Hi there G_Redeye. Basically with the release of 1.5 a number of maps with bot support in the Singleplayer Mini-mod that were considered of a high enough standard to be included in the full mod were further enhanced to make the bot support for the chosen maps as good as possible, this included quite extensive work on Battle of Yavin for instance. The maps after this work that were felt to be polished enough were then included in the mod.

This means that with 1.5 you can play with bot support in multiplayer (on servers running the co-op maps), and in singleplayer which you can now access through the normal in game menu rather than through the mini-mod.

This integration doesn't include all the maps that were in the mini-mod, but just those considered the best. Further maps shall be enhanced and included in First Strike in the not too distant future.

As for First Strike 1.5 supporting the Singleplayer Mini-mod, this was a separate project that didn't officially have anything to do with the mod development team. I suppose the support now being given is the integration of the best of those bot supported maps into the mod.

Hi Red,
sorry if I didn't make things more clear.

Basically, with 1.5 a lot of things changed (such as vehicles and weapons) that would mean there would be many more problems trying to get the mini mod to work properly since the ai coding would need to be altered. The easiest way to overcome this was for Dnamro to help integrate the best of the maps in to the mod properly which is what happened.

Not all of the mini-mod maps were ported, but there were other improvements made during the port. The Ai on Yavin for example is much better, with Y-Wings and X-Wings using lasers and avoiding TIE's and the towers much better. Ai weapon use was improved on ground troops making them more accurate.

We will continue to integrate and improve on SP, Co-Op and the AI coding as the mod progresses.

Bite my shiny metal Tie Fighter!

No.  The FS launcher scans the same place for updates regardless of what version you are running.  FirstStrike 1.4 did not work correctly upon release, and FS_SP was not designed to work with it until a few patches in.  1.4 will try to apply the 1.5 updates which will cause more errors and likely stop First Strike working altogether.