Solutions for specific tasks

Mon Jan 24, 2005 3:48 pm by Mephistopheles

I have started working on a Freelancer TC that will play only within our solar system. I am building "systems" for each planet, including most of the moons, all in a scale of 1/1000th for the size of objects, for the distance a scale has not been determined yet.

The situation will be as following: Somewhere in the 3th millenium mankind has colonized pretty much the hole system (yet not been able to reach another star). This huge task was only possible for large mega-corporations, that have the money and equipment to each build up their own space industry.
Finally, those corporation have become so large, rich and powerful that they simply overwhelmed the countries on Earth, and now rule their individual territories.
A struggle has begun, a struggle between the different competiting companies about resources throughout the solar system, about money, about power.

However, I need tips for solving certain specific tasks:

1. Adding new planet surface textures. I did not find a suitable spot in a planet's MAT file to export/import image data.
2. Making spinning objects that keep spinning (Will be used for planets, maybe even space stations)
3. Alternative landing methods. Docking Buoys/Beacons might be possible similar to those seen in Freeworlds, but I am open to any other suggestions. There shall be low-orbit spaceflight with planetary trade, too (i.e. multiple bases on different continents, and you ship cargo between them through a low orbit, sort of...). I would like to make something as subtle and realistic as possible.
4. Larger Asteroids. There will be mining in the asteroid belt, and the current asteroids in FL are just too small. I know I cannot match the real ones, but I would appreciate the largest of them being a kilometre large or so...

Mon Jan 24, 2005 3:55 pm by Chips

Sounds adventorous, and good! (yeah, i know - my spelling sucks!).

I wish you all the best, but with some of this I can do no more than say 'you can do this' - for in truth, I haven't really given it a go

Mon Jan 24, 2005 4:07 pm by Tal kath Naabal

I really like the Idea of "low atmosphere" trading.

And big asteroids

Edited by - Tal Kath Naabal on 1/24/2005 4:08:44 PM

Tue Jan 25, 2005 10:35 am by Mephistopheles

Well, I can make big Asteroids by modelling them, putting them in as each a single object, instead I'd just like to generate a random asteroid field like in the original game, just with the asteroid being way larger. I suppose it would require resizing the asteroid 3dbs for hits.

Another idea now: Originally, from what I have heard and seen about objects disappearing after a certain distance (like the sun going behind the background stars), I found a possible solution which I am going to test tonight. The background stars are all on a sphere that moves with your ships, and that sphere has a real CMP file. Now, what if I increase its radius? Gotta try it out!

Edited by - Mephistopheles on 1/25/2005 1:57:46 PM

Tue Jan 25, 2005 2:05 pm by Mace_166

There are some really big asteroids in the game, but they are classed as solars rather than the usual ones. It shouldn`t be too hard to get FLexplorer to generate a field for you and then change a few entries.
I like the ideas that you have, i don`t know how you`re gonna do the low orbit thing. Aside from having the docking rings just lined up outside the planet, i don`t know how you would generate a planet surface.
Will you be including pirates as well in the mod or is it only the rival corporations?
There is a system in the download section that has a large scale system approach ( where the size of the system is increased by about 5 times and has larger, more realistic planets), it might be worth a look.
If I get the large scale field thing working i`ll post it on here..
Good luck.

Tue Jan 25, 2005 2:13 pm by Mephistopheles

Well, you can have several docking rings bringing you each to a different base, that are effectively part of the planet, but not for the engine. You would launch inot space, fly around the planet and land somewhere else, which is indeed planned for real transportation in the future.

Well, I just luanched FlModelTool and opened the starsphere I would be going to use and wanted to resize.
And voila, I saw a line in the starsphere vmeshref entry:
Radius : 220.205399
This seems to be the distance at which an objects gets behind the "curtain".

Well, this is what the program is reading from the data, I can't edit it that way. And trying to resize it generates a "floating point overflow".

EDIT: Well, removing the background starsphere totally from the system did not prevent the curtain effect. It seems now the engine is rendering a sphere around the playership by default, and just applying the starsphere onto this one then. But there must be a way, there simply must.

EDIT: Another option would be resizing the ships, bases etc. to be smaller, to make everything appear larger. I would do this indeed, but a problem will be the FX, I don't know how to make engine flame effects, gun shots, shield hit effects and so on smaller, too.

Edited by - Mephistopheles on 1/26/2005 1:32:13 AM

Wed Jan 26, 2005 5:17 am by Mace_166

Have you taken away the cmp? I think that the starsphere thing is mounted onto the cmp in some way. If you take away the whole lot and just make it black it might work..

Wed Jan 26, 2005 5:34 am by Mephistopheles

I tried removing the starsphere entries in the system file. I had a simple black background, but the same disappearing as usual.

Wed Jan 26, 2005 8:38 am by Mace_166

There is that large scale system in the downloads section. I`m not totally sure I get what u are trying to do. Take away all of the sphere around the system/resize the starsphere to be outside of what you want.
How big were u going for?

Wed Jan 26, 2005 11:26 am by Mephistopheles

Well, FlModelTool gave me a "floating point overflow" error when trying to resize any starsphere CMP.

Well, originally, the planet had been about 120k in diameter (and there should have been large ones with up to 1400k in theory, well...), and the moon would have been like 300k away at least... not rendering at that distance. I now went back to a scale 10 times smaller for the size, with the moon about 150k away, which works. But depending on where you are, the sun would disappear.

The problem with all that is to have large objects while space between them looking not unrealistically tiny. I could instead have resized ships etc. to be smaller, as stated, but the problem would be: How can I resize engine, gunfire etc. effects as well? If that would be possible without too much hassle, I would simply make all the ships etc. tiny, adjust the cameras etc. and would get perfect results... Well, in theory.

Important Message

You are browsing the archived Lancers Reactor forums. You cannot register or login.
The content may be outdated and links may not be functional.

To get the latest in Freelancer news, mods, modding and downloads, go to
The-Starport