[Ed Kolis]

Originally posted by JurijD:
Am I supposed to download all their empire sets before creating a game? Are the other players supposed to do the same? Because otherwise how are we supposed to see their ships correctly? Or is all of this included in the first game file?

Yes, all players in the game do need to download the shipsets of all other players (assuming they don't have them already ) in order to see their ships correctly. This can be done at any time, however, not just before the game begins, and it won't hurt anything other than the visual appearance of the ships

2. I noticed that for one player (who doesn't have a special ship set) every time I put him on he gets a different flag... this doesn't apply to the other 3 player that also didn't choose a special ship set...if I put them on and off and on again their flags remain the same. This seems very strange to me. Is it possible that he somehow didn't choose his empire flag???

He probably just chose a custom shipset but forgot to list it with PBW. (You are using PBW, right?) Ask him to mail you and all the other players with the name of the shipset he's using so they can all download it.