Rebalance has basically been scrapped,MD left I think after 3.4 because of real life issues,Ro9ue,Archkaine & others took over for 3.5 ,but it got pulled after to many CTD's & bug reports.They were fixing it but desided to bin it and start again.

Check the rebalance forum on this site for more info.

Yes, I am not sure what big MD is up to, but the last time I talked to him, he had a lot to see to at home. So ArchKaine and I tried to take over for him while he was gone, and we made a lot of progess, fixing a lot of bugs ... but then, thanks to a major ****-up from a failed system restore and a corrupt back-up file, I had a CTD mod when I was working on a beta version of 3.5. So, a 99.9% completed mod morphed into a lovely CTD and error fest in the space of an hour.
And out of the 2500 files in the mod, I could not pinpoint the one that had been screwed. So, after pounding our collective head and brainstorms against an unmoving wall for about 3 weeks, we finally had to put hte mod on hold. ArchKaine has limited internet access from home, and he's a very adept modeller but has not had quite enough experience with FL ini files to find the mess, and my school stuff and family life just didn;t permit me to devote the proper time to modding at the time.
So, with great reluctance, chagrin, and disappoinment, we had to scrap the mod we loved and worked on for about a year (started working with MD on v3.5 about February last year ... had to abandon it this Feb). We did not want to release a CTD-mod, and with the reports from some of our beta testers, that's just what it'd devolved into ...

Now ArchKaine is in the Navy (go, Brian! We'll miss ya), and I have 3 days of finals left of school (actually have to run here - got first one in 2 hrs - eek ), so a friend of mine and I are thinking of starting from scratch (rebuilding from an SDK 1.4 foundation) and working our way up, making a hopefully very fun expansion and enhancememnt mod (see Rebalance Mod forum for a little more info).

It won't be Rebal, I'm afraid, as I think from our last expereience, it's MD's pet, not mine! He had it working, and our version had to freak on us, dang it. Anyhow, it won't be Rebal, but it has elements similar to Rebal, and it will hopefully be bug free (is now keeping it that way if I have any say ... which I do ). We have a still-growing list of about 50-55 new ships right now, and a bunch of custom yet fitting weapons, equipment, etc.

Stay tuned for more updates in the next few weeks if you are interested!

Gotta go take some finals, so be back later.


- Ro9ue
_________________________________
"Do or do not. There is no try."
- Jedi Master Yoda

thanks Bejaymac and Ro9ue....

yes.. i just got the whole story of your add-on Ro9.... really thanks for all your efforts... anyway... this might be a treasure for your new mod right?.. and don't worry about the name... i don't care whether it has a Rebal or not... will be your fan toooooo^^

i keep wondering what makes rebal unique.... i guess it is big MD's thoughts and idea...how a world should be...and i find similar great ideas in your add-on2...especially relating prices with "HOT "degrees of the system..... really good..

good luck for your new mod....

I agree with you about the rebalance mod. The only mod that comes close IMO in terms of new stuff and general enjoyment is TNG. For my own personal single player games, I have borrowed a concept from TNG and added it to rebalance. I have added some new high end stuff, i.e. a couple of more powerful powerplants, shield regens, weapons, etc, and made it so that there is a small chance higher end foes (lvl 10 and up) will drop them upon destruction. There is even some very rare high end stuff (not really imbalanceing, especially at higher difficulty.) The items cannot be purchased, and can only be gained through fighting. I set the the stuff to start dropping about .25% of the time, with highest end stuff to drop about .03 percent, so its rare but it encourages battle. It also keeps the game interesting beyond the normal parameters, as there is now a reason to continue playing in order to get the ultimate ship, which you might or might not get since the chances are low. I also made up some background info on the items (ie, this equip is a stolen prototype from the liberty navy, etc....) and added custom ID and descriptions. To get an idea of what I am talking about, I think the best powerplant you can buy has a capacity of 30,000. Well. I made one at 32,000, 34,000, 36,000 and 40,000, each of which has a decreasing chance of dropping. I have been playing with these new items for probably 15-20 hrs, and so far have only gotten one ultimate equip (A shield capacitor at 12,000). If anyones is interested, I can post the ini additions when I get home. Mostly they encompass the corresponding equip and good inis and the lootprops ini from the mission folder. Of course, most of the hard work was done by MD and his team, and i claim no credit for anything. I just made a few easy additions for my own personal enjoyment and I have no desire to publically distribute what I have done.

Dawg

In 3.5 beta 3 there are upgrade powerplants (5 in total)but thanks to the crash that Ro9ue's system had,one of the ini file entries was erased,they still exist in the market ini's,its just that you can't buy them.

If I ever get through with fixing the systems(damn thing crashes in any system at any time),I'll start on the equipment,the systems are going to take F/ing months to finish checking though.

What could be wrong with the systems? The only trouble i`ve had has been either with there not being the solar asteroid/nebula in the right folder or patrol paths having two of the same name. I`d say its more likely to be a ship loadout problem.
Thats assuming that there aren`t any goods for sale which aren`t linked to the equipment/select_equip..
Just an idea

I reckon that it is a loadout problem,but I haven't even looked at them yet.What I mean by fixing the systems is-

1} Giving bases that sell ships a shipdealers room and NPC to go withit.
2} Fixing the uniforms of the NPC's in the new bases. ie. Bretonian traders in a Liberty base.
3} Fixing the body meshes on the female traders.
4} Making sure the bases are run by the right people.ie. Universe ini says liberty navy but the system ini says synth food.
5} Adding info cards for all the new bases,systems & adding the new bases to the old system cards.
6} Removing the deadwood for the system ini files,ie. The version of FLE xplorer that was used added a double set of encounter parameters to every ini file that it editted.

I'm rebuilding it all with a set of SDK 1.5,there for hand editting takes a lot longer to do.The infocards slow it down even more ( I'm crap at xml).

If you guys would like any help, I'd love to help where I can. My main comfort area for modding is in the inis, which can sometimes be monotonous work, but I can do pretty much whatever you need in the equips inis, goods inis and lootprops. Let me know.

Dawg

If you guys need any help email me the beta and i'll have a looky...

(not that i even know what rebalancemod is about.......lol)

Thanx for the offers guys,but all I'm trying to do is get my copy to work.I don't have permission from MD or any of the rebalance team to be altering thier work,so it won't be offered for download.Sorry.

Well, while I am not Michael Dan, Bejamac, I personally would not mind someone who has managed to make sense of that unfortunate crash-and-burn posting (or at least distributing to those interested) a working copy.
Again, since I have not heard from MD in months, and I am only an assistant modder (rather, a former assistant now, I guess), I don't know if there are any weird modding rules precluding or prohibitting this. But I for one am okay with your doing this. Perhaps your work will bring Rebalance back to life ...

Ah, and thanks, guys, for the luck on the mod. I am now out of school and jumping into it full swing I'm very excited to get this show on the road. It's still a developing WIP, really just in fetal form, but it has a head and arms at least (metaphorically speaking ). But all the specifics and biggies have yet to be added.

I'm doing my best to keep this as balalced, realisitc, and fun as I can, adding more to the Freelanced experience. Will report back later when there is more to report

- Ro9ue
_________________________________
"Do or do not. There is no try."
- Jedi Master Yoda

For adding populations to bases in a large mod you could use a generic system like i`ve used for frontierspce (not released yet).
All you do is replace the names of the people with the faction name from faction_prop and create separate ones for bartender, weapon dealer, ship dealer and trader. Then as long as you have quite a few done you can easily use find and replace to create the new ones.
I`ve done over 30 bases in this way in one night very easily. The names of the people at the base are irrelevant anyway and I feel they just wast dll space..

@ Ro9ue & anybody else thats interested in rebalance3.50beta3,BINGO I think I've found one of the main CTD's.I thought it was a loadout problem & it is, sort off.The npcships ini file has contradicting entries,

[NPCShipArch
nickname = centurion_d1-2
loadout = rsthunderbolt1_loadout <--------?
level = d1
ship_archetype = centurion <---------?
pilot = pilot_police_med
state_graph = FIGHTER
npc_class = lawful, class_fighter, d1, d2

[Loadout
nickname = rsthunderbolt1_loadout <--------------?
archetype = rs_thunderbolt <----------------?
category = ship
hull = rsviper_hull <-------------------?
equip = ge_gf2_engine_01
equip = ge_fighter6_power01
equip = ge_s_thruster_02, HpThruster01

The program's trying to make one ship out of two cmp files,and every time it does *CRASH*.Now all I have to do is fix it,this will be a problem as this is an area I haven't modded in yet,and there are a lot of them,if and when I get it fixed I'll send bp a patch for download.

**shuffles of with a new headache**

Use FL Model Cloner to make clones of these ship CMPs, and then use UTF Edit to rename the MAT references. The documentation for FL Model Cloner explains all of this, with pictures, and it's very easy to use.

I also highly, highly, HIGHLY recommend it for doing custom Icons. Louva-Deus was kind enough to tell me it exists, and I've been using it for all sorts of things