Hey all you guys,
First off, let me apologize for disappearing off the face of the planet for a few months. I have been very busy with school and a pseudo-job, and I have had very important AP exams in the past few weeks. But now those are over, and next week I am taking the easier end-of-semester finals for the other 5 of my classes. So summer is almost here - w00t!
Now, as you all probably learned from ArchKaine, he and I are working on a new mod. As of right now, 2 other people are also helping:
awts0c, the creator of the
Firbolg Rheinland LF, currently our head shipwright; and
EngineOfDarkness, who is helping with some ini aspects. Oh, and it is with both happiness and sadness that I pass this on to the Rebal community: I think good ol' ArchKaine has finally found the next path in his life - he has entered the Navy Reserve. I give him a hearty slap on the back for having the motivation to take such a big step - I think we all should. He also says that he will try try to help modding, but understandably so, might not have as much time to do so. So for the time being, we're waiting on news from him. But I now have more time again, and awts0c is making ships left and right
So we're still alive, if anyone was wondering. Sorry for the time in purgatory there
Alright, well, on to the good stuff. When I first realized that something had gone terribly awry with Rebalance 3.5, I was nervous. It was working fine on my machine, I thought I got all the files I edited in the mod file, but apparently, the only explanation I can think of really, I missed one or I left one out that was not updated ...
Something obviously went wrong, and out of the 2535 files of Rebalance, I just could not seem to pin it :p
So, it was with much chagrin and disappointment that Arch and I decided to put the mod on hold -- he had some family issues to deal with, and wasn't too sure what mess I had made :p, and I was overloaded with school, friends, family, lack of sleep, etc. We just could not communicate efficiently (limited internet due ti Arch's brother and sister-in-law) or figure out what the heck went wrong. And there is little to be done with a project that huge ...
However, we decided that we are starting a new mod, one that will be a very large expansion to Freelancer. It will not be the next vesion of Rebalance - we are starting from the ground and building up. We started off the SDK 1.4 framework, and have been working from that. We are tenatively calling the mod
Sirius Expansion (no pun intended :p ), or
SirEx for short.
SirEx will bring some large changes to the FL universe, some wof which include:
- totally revised and edited ships (all ships in the game);
- more stratification of ship classes;
- totally revised weapons, shields, and other equipment (all equipment);
- many new ships, all of which will fit with the FL universe (awts0c has a penchant for designing ships that fit Houses' and factions' styles very well). So no more Unioners in Xwings or EAP Javelins attacking you;
- new systems, all of which will be complete, populated, and hopefully beautiful (that's the hard part, eh?)
- more RPG-feel, reputation-wise. You will have to work to stay in factions' pants (no more shooting a few BHs and a Lib Policeman, and then jumping onto the Corsair pirate boat :p)
There are many things that we are trying to do in this mod, none of which are final or near completion. In the very scant free hours I have had in the past 2 months, I have made some changes already, getting ready for the summer - for when the real fun begins
-=: NOTA BENE :=-
One thing of note here:
This mod will not be a compilation mod.
We are looking to give a real and unique feel to it, a
Freelancer sense yet with a noticeable and significant touch of its own. If we can at all avoid it, we are not going to throw a bunch of ship packs together and then say "Look at the mod!" No, there are a few snazzy ships shared by a few generous mods and modders, but aside from about 8 or 10 (of the current ~ 45 or 50 new ships - a still-growing number), all other ships will be original and unique to SirEx. It is not that other ships, like Porche's awesome Star Wars ship packs and Firebase's great ships, are not great ships - it's just that a lot of other mods have used them, and we're going to try to release some new ones to enhance the experience.
@ Augur, if you are so inlcined, the team would be honored to receive your help and your superb work! I will drop you an email about it =)
And yes, we know that this is not Rebalance, but it will hopefully have elements that resemeble it. I honestly hope that the fact that this is not Rebalance does not turn a lot of modders or players away. It will have similar elements that Rebal has (to an extent - we most certainly are not copying or stealing big MD's hard work), but it'll have its own feel to it, too.
If anyone is interesed, I can keep the forum updated on a regular basis with news. One thing I would like to say, though, is that this mod does not have a release date as of right now. We are keeping it loose because, as was seen a few months ago, rushing and/or cramming modding into a busy schedule simply does not put out quality work. So we are taking our time, and we will make this mod as good as we know how
And we also want to keep a few things for the Freelancer to discover on his/her own, so we might not divulge
everything ...
Well, I apologize again for the long time underwater, but I can be on the forums much more now. So until later, take care, all.
~ Ro9ue
Edited by - Ro9ue on 5/18/2005 3:13:55 PM
Wed Mar 30, 2005 9:34 pm