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[2023 GUIDE] Beginners | Missions | Technical | Multiplayer

By schmatzler

I want to do a little "all-in-one" guide here and answer most of the questions we stumble over at i-war2.com :-)

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Created by

schmatzler
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Category: Gameplay Basics, Modding or Configuration, Multiplayer

Languages: English

Posted

Updated

17 May, 2015 @ 2:05am

11 Nov, 2023 @ 5:29pm

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Guide Index

Overview

The Guide

Comments

The Guide

For starters

I know, the trailer is pretty awesome and may look like it's a shooter in space. But this isn't the average space game. I-War 2 uses Newtonian physics.

"What's that?" you may ask. To give you a simple example: If you accelerate towards an enemy, you will not stop until you use your forward thrusters to de-accelerate your ship. And you won't come to a stop immediately, this will take time. If you've ever watched how the astronauts at the ISS handle themselves in space, you know how I-War 2 is doing it.

This may not be for everyone, but if you get used to it, you will have a very realistic and unique experience.
This game uses a lot of key combinations and while it is possible to play it completely with a keyboard or mouse+keyboard, I highly recommend using a joystick or a controller to play it. It's easy to forget the keys when you're just starting to play, but don't worry. We have printable key cards for you here[www.i-war2.com] and here[www.i-war2.com].
If the default configuration doesn't work with your controller, you can find various profiles other users already made for you at our website.[www.i-war2.com]
Yes, we have profiles for the Xbox 360 controller and we also have tools for creating your own profile.[www.i-war2.com]

Missions

This game is not perfect, it has its design flaws. One of the flaws is the missions. At the beginning, they may seem straightforward to you, but you will get lost at one point. When this happens, just head over to our Help section[www.i-war2.com] and read through the acts. You will find out what you have to do next.
Another flaw is the starmap - it has been designed to be accessible with a joystick and while this works, you will search for star systems you have to fly to very often. If this kind of realism annoys you too much, install the mod Location Finder[www.i-war2.com]. This will allow you to press TAB in the game and fly to stations easily.
Last but not least: You are a pirate, you will loot a lot of cargo from the guys you are robbing. Your companion Jafs will complain all the time about the junk you have looted, while he loads that junk onto his super-tiny ship. This will get annoying very quickly. Shut him up with this mod[www.i-war2.com] and give him a bigger freighter.

Technical

This game is old. It plays fine on systems up to Windows XP, but any later versions may behave weird for you.
I could list all of the possible bugs we stumbled over in the last years and their possible solutions, but this would make the guide extremely big.

Most important:

"Insert Play Disk" patch that removes the CD check
If you don't have a CD/DVD drive in your computer, the game will complain about a missing CD and will not show you the Singleplayer option. Previously we had to mess around with virtual DVD drive software to get around that, but in 2023 a user in our Discord (Stone-D) has patched the igame.dll to finally remove this check.

You can download the patch here:
https://i-war2.com/news/183-better-planets-and-a-real-nocd-patch

Community Patch that fixes constant crashes in later parts of the game
Since 2022, there is a Community Patch project that fixes two of the most glaring bugs this game had for over 21 years: The Dagda Act 2 crash bug and the Wolf's Lair progression bug.

You can read more about it here:
https://i-war2.com/news/181-dagda-and-wolf%E2%80%99s-lair-bugs-fixed-after-21-years

I highly recommend installing this mod if you want to play through the whole game.

If you experience any other issues, we have a "Technical FAQ" on our website where you will find answers to (hopefully) all of your problems with running the game:

http://www.i-war2.com/documents/help/faq/faq-technical

Multiplayer

Currently, there are no Multiplayer servers running for the game. But it can still be played if you set up your own! We might run servers again in the future if we find the time to set them up.

Just head over to http://www.i-war2.com/online where you will find instructions on how to play on these or set one up yourself.
Sadly, the ingame server browser doesn't work anymore due to the shutdown of Gamespy at the end of 2014.

That is all. I hope this information will help new players, we are always happy about newcomers who love Independence War! :-)

-schmatzler
i-war2.com Admin

8 Comments

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schmatzler [author] 5 Apr @ 6:30pm

@stevenav: That sounds useful! If you have them, please submit them to our Discord and we'll add them to the site 🙂

stevenav 5 Apr @ 3:44pm

hey schmatzier
I've a few mods that I've either had to recreate or rescued from oblivion, such as the antimater mod that adds the antimatter rapid fire pcb, antimatter mines, animater beam, and the antimattter remote missle Do you want me to submit them on the iwar site or do you not want them?

schmatzler [author] 12 Nov, 2023 @ 10:07am

Information about the NoCD patch has been added to the guide.

schmatzler [author] 19 Dec, 2020 @ 1:51pm

@aviosys: Read the technical FAQ, the question has been asked numerous times before.

schmatzler [author] 24 Jun, 2016 @ 11:22pm

That's mentioned in the Technical FAQ which is linked to in the guide.

theredbaron1834 24 Jun, 2016 @ 8:58pm

I suggest also adding something about a cd/dvd drive, as one is "needed" to play the story. You can bypass this with a virtual drive (I use daemon lite as a free one).

[High5] 23 Feb, 2016 @ 1:49pm

Thank you!

Absolutsky 20 Jun, 2015 @ 3:46pm

Thank you! I can't wait to have the time to replay this.

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