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The Earth system.

The general place to discuss MOD''ing Freelancer!

Post Mon Jun 23, 2003 5:36 am

The Earth system.

After playing around in the Earth System mod (pretty good by the way), I couldn't help but think that more could be done with something like this. Here's the kind of Earth system mod I'd like to make:

Each system would be linked together via jump holes or jump gates. To add a bit of difference (it is Coalition territory), how about using the Babylon jump gates?

1: A system with Pluto and Neptune in it. Pluto could have a station orbiting it, along with a docking ring taking you down to the planet. The planet could be seen as Toledo, snowy, yet with signs of life. Neptune could have a spaceport (a Freeport model if you will) above it, with a battleship nearby (custom or Liberty model).

2: A system with Uranus, along with a spacestation like "The Ring", which is located in Freelancer near New Berlin. To add a bit of exploration, how about a huge space cloud nearby (orange or something, with those explosive pockets of gas found in one of the Rheinland systems), littered with pirates or something.

3: A system with Jupiter, along with all its moons. Notable moons would be titan, which could have a planet loading sequence such as California Minor or something. Ice is the theme for it. Jupiter isn't landable, but the one in the Earth system mod is PERFECT, its amazingly huge. Above the planet could be a Freeport like station or one of those huge stations like Newark in the New York system. Also, a shipyard should be nearby. Pirate bases or enemy bases could be located in a cloud or small astroid field nearby.

4: The final system, in the Earth mod it contains a dense astroid field (like the real one located between Mars and Jupiter. At the end of the field (the jumphole\gate on the opposite side, with tradelanes through it) is Mars, with a three or four different shipyards orbiting, and several small stations nearby (astroids like the Lane Hacker\Corsair bases maybe?) or orbiting as well. The planet is small, but not too small. The planet landing sequence (you gotta land on Mars lol) could be the one for Planet Malta or Crete, something with caves but signs of civilization). Across the system, through Tradelane travel, is that big blue rock. The Earth in the Earth system mod is perfect for the model, but there's literally no signs of life. Earth is IT. Its the home of the Coalition. Orbiting Earth should be several different battleships, along with stations, Freeports, and shipyards (not all bunched together but spread out). The essiance is to make Earth look like the bigest place to be. There should be rounds of traffic to and from places, with several cargo and civilian ships coming and going. The nearby moon, with a landing sequence perhaps (what believable one could be done?), should have smaller stations and cargo placements, maybe a shipyard (one with battleships being built, like the shipyard in the New York system near the Battleship Missouri (I think). A quick tradelane jump away is Venus. Venus could sort of be the Coalition Fleet location. There could be shipyards, huge fighter patrols, and a huge station to act as sort of the HQ for the Fleet. What would be interesting is to have a dozen or so Battleships, all sitting in space, all dockable. The idea is to put them there for eye candy, not actual engagement. Sure, movable, fight-worthy battleships would be cool too. Finally, near Venus is Mercury. Mercury should pretty much be nothing, I mean, they wouldn't put a station there due to the proximity of the sun. One thing that could be here is a jump gate (maybe to the edge of the Earth system, Pluto. Another idea is to have a sort of central hub of gates, all leading to the systems of the Earth system (Jupiter, Uranus, Neptune). Nearby could be a final jumpgate to one of the systems in Sirius.


The backstory to this could be various things. One idea is to have that the Alliance finally tracked down the Alliance, and by secretly building various jump gates in out of the way locations (the badlands in New York for instance, or systems like Omicron Theta and Tau systems, places rarely visited), the Alliance has begun a full fledged invasion into Sirius. If you want to make a huge mod, have it so a system like Kusari or Rheinland have already fallen, and adjust those people's reactions to you accordingly (shoot you on site). The idea to entering the Earth system would be in a civilian vessel (Rhino, StarTracker, or whatever), however any Liberty, Bretonian, or Kusari vessels entering would be shot on sight, and it would adjust accordingly. This is just an idea for a huge mod, but the system itself to have would be cool, just to explore what Earth and the system would be like in...what, a thousand or so years in the future? Its just an idea, post your thoughts if this could be done.

Ut

Post Mon Jun 23, 2003 3:34 pm

Just a few "problems" with your suggestions.

"1: A system with Pluto and Neptune in it..."

Due to special orbital dynamics, Pluto and Neptune are never near each other. If at any point in history they were, Pluto would have been flung from the solar system. Neptune orbits the sun thrice for every two revolutions of Pluto. This essentially means that they're always VERY, VERY distant from each other.

"3: A system with Jupiter, along with all its moons. Notable moons would be titan..."

Titan is not a moon of Jupiter. It is a moon of Saturn. Jupiter has the four Galilean moons, Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto, plus some fourty smaller ones.

"Pirate bases or enemy bases could be located in a cloud or small astroid field nearby."

This is a good idea. Jupiter has two clouds of asteroids in its LeGrange points. They lead and follow Jupiter in its orbit around the sun.

"4: The final system, in the Earth mod it contains a dense astroid field (like the real one located between Mars and Jupiter."

The asteroid belt is actually very NOT dense. Individual asteroids are separated by millions of kilometres. This is only dense compared to the rest of the solar system. For the sake of the game, though, this is overlooked.

"A quick tradelane jump away is Venus. Venus could sort of be the Coalition Fleet location. There could be shipyards, huge fighter patrols, and a huge station to act as sort of the HQ for the Fleet. What would be interesting is to have a dozen or so Battleships, all sitting in space, all dockable. The idea is to put them there for eye candy, not actual engagement."

I'm not sure I understand why Venus would be such a big attraction. This stuff should be around Mars, if not Earth. At least Mars can be terraformed. Venus is forever lost beneath its repressive clouds and sulphuric rain.

"One thing that could be here is a jump gate (maybe to the edge of the Earth system, Pluto."

There are probably reasons why something like a jump gate should not be near the Sun. They're always placed at the edge of systems in the game, so emulating that is a good way to hold on to some continuity.

Aside from that, it's all cool. So, when do you start work on it?

Post Mon Jun 23, 2003 4:59 pm

Yeah sounds cool.
And someone knows his astronomy! Well I want to see the Oort cloud in this game.........somewhere...........You know uts that big cloud of asteroids.............whatever.

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Post Mon Jun 23, 2003 5:21 pm

"I'm not sure I understand why Venus would be such a big attraction. This stuff should be around Mars, if not Earth. At least Mars can be terraformed. Venus is forever lost beneath its repressive clouds and sulphuric rain."

Well I really wanted to make Mars this huge location for Shipyards, hell it could even be called something like "Mars Orbital Shipyards" lol. The sole reason I chose Venus for the location of the fleet is, well, we needed something at Venus lol. Venus would NOT be landable though, same with Mercury. But what I would REALLY like to do is get a bunch of people together who REALLY know their astronamy of the solar system (and I seriously thought Titan was a moon of Jupiter, oh well lol), and add certain little touches like real life clouds, perhaps astroids and comets (not too sure about that last one, has it even ever been done?). Still, the idea for this mod is to give people in SP something to explore, and people in MP possibly a new threat, the Coalition (I've never played MP due to 56k connection, so don't flame if I got it wrong and the mod wouldn't work in MP).

Ut

Post Mon Jun 23, 2003 11:47 pm

Well, that explanation has won me over on Venus.

Astronomy's my life, so give me a holla if you need to know anything. If I don't have it off the top of my head, I have the books. I haven't started playing with systems yet (it's next on my list), beyond tinkering with FLExplorer. It's neat and all, but the direct approach is still better.

Post Tue Jun 24, 2003 12:15 am

Honestly though, this is me just shooting things off the top of my head. I don't really know where to start. I'm just voicing my idea on a killer mod. If anyone would like to try, or possibly help me get started, I'd love to.

Post Tue Jun 24, 2003 5:17 am

Please? If anything, could I have some volunteers to help design systems? Each person could do a system each, using a basic layout vision of what should be where. If possible, I'd really like to get some Starlancer players (shouldn't be too hard to find around here lol) to point out specific things from that game, locations of bases and special anomalies (sp?).

Post Tue Jun 24, 2003 6:57 am

Im just curius here, but should Sol be one big system? Like, every system in "sirius" is huge, with one or more suns EACH. Sol would only have one, hence, one system. And, the Mars-Jupiter asteriod belt should be FULL of pirates, perhaps some Alliance survivors even. . .

Post Tue Jun 24, 2003 4:30 pm

Good idea. I didn't mention putting all planets in one system because..well, I figured if we wanted to get any sense of realism (the space between planets) it wouldn't be possible. Still, if we used Jump holes to travel between the different planets in the system, it could be done.

Ut

Post Tue Jun 24, 2003 5:29 pm

Oddly enough I had assumed that by "system" you meant region, and therefore this was all in one system.

I suggest you try out the Sol system beta to get an idea of the possible scale.

Post Tue Jun 24, 2003 5:36 pm

Perhaps you could have all one MASSIVE sysytem.

The whole thing would be connected by Tradelanes, with distances changed accordingly, and then, on the outskirts of the system and in pirate clouds, asteriod fields, etc, you could have intra-system jumpholes.

Post Wed Jun 25, 2003 2:20 am

Placing fleets of ships wouldn't be that hard, well, ones that you can engage with and that fly. What I want to do is place dozens of different "bases" (ships) that look like they're stationed there, waiting for anything. Any ideas? Would it be possibe?

Post Wed Jun 25, 2003 6:03 pm

About System sizes...

If you look at the maps of any inhabited system in Sirius, the inhabited worlds are always about halfway from the local sun to the map edge. Translate this into Sol, and your average map would only cover the inner solar system.

So...

Map 1: Inner solar system to include Sun (centered) bordered by the asteroid belt with everything in between.

Map 2: Jupiter and its moons plus Trojan (Lagrange) asteroid clusters.

Other Maps for each gas giant and their accompanying moons.


- the First Evil

Post Wed Jun 25, 2003 6:22 pm

@ History Buff: I believe the system sizes are hardcoded, but I could be wrong. Try increasing a system's (new or otherwise) size to above 160000 which is the maximum in the 2D system editor I'm using. If it works come back and tell us, because I personally hate jumpgates and holes

@Chris03: Think about BS Missouri if you want the ships to be dockable, if not then just set their behavior to... nothing, I believe, though I'm not sure. Search the forums, it was here a while ago.

(This site is best viewed with your eyes open)

Post Wed Jun 25, 2003 8:18 pm

I need to know what programs to use, how to start. I'm new at this kind of modding, Ive never created a new system before, let alone something as massive as the Earth system should be.

On a completely n00bish question, what does Sol stand for? lol I'm sorry, I've just been seeing this around on the forums.

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