PTR-The Gemini Sector

sounds like a kick ass deal to me iam first on the download page thanks warzog

Fantastic idea. Move the entire FL universe untouched to the side! You could make them all unexplored so that they don´t show up on the nav map. It must be tough to have to rebuild it all from the ground up. But now it will really feel like the Privateer universe!! If there are no trade lanes, then how do we get around the systems? Some kind of Autopilot time-compression? Or an UBERCRUISE-ENGINE!!! <img src=smilies/icon_smile_wink.gif width=15 height=15 border=0 align=middle> ----------------------------------------------------------- &quot;The worst player has guns, and grenades, and vehicles, and all manner of damaging tools. Like a baby with a razor blade, he need not be skilled at all with his tools to cause terrible damage with them; a blind man can fire a tank and kill you.&quot; --7--

Sounds good Warzog, OBTW can you make sure the planets spin correctly as per the angle? I´ve seen some of them spinning vertically compared to the rings that were around them. Also some of them look like their cloud patterns were at an angle to the axis of their spin.

Having worked on the perry/constantinople/paradigm project, I am overjoyed to know that you are redoing the Gemini Sector to include them. I will be anxious to see how everything turns out. You have my full support! By the way: textures for the remaining ships are put on hold until I piece my life together. I am flying back home to the U.S. and A. in 4 weeks. Once there I will need to build myself a new computer and then I can get serious again with everything. Bob McDob sent me the screenshots of the wiremeshes that I need.. I only need some time to get started. Best of luck for the über mod!

Whoa! (Didn´t expect such a response!) Spent most of the day reworking the NPCship.ini, and Factionprop.ini to allow all of the ships to be used in the random encounters. I´ve also made ships available that SHOULD be available to factions. For example: Border World´s Exports are gonna start using the Banshee as an escort. Several companies will have Tarsus´, Orion´s, and Galaxy´s in their fleets. The Retros will only fly Talon´s, now. I also finished the primary DLL for the mod. And I added the &quot;Steltek Gun.&quot; Sucker Kicks Butt!!! Whiped out 4 Vindicators, (in a Tarsus) with only 1 Steltek Gun, in less than a minute! I may need to tone it down, but right now, it´s got the specs from Privateer 1. Sidenote: There will only be 2 Steltek Guns available in the mod. And those are gonna be on a Drone wreck. (You might salvage 1 from a Drone, if you survive the 5 that they carry!!!) I tried messing with the Audio mod, but I only managed to waste about 9 hours doing nothing. Tomorrow, I´ll get back to building the systems. BTW-If anyone wants to, perhaps someone could get a jump on the commodities? I have the prices/commodities for Oxford, New Detroit, and New Constantinople. If someone could work them out for the various bases in Privateer, it would be helpful. (I only have a general outline of what each type has, not specifics.) Also, I´m gonna need commodities set up for the extra bases. The extra bases are going to primarily be: Retro, Pirate, and Merc, bases. BTW-Here´s the complete list of factions in this mod: br_n_grp = Bretonia Armed Forces----------Confed----(All 4) br_p_grp = Bretonia Police-------------------Militia-----(All 4) co_alg_grp = ALG Waste Disposal-------------------------(ge_fighter1-5/misc) co_be_grp = Border World Exports-----------------------(Banshee/4 freighters) co_hsp_grp = Cryer Pharmaceuticals----------------------(ge_fighter6/misc) co_ic_grp = Interspace Commerce---------Refineries---HAVE ALG SHIPS co_kt_grp = Kishiro Technologies-------------------------(4 freighters) rh_m_grp = Kruger Minerals------------------Mines------(Vindicator/misc) co_ni_grp = Synth Foods, Inc.-----------------------------HAVE ALG SHIPS co_os_grp = Orbital Spa and Cruise--------Pleasure P--(Armored) co_shi_grp = Samura Industries---------------------------(ge_fighter5+6/misc) co_ss_grp = Universal Shipping---------------------------HAVE ALG SHIPS fc_fa_grp = Farmers Alliance---------------Agricultural-(all BW ships) fc_j_grp = Junkers-----------------------------------------(CSV) fc_lh_grp = Lane Hackers---------------------Pirates-----(pi_fighter/freighter) fc_lwb_grp = LWB-------------------------------Steltek-----(Drone) fc_ou_grp = Outcasts--------------------------Kilrathi-----(all CO ships) fc_x_grp = Xenos------------------------------Retros------(pi_elite) gd_bh_grp = Bounty Hunters Guild------------Mercs------(all BH ships) (on those listing 4 freighters, I´ve got a placeholder for the Drayman.) Watch your 6! Edited by - warzog on 7/20/2004 11:58:25 PM

Finished the New Detroit system. (Still need to finish testing it, though.) Excluding the time to get the basic stuff in, the system´s taken about 2 days to complete. Hopefully, the other systems will go much quicker, now that I know what bugs FL Explorer tosses in every time I update a system. Watch your 6!

hey warzog, if you need some stuff for your voice-mod-remake, i could send you what i´ve done with a little description of how I think things work and what I´ve done so far.

Swiftr: Yeah! Great! Any help would be nice. Like what program do you use to assemble them? Update: Learned a really nasty lesson today!!! When I went to test the new pirate base, I got CDT´d HARD!!! For some reason, the pirate bases especially, have special animations for viewing out the windows. The problem arises when you try to leave the base... If the objects used in the animations aren´t present, CeeeeeeeRaaaassssshhh!!! (That even includes things like Lightning!) Add to that... Some bases have objects attached to them... Things like asteroids, ice, spikes, etc... Ditto on the CeeeeeeeRaaaassssshhh, if they´re not there. Try as I might, I couldn´t find a usable Pirate base template. (They´re the ones with the red lights, and the evil looking mask on the wall.) I probably could go in an edit everything out, but with 69 systems left, I´ve got enough work already! So... I´ve set aside another template for use by the pirates. (And while I was looking, I discovered a pair of AFU bases.) Anywho... New Detroit is 100% done! Except for populating the bases, commodities, and ships. All of which is waiting for the rest of the sector to be finished. In that way, I´ll be able to create new rumors, &quot;know-abouts,&quot; etc. And I´ll have a better idea of the secret bases, which will aide in setting up the commodities. Watch your 6!

<font size=1 face="trebuchet ms"><BLOCKQUOTE><hr size=1 noshade>Bob McDob Flight Commander posted 7/21/2004 21:48 PST -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I´m not quite sure what you mean about the commodities ... the chart I use is here , with sold base commodities highlighted. To the best of my knowledge, Privateer doesn´t distinguish between specific bases, treating all of them more or less genericly. Then again, it´s been a while since I´ve played. <hr size=1 noshade></BLOCKQUOTE></font><font face=´trebuchet ms, Verdana, Arial, Helvetica´ size=2> 1) Thanx for the list of companies-any idea what they make/deal in? 2) I´ve got that same list for the commodities. I´ve set up the commodities in the mod according to it, and I´ve gotten nothing but complaints about it. We need more variety in the placement of commodities than that list provides. Watch your 6!

Update: I´ve got a Whopping three (3) systems done! <img src=smilies/icon_smile_tongue.gif width=15 height=15 border=0 align=middle> Why only three you ask? Problems working with Freelancer Explorer, mainly. And a bit of CTD jitters. The three systems I´ve done, run the gambit of what I want in the new Gemini. And figuring out how to do what Freelancer Explorer won´t, has been the problem. For example: Getting the random ships to go from a wormhole, to a base, and dock, took 3 days. Well, actually a few hours, it took 3 days to figure out that I needed to add the base´s faction to the code, to stop the error messages. And getting exclusions zones to work right is a manual operation. And finding out which &quot;dust&quot; works and which don´t is another problem. And adding infocards for Asteroid Fields, and Nebulae, requires a bit of trickery. I add a wreck to one of the old FL systems, create the infocard, and then delete the wreck! And I discovered several messed-up fields in FL along the way. Had one &quot;mineable&quot; field that was impossible to mine, took a while to fix it. But... It hasn´t been all bad... I managed to make some refineries, even if they were an SOB to get right! In Privateer, they´re huge rocks, with machinery sticking out of them. Well, I took rock bases, gave them Kyoto and Vogtland interiors... And then I stuck an MPlatform in the side! BTW-the Stokes mining base in Leeds has 2 MPlatforms... They´re the units with smoke coming out the top, and a section that´s spinning. Really looks cool as a Privateer Refinery. But it takes hours to get them plugged into each other just right. The biggest problems are three-fold: 1) The &quot;what-if&quot; factor. ---What-if I do this, What-if I try that, What-if I put that-there? ---I can´t stop experimenting! 2) I keep forgetting to add things. ---Like Mission Locations, Wrecks, Infocards, and Random Ship Traffic. 3) Testing. ---It takes a couple of hours to completely check a system out. ---(If everything is there, and it´s working right!) I think I´m finally getting to the point where there´s little new stuff I can add to the mod that´s not already in it. (Which means fewer bugs to hunt down!) I´m trying to keep the systems simple, as they were in Privateer, but I wan´t the complexity of FL, too. To accomplish this: All of the systems are small, 64000 metres square. All of the systems use the same starfields (for now.) All of the systems use the same (green) wormholes. All of the systems use the same 10 bases, and 11 planets. All of the systems use the same nebula, and 8 asteroid fields. All of the bases use the same robot voice, and 5 docking robots. (all of which can be changed later.) I´m making the &quot;Hidden&quot; jump points in Privateer into hidden bases. So far, they´ve been Retro, and Pirate bases. To break up the monotony of the cookie-cutter systems: I´m adding asteroid, ice, and debris fields where appropriate. With just a spash of nebulae here, and there. And where appropriate, mineable fields to add interest. I´ve gotten the Refineries setup, so I can plug one in just about anywhere, now. All of which is going to make the commodities a very important part of the mod! Overall... I think I´m on the right path. The two systems that have me scared... and that I plan on doing next... Are Perry, and New Constantinople. Both are major hubs... And both have new models for their bases. Features that will make them both difficult to get right. Watch your 6! Edited by - warzog on 7/24/2004 2:20:10 AM

Update: Well, I´m up to seven (7) systems done, now. Finally starting to get a handle on things. BTW-for those with access to our new FTP site, I´ve uploaded screenshots of the: new &quot;Privateer&quot; Refinery, Perry Naval Station, and New Constantinople. If someone could post images here, it´d be great! I´m currently trying to get the Potter Quadrant done first. Watch your 6!

Update: Up to 13 systems. Well, I´ve finally learned WHY FL has tradelanes!!! It´s to convey distance, and movement! Without them, it´s hard to do. About the only options are asteroid/debris fields, or nebulae. And after a while, some start to become boring. As an alternative, I´ve been playing with tons of space dust, and complete planetary systems. Which requires some refineries be placed on bases, instead of as stations. I´ve also done a double-based planet. (More work/trouble than it was worth, but I´ll leave it in.) I´ve also recreated my &quot;Hunting-Grounds&quot; Pleasure Planet system, where you can take on the Steltek, Kilrathi, or Pirates, at your leasure. They´re all level 15, and kick-butt!!! I blew away about 20 Drone´s, and never got a Steltek gun!!! I´m not sure how many it would take, but I wanted it hard to do. Oh, and for those who are interested... It takes about a minute to cross a system, point-to-point. Watch your 6!

Thanx! With any luck, I may actually reach our goal of recreating Privateer! <img src=smilies/icon_smile_shock.gif width=15 height=15 border=0 align=middle> Watch your 6!

Not sure if this needs to be in the Ship builders post or here but I´ve been still playing around with the Galaxy in your Privateer open Gemini sector, Warzog. When panning around the ship, the back part of the Pilots cabin (cupola?) does not have a tile or skin and you can see right through as though there was a hole in the ship. Quixotal

Update: Potter Quadrant is done. Clarke Quadrant is almost done. 32 systems up and running, so far. 38 to go. Watch your 6!

This may have already been suggested to you Warzog, but I was thinking that possibly you could put a wormhole that is difficult to find in your Gemini Sector that joins up to the Freelancer Sirius sector as a means of explaining the fusion of the two. This wormhole is the only link to Sirius, and you could possibly make it only one way, as the &quot;Sirius&quot; end of the wormhole is unstable and tends to disappear for long periods, or jumps all over the the sector as a storyline Quixotal Edited by - Quixotal on 8/4/2004 7:40:37 AM

That´s an odd, but possible idea. Currently, I just trying to get Gemini to work. If I was going to do such a thing, I´d have access to Sirius in the Delta Prime system. (Which is the upper left most system in Gemini.) As to the unstable aspect... I can link that wormhole to any of the holes in Sirius, without a return link. (or having to add a new hole) I could add, or change, a hole to return you to Gemini. The primary problem with doing so would be that the sector map would become unreadable with the two sectors active at the same time. Watch your 6!