Greetings Troopers!
We have some major announcements concerning the mod.
First of all, Dnamro is taking over as Dev Team Lead. He has been with the First Strike team since the early days, integrating singleplayer into First Strike and helping out in other areas. Dnamro's love of all things Sci-Fi and his long standing experience with Battlefield Engine Modding makes him an ideal choice.
Second, after a lot of discussion, we have decided that we can no longer continue development for the Battlefield 2142 game engine as a multiplayer game. The Battle of Hoth map was to be the final major release for the mod, but with dwindling player counts for our events, the loss of the Master Account server and with EA no longer supporting or selling the game there is no longer any way to find new players to keep the mod alive. Which means there is no longer any real point/reason for the team to finish Hoth for the BF2142 mod, which is a great shame.
However, that does not mean we are ending First Strike. We are looking seriously at changing games or possibly even developing First Strike as a stand-alone game on one of the newer game engines. Stay tuned. We will be sure to let our fans know when we make a decision.
In the meantime, Dnamro will continue the mod, at least for the time being as a singleplayer mod. In addition to some multiplayer fixes, he had several updates that were not quite ready to release for 1.6 that he wants to finish up. These include navmesh updates and new singleplayer support for some maps. Currently, we are testing new singleplayer kits that don't use the kit customization menu, since it has issues with offline gameplay. The concept is that the kits will be customized based on the type of singleplayer map: Infantry versus Vehicle focused maps. For example, on an infantry only map, the Rebel Heavy Weapons Specialist kit will gain the Packard Mortar Gun as a secondary weapon along with the standard Mk. 1 rifle. While, the Rebel Heavy Weapons Specialist kit for vehicle maps will have a HH15 rocket launcher along with the standard Mk. 1 rifle. This will give the player the ability to switch between key weapons on the fly.
The screenshots below illustrate the kit differences in the kit selection menu, adjusted so they show which version of the HWS kit is available on that particular map.
Stay tuned, for more information on the First Strike move to a new game engine!
See you out there on the battlefield Trooper! 
Closed Alpha Test & Deth..
