It's been so long, and it's the part of the game I so seldom got to, that I honestly don't remember it.

As to the Vega engine...
I've heard odd things about it.
Like it was made for making space-based games?
Like it does some things quite well, but isn't that great, over-all.
Most of the stuff I've seen that were done with it have been odd.
None of them were anything I'd be interested in.
But what Ive seen of the Privateer Project looks promising.
And from what I understand...
It's going to be an EXACT recreation of the original Privateer, but with better graphics.
If they can get the endless play quality of the original game in...
And the multi-system missions in...
It may be worth playing/having.
Until it's finished, which may be in a year, or two, I'll keep chugging away at this mod.


Watch your 6!

I've worked sporadically with the Vega Strike people - with the size of the Wing Commander/Privateer community, it'd be pretty difficult to get anything done otherwise. I've generally been impressed with what I've seen, although the ambitious dynamic universe the Vega engine uses causes too many slowdowns for my liking.

Another person you may want to contact is Cyberion. His work has appeared on WCnews over the past few monthes, and his modeling (Drayman, WCIII Shuttle, Razor) has gone from strength to strength. I meant to talk with him monthes ago, but personal problems interfered (and, BTW, will interfer until December 17th).

Glad to see things going so smoothly.

Nice to see ya, Bob!

I checked out Cyberion's site, and even downloaded the Drayman.
Unfortunately, it's the WC1 Drayman, and not the Privateer Drayman.
The WC1 Drayman, according to the stats, is about on par with the Orion.
Whereas the Privateer Drayman is almost the size of the Paradigm.
And while it may not be a problem, all of his models are in Lightwave format.
May take some doing to find someone who can convert it for us.
His shuttle looks nice, but suffers the same conversion problem.
But, besides that, where would it fit into our mod?
I suppose I could write a random encounter for it?
Load it up with VIPs, or slaves, that the player could sell?

BTW-I discovered that the "Concordia" that Tolwyn had sent me last year, but never finished, is actually a Ranger Class Carrier.
(Aka TCS Victory!)
With the new "Model Tool," and "HardCMP," I believe I can finish installing the hardpoints, resizing it, and get it into the mod for the next release!
(It'll replace the Liberty Dreadnoughts currently in use.)
I also discovered several ships in the last mod before I joined the team, and with the aforementioned programs, I should be able to get them working.
They include: Scimitar, Exeter, Jalthi, Korlahr, Rapier, and the Raptor.
(On my way over to WC CIC to get data sheets on all of them.)

I may have to replace a few Paradigms to squeeze the Exceter in.
(Put some in the docks at Perry, and add them to the random encounters.)

The Rapier and Scimitar appear to be trainers, so they would make great Level 1, and Level 2 ships!

I may replace the Paktahn with the Jalthi, or Korlath, and use the Paktahn for level 17+ random missions only.

Watch your 6!

Edited by - warzog on 12/13/2004 7:23:26 AM

Update:
Still rewriting the DLL's to get rid of the unstable Gemini.DLL.
Working my way down through the mod's folders, I'm currently working on the ShipArch.ini file.
(I'm setting it up so that adding ships, in the future, will be much easier.)

Once the ShipArch.ini file is done, all that will be left is the Universe.ini, and the 70 system's ini files.
I've been toying with an idea that might work, and if it does, the "Trade Routes" may actually work right, for a change.
We'll see...

As I'm converting everything to use modified FL DLLs, I can't test anything, yet.

I've toyed with the idea of adding news, but without the missions, the news would never, ever change.

Once the DLL conversion is complete, and I've run a few tests, then I'll add the new ships.
And, once they're added, I'll get back to work on the Random Mission's problems...
IE:
Crashing upon shooting one enemy.
Limited number of missions offered.
Second Waypoints in the sun.
Etcetera.

Watch your 6!

Hi Team,

I've put in a few hours playing on Jenxter's server and I really like what I see!!!

I've been playing 2 different ways; one as a trader the other as a merc.

As a trader, the commodities are not yet balanced, and the neuro net doesn't remember all of the places visited and the commodities there. In the original game, I remember the raw materials being cheap in the out lying systems with good prices at New Detroit, Stuff like equipment and manufactured goods cheap at New Detroit with good prices in Troy. It took a lot of runs from Jolson to New Detroit with Furs , with very little to trade back, to make trading worthwhile.

As a Merc, money was a lot easier to come by, but the first few missions took forever due to the wimpy effect of the lower level guns. I'm still in a maxed out Tarsus, I've had a few CTD's, not sure why, during missions. A couple whe scavenging from the wrecks in Perry.

All in All,, a happy experience and thanks jenxter for putting up the server!!

I would like to help with the modding but I've never done any before and wouldn't know where to begin.

Keep up the great work!!!

Shaman
Freelancer

Shaman

Shaman:
Glad you like it!
(And we're working on the crashes!)

Watch your 6!

Update:
Still sloggin' away at the DLL's.
Just got to finish doing the bases and then I'll be able to plug it all in, and do a test run.
Along the way, I discovered a few typo's that could be causing crashes in v4.0, and fixed them.

Since no one's been posting in here, I've been killiing time helping people in the editing forums.
Came up with a few new ideas to add into the mod.
Along with a coupla tweaks, and a coupla nasties, too!

Watch your 6!

Update:
Finished the DLL's, and their entries in the various system ini files.
In a way, it's better than I'd hoped, as I discovered several errors that I'd missed.
Such things as:
Population zones without any populations! (Found 5 or 6 of those.)
The infamous "0, robot" error! (Found 5 bases with this one.)
Level 19 Battleships in Level 12 zones!

Along the way, I increased the zone populations to 30.
Increased the level of most populations to 12+. (A few are still set at 9)
I also decreased the payouts on the random missions...
But I increased the difficulty of the missions being offered! (Level 9 are the lowest, Level 21 are the highest.)
I also made the missions offered in 6 levels.
The mission computer (board) offers the lowest, easiest, and cheapest paying missions.
Pirates, Retros, and the various companies are the next level up.
Followed by Confed, and the Militia.
Next, are the missions offered by The Privateers! (See the window in FLMM for most of the names. Couldn't use 'em all, sorry!)
The Mercs offer the highest paying, hardest missions, at most bases.
BUT...
For those level 21 missions?
You GOTTA see ME!!!
Find Warzog for the level 21 missions.

Edit:
I've done a couple of preliminary checks of the mod, using Freelancer Explorer.
It's helped me to locate a couple of minor DLL errors, and a few zones that needed resizing/moving.
I'll do a couple more checks before I actually run the mod.

Edit #2:
Just discovered that the Pilots_Story.ini is corrupt.
Looks like FLE rewrote it for some reason.
Fixed it.
Got a few wierd things when I entered the bar.
I'm hoping that they're due to a bad FL, and that a reinstall will help.
I gotta get some sleep, first!

Watch your 6!

Edited by - warzog on 1/5/2005 8:20:24 AM

Major Update:
1) Discovered a few DLL bugs-in the works.
2) The new DLL's got the Trade Routes working correctly!
3) The new Population zones look GREAT! Lotsa traffic, now!
4) The Ranger class Carrier's look GREAT! Gotta fix the hardpoints.
5) Got a bug with the Ranger that I had with Perry, and I'll be danged if I can remember how I fixed THAT one!
--Distance reads zero, ALWAYS!
6) New Empathy seems to be working! (Everyone attacks the bad guys, now!)
7) Ship rearrangement has a few glitches.-in the works.

Still got to check:
Random Missions-to see if the CTD problem is fixed, or not.
(and to see how the new combat setup works)

Watch your 6!

Have found another problem with a CTD occurring....When harvesting tungsten in Rikel quadrant was checking the amount of tungsten gathered in cargo hold when I went to close the inventory window the game CTD'd

Quixotal

Sounds like something I discovered while working on the latest version.
There were several asteroid fields dispensing items not in the mod.
(Never checked, but it could be the cause of your CTD.)


Watch your 6!

Update:
Discovered the cause of the TCS Victory's problems.
It's the SUR file.
Delete it, and everything works fine.
But then everyone flies right through it.
I think that the problem may actually be related to all of the stuff I put into the Victory.
Stuff that shouldn't be INSIDE, but Outside.
Stuff like interior lighting, landing lights, etcetera.
Or, I'm hoping, it may have to do with the SUR files I used.
I'm still working on it, though!

Watch your 6!

Hey, long time no see. I am glad to see there is still an effort to see this mod to completion! I haven't downloaded any of the latest "builds," and have been meaning to get back in touch with everyone to see if there is much more I can do.

I still haven't done any of the textures, because I had relied on the help of others to send me screenshots of models + pictures of the originals to use. I don't have either.. and as a result, my help in this project has been negligible as of late.

Warzog-- Keep it up, I am really happy that this thing is coming together so well!

Edit: So after all this time-- nobody has cracked the SUR files yet? Nobody knows how to make them either?

Edited by - lvxoccvlta on 1/15/2005 6:45:45 AM

Nope!
SUR's are still a mistory.

Update:
It WAS the SUR file after all.
Corrupted, somehow.
I guess it was because I'd just copied the Vesuvius' SUR, and it probably had Vesuvius data in it from when I resized it.
Anywho...
Got a new SUR, resized to the Victory.
Got the interior lighing and flight deck lights going, too.


Watch your 6!