SOL Mod WIP

    Hmm, sounds kewl. Keep us posted about what´s going on, and feel free to take WOS apart and re-purpose its bitz if you want to try to implement planetary surfaces, which might add a lot´ve flavor to the &quot;multiple bases&quot; experience. Although I will be the first to warn you... that building something like that will take a great deal of work... but if you´re committed to building a more &quot;true scale&quot; experience, then that might be fun <img src=smilies/icon_smile.gif width=15 height=15 border=0 align=middle>

    Well, small update. I am not posting screenshots yet because all planet textures are still not final, so far I mainly built them, that means all planets are there, the most important of all moons exist, and the dynamic asteroid belt is working great for the most part. I have now already started building bases and sector jumps, which will be done via navgiational satellites that are needed to activate a lightspeed jump. They replace the jumpgates but work pretty need so far. Major issues remaining atm are the asteroids being destroyed with a single shot of any weapon, because they use the dynamic asteroid function, which originally only uses small pieces of rock, but now spawns large asteroids. If anyone knows a way to make it so they can withstand more than one shot, the help would be appreciated. Also an issue is with rendering nebula and planets together. The plan was to be able to fly into the gas planets and land on bases inside etc., the interior would be filled with a nebula of course. Now, it works all the way it should, except for the fact that the surface of the planet becomes invisible when the nebula´s center is inside the planet´s radius. And I have absolutely no idea how to either resolve this, or find a workaround to the center-in-planet issue, for which I would have no clue. I already thought about soem kind of &quot;system jump&quot; via a buoy or so with that you jump inot a &quot;inside jupiter&quot; system filled with nebula, but the problem is, a planet 140k in diameter from outside would then be pretty much never-ending when you are inside, you see <img src=smilies/icon_smile_wink.gif width=15 height=15 border=0 align=middle> The third issue is not necessarily required to be resolved, but if anyone knows a way to dock on a jumpgate/jumphole/other object used as a jumpgate/hole from long range, like you select it on the map and hit dock, and then jump, would be cool, but I can live without that. Edited by - Mephistopheles on 1/30/2005 3:41:40 PM

    *UPDATE* With the help of ARGH, I have found a workaround for the mess with SPH texturing. You will be able to see properly textured planets (however, for some planets there is no perfect fitting texture available yet, so don´t wonder if any planet has parts very blurry for example, that´s because there is no better image data of that area on the real planet), that will behave in the HUD and while flying like a normal SPH planet. Here is a recent picture of jupiter: <A href=´http://img187.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img187&amp;image=screen378dh.jpg´ Target=_Blank><img src=´http://img187.exs.cx/img187/182/screen378dh.th.jpg ´></a> It does not look so great resolution-wise, I know. The texture image is already way larger than original FL planet textures, but the sheer size of Jupiter (~140k in diameter ingame, that is true 1:1000 scale) gives this result. Also, a teaser pic of the new navmap: <A href=´http://img187.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img187&amp;image=screen335zw.jpg´ Target=_Blank><img src=´http://img187.exs.cx/img187/2097/screen335zw.th.jpg ´></a> As you see there are no more &quot;star&quot; icons as you don´t jump between systems, but between sectors within the solar system. I might change the jump connection lines too (I´d like to get rid of them altogether), but this is what we got so far. Edited by - Mephistopheles on 2/2/2005 2:45:06 AM

    You could accomplish the &quot;long docking&quot; by increasing the docking sphere´s radius to really ridiculous sizes. I have no idea if this will undermine the mod´s stability though, as I have not experimented with sizes larger than 5000.

    I have already, because what you propose would be obvious. However, the ship would still fly to the DockPoints. And above ~9k, the voice says &quot;dock denied, destination is too far&quot; in this slight accent (the reason why I sometimes try this on purpose just to hear it <img src=smilies/icon_smile_big.gif width=15 height=15 border=0 align=middle>). Atm I have technically jumpgates, but instead of the gate around the jumptunnel there is a navsat close to it, so that you approach the sat and fly under it to enter the jumptunnel. I will keep it that way until there is a working solution ofr long distance docking or the &quot;jumpweapon&quot; that uses coords from a marked gate/hole. Edited by - Mephistopheles on 2/1/2005 2:27:47 PM

    Updaty, updaty. Ah, nice to have a photo-shooting tour through the solar system. The planets aren´t perfect yet, but close enough to being finished so that I will show more pictures. First, of course, good ol´ Earth: <A href=´http://img42.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img42&amp;image=earth2py.jpg´ Target=_Blank><img src=´http://img42.exs.cx/img42/1600/earth2py.th.jpg ´></a> Approaching the moon... <A href=´http://img42.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img42&amp;image=moon2bg.jpg´ Target=_Blank><img src=´http://img42.exs.cx/img42/9435/moon2bg.th.jpg ´></a> Here´s Venus, not much Aliens below the toxic clouds: <A href=´http://img42.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img42&amp;image=venus0fr.jpg´ Target=_Blank><img src=´http://img42.exs.cx/img42/3699/venus0fr.th.jpg ´></a> Mercury, a burning hell: <A href=´http://img42.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img42&amp;image=mercury9rl.jpg´ Target=_Blank><img src=´http://img42.exs.cx/img42/3408/mercury9rl.th.jpg ´></a> Mars, the Red Planet. You can even see Phobos and Deimos! <A href=´http://img42.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img42&amp;image=mars4gl.jpg´ Target=_Blank><img src=´http://img42.exs.cx/img42/8716/mars4gl.th.jpg ´></a> Jupiter. Too large for my camera. <img src=smilies/icon_smile_big.gif width=15 height=15 border=0 align=middle> Nah, I just like the perspective with Io in the foreground. <A href=´http://img42.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img42&amp;image=jupiter2vg.jpg´ Target=_Blank><img src=´http://img42.exs.cx/img42/2295/jupiter2vg.th.jpg ´></a> Saturn and one of its moons, Titan: <A href=´http://img42.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img42&amp;image=saturn9tv.jpg´ Target=_Blank><img src=´http://img42.exs.cx/img42/2117/saturn9tv.th.jpg ´></a> *Very* closeup with Saturn´s rings: <A href=´http://img42.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img42&amp;image=saturnrings4ud.jpg´ Target=_Blank><img src=´http://img42.exs.cx/img42/1265/saturnrings4ud.th.jpg ´></a> Uranus, my personal favourite. The planet is at this odd angle in reality, too. If you want to see the really good postcard views, you should board the Luxury Liner Shetland. <img src=smilies/icon_smile_wink.gif width=15 height=15 border=0 align=middle> <A href=´http://img42.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img42&amp;image=uranus0uj.jpg´ Target=_Blank><img src=´http://img42.exs.cx/img42/1593/uranus0uj.th.jpg ´></a> Neptune, quite similar to Saturn, just blue and a lot smaller. <A href=´http://img42.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img42&amp;image=neptune5pf.jpg´ Target=_Blank><img src=´http://img42.exs.cx/img42/4973/neptune5pf.th.jpg ´></a> Pluto. If there´s any place more dead than Mercury, it´s Pluto. <A href=´http://img42.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img42&amp;image=pluto4lm.jpg´ Target=_Blank><img src=´http://img42.exs.cx/img42/4583/pluto4lm.th.jpg ´></a> EDIT: OH NOES! Now looking at this gallery, I realized a mistake! Just look at Afrika and Madagaskar... Guess what, I made the spheres, turned them upside down so that up/down would fit in Freelancer. Now, I effectively got textures flipped right&lt;--&gt;left. <img src=smilies/icon_smile_big.gif width=15 height=15 border=0 align=middle> Not a big deal, I will just need to mirror the texture images and import them again into the 3db files. Hehe, I love utf_edit. Edited by - Mephistopheles on 2/1/2005 3:58:50 PM

    Update. I cannot tease you with pics of my latest breakthrough, as no picture can describe the actual experience. A very new feature in Freelancer is coming. Dynamic Asteroid fields. I am not talking about &quot;popping balloons&quot; with dynamic asteroid settings, no, definitely not. They are indestructible. Yes, exactly. I found how to make them either pop apart with one shot (for which I even made an explosion with fragments as debris object), or be indestructible. The code for this still needs tweaking, as shooting makes them spin very fast atm, but I think I can give them some angular drag to stop the spinning. EDIT: Hallelujah! What I got now is the coolest asteroid field ever seen in Freelancer. All the asteroids, I mean *all*, move, spin etc. by default, using the dynamic asteroid function. Now, I made it so when you shoot them, they do not explode. Instead, what you see is a little shake, the same asteroid is effectively created again, with some random rotation and spin. To reduce the spin (sometimes it was crazy) I added some angular drag to them, which make sthem stop spinning then after some time. Hopefully, when the TC is done, you will have no time wathcing them as Corsairs and other criminals will be luring in the asteroid belt... To summarize this: I now have a totally dynamic asteroid field without &quot;popping balloons&quot;, they are indestructible. There are drawbacks, but I think they are neglectible considering what improvement the dynamic field is above the stock asteroid fields! You can also still have the small minable asteroid if you wanted to, or let the asteroids produce something when you shoot them (like you shoot out a small bit). As for the limits of this function, the only limit is being set by the number of different asteroids in one field. I found that you can have up to 8 asteroids. Above that Freelancer seems to hang or lock itself up (only the taskmanager an patience could get me out of the never-ending loading screen). However, if you look at original asteroid fields, they often use less than 8 different models, so this is not a real problem. I will give the code away surely. But not atm. Maybe I will even wait until the first release of the mod, to make the feature rather unique, as building it into an existing mod does not require more than a day up to a week (depending on how many fields you have to change for that). Edited by - Mephistopheles on 2/2/2005 2:10:49 PM

    Well, I made the planets with custom 3DBs. For the sake of the Wireframe view in the contact list I added SPHs with no texture tht are the actual planets, and put the custom 3DBs around them, with visit=128 and the SPH object as its parent. It also has a nice effect, when you hover the cursor over a planet, it does not turn into the targetting cursor that says you can target something. Mkaes it probably easier to clikc on bases at long range in front of a planet.

    Oh... then I´m really not going to have a working sol sys mod anytime soon <img src=smilies/icon_smile_sad.gif width=15 height=15 border=0 align=middle> MS3D doesn´t work <img src=smilies/icon_smile_sad.gif width=15 height=15 border=0 align=middle>

    (Well, once the thing is done, you can always ask for some sphere meshes from me in true 1:1000 scale. <img src=smilies/icon_smile_big.gif width=15 height=15 border=0 align=middle>) Update: Made some verya nice eye-candy today to the gas giant rings, especially Uranus, where you can shoot Ice asteroids now that are the size of a small ship, not those tiny ones you see in vanilla FL. I also now got a scary long list of moons for the planets, covering several pages of paper... Good luck most of them are comparably small asteroids rather than real moons, so I will be using stock asteroid models again and again... Well, the basic prework for all the moons (the major moons, like the 4 Galilean ones, are already there, I made them together with the planets) is actually done, I have the rough data, and premade solararch entries, that just need to be filled again with the proper data. I suppose, if all works out as I hope, that I will be done with the scenery sometime next week. Then I will start building bases, which will probably take way longer than the planets, moons etc. Edited by - Mephistopheles on 2/3/2005 3:33:10 PM

    Update. Physical sector building has reach its final stage. The planets are set, the lighting in the systems is done (however the outter appearance of the sun needs some work, I am planning on making the effect totally out of dense sun-spines and place the sun 1 million k away from the center. The spines are ther only part of the star_archetype that is rendered at long distance...). Now I need to pull out 3D vector geometry from school to calculate the equator planes of the planets (since they are not straight upward, as in reality) to be able to properly place the moons, atm they just sit there in a long row. Besides, I have started to write down the first notes about the weaponry for later. Here´s what I got so far: Laser cannons: Generally, long range (up to 10k) and high velocity, reduced damage at increased energy usage. Particle cannons: Average. That pretty much somes it up, if you want the average between damage and range and speed etc. get particle blasters. Neutron blasters: As you are used to for vanilla FL, short range (&lt;1000m) and very energy-efficient at average damage. EMP devices: Shoots a medium to high ranged condensed electromagnetic pulse that explodes at contact and does average shield damage within a significant blast radius. Low refire rate. Electron cannons: A more concentrated shield-buster with increased damage and refire rate, but no splash. Ion cannons: Heavy shieldbusters that usually take out shields with one or two shots only, but require ammo to fire. Plasma cannons: High damage at average to low range but increased velocity. Uses ammo. Antimatter cannons: The most destructive weapons. Extreme impact and splash damage (whilst impact does more damage than the explosion around it), but ineffective against shields. Medium range and low velocity and refire rate, high energy usage. Uses ammo, too. The strongest versions will kill a light fighter in one single shot. The list does neither claim to be final or complete, of course. However, these kinds of weapons *will* be there in one or another form. <img src=smilies/icon_smile_wink.gif width=15 height=15 border=0 align=middle>

    Small update. I started with setting up the basics for the calculations. <img src=smilies/icon_smile_big.gif width=15 height=15 border=0 align=middle> I also wrote a <A href=´http://www.lancersreactor.org/t/forum/topic.asp?topic_id=37568&amp;forum_id=29&amp;Topic_Title=%2A%2A%2ATutorial%2A%2A%2A+Creating+dynamic+asteroid+fields&amp;forum_title=Freelancer+Editing+Tutorial+Forum&amp;cat_title=Freelancer+Editing&amp;M=False´ Target=_Blank>tutorial </a> about how to create dynamic asteroid fields of the kind I am using. People have shown interest in this and I know how it feels when you really want to know how somethign si doen and the other guy just refuses to tell you. <img src=smilies/icon_smile_wink.gif width=15 height=15 border=0 align=middle>

    This is truely some groundbreaking work. I salute you! <img src=smilies/icon_smile_big.gif width=15 height=15 border=0 align=middle> I look forward to your mod, and your dynamic asteroids look interesting. I´ve always wanted to input something like that in FL, but I´m not a very good system builder. <img src=smilies/icon_smile.gif width=15 height=15 border=0 align=middle> Will you been adding lots of details into your system, or will they be barebones? ie, just the planet and a few patrols. I also love your new nav map. Very nice looking and slick. <img src=smilies/icon_smile.gif width=15 height=15 border=0 align=middle> You got talent, good work. <img src=smilies/icon_smile.gif width=15 height=15 border=0 align=middle>

    Well, you can expect both. There will be vast areas of space to fly through with chances of scout encounters only, and there will be heavy combat areas etc. The good thing is, the gas giants have so many moons I don´t have to create locations out of nothing just to have something. <img src=smilies/icon_smile_wink.gif width=15 height=15 border=0 align=middle> As I said, this will not be another &quot;bare solar system&quot; mod. It will take place in the solar system, but you will not spend all your time looking at things. <img src=smilies/icon_smile_wink.gif width=15 height=15 border=0 align=middle>

    Good. <img src=smilies/icon_smile.gif width=15 height=15 border=0 align=middle> Cause so far it was sounding like that becasue all you were talking about was new asteroid dynamics and planets. <img src=smilies/icon_smile.gif width=15 height=15 border=0 align=middle>

    Because that´s what I am really building at the moment. But if you read the first post, ou will see there will be more. While building what I call the &quot;scenery&quot;, I am writing XML tables for weapon stats, faction lists with faction-specific features etc.