale in battle; ground troop effectiveness; also used for Recruitment missions
Loyalty	Resistance to betrayal; affects uprising thresholds for the systems a character occupies

Skills range from 0 to 100. A skill of 30 or above in Ship Design, Troop Training, or Facility Design qualifies a character for assignment to a research project. Mission success probability scales with the relevant skill via the MSTB probability tables—there is no hard threshold for most mission types.

Character Roles¶

A character can be assigned to one of three roles at a time:

Admiral—commands a fleet. Leadership affects fleet combat morale. Han Solo's hyperdrive_modifier bonus applies here, making his fleet faster than the slowest ship's rating.
Commander—dispatched on a mission. The mission's relevant skill determines success probability.
General—leads ground troops in planetary assault or defense. Combat and Leadership both matter.

A character on a mission cannot simultaneously command a fleet. Choosing who to assign where is a constant strategic tension—the character most useful to you is usually needed in three places at once.

Loyalty and Betrayal¶

Loyalty is not just a number—it is a risk gauge. Characters with low loyalty are vulnerable to betrayal, which means they may defect to the opposing faction if their loyalty drops below a threshold defined by the UPRIS1TB table.

Key facts about betrayal:

Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader carry an is_unable_to_betray flag—they will never switch sides regardless of loyalty.
Minor characters can be turned by enemy diplomacy missions. A highly skilled character defecting to the enemy is a double loss: you lose them and the enemy gains them.
There is a 50-tick cooldown between betrayal checks for any given character.
The enemy can also run Abduction missions to forcibly capture one of your officers.

Force Sensitivity and Jedi Training¶

Each character has a jedi_probability value from 0 to 100. This is the chance that character has Force sensitivity—a roll made at game start. A character who passes the roll becomes a Force-aware candidate for Jedi training.

Jedi training progresses through four tiers:

Level	Status
0	No Force sensitivity
1	Force-Aware—potential identified
2	Training—actively studying
3	Experienced—full Jedi Knight or Sith Lord

Training requires a trainer. For the Alliance, this is Yoda (if Luke reaches Dagobah—a scripted story event) or another experienced Jedi. Training takes time and keeps the Jedi candidate off other assignments.

Once trained, a Jedi character is significantly more effective in combat and some mission types. But Jedi can also be detected by the opposing faction's Force-sensitive characters. Vader can sense a trained Jedi across a sector.

Luke Skywalker has jedi_probability = 100—he is always Force-sensitive. His progression through the Dagobah training chain (a scripted story event sequence beginning at event 0x221) mirrors the original trilogy.

Mission State Flags¶

Characters track three mission flags that prevent double-assignment:

Flag	Meaning
`on_mission`	Character is currently executing a mission—cannot be reassigned
`on_hidden_mission`	The mission is concealed from enemy intelligence
`on_mandatory_mission`	Story-driven—cannot resign (e.g., Luke on Dagobah)

The dispatch system enforces these: a character already on a mandatory mission cannot be pulled for fleet command or a different mission.

Capture and Escape¶

Characters can be captured during failed missions or enemy combat. A captured character:

Is moved to the enemy faction
Appears in their roster as a prisoner
Can be rescued via a Rescue mission
Has a per-tick escape probability based on ESCAPETB.DAT

If Mon Mothma is captured, the Alliance loses its most powerful diplomat. If Darth Vader is somehow captured... well, the game doesn't expect that to happen.

Next: Tech Trees—how research unlocks advanced ships, troops, and facilities.