Ship Permissions Needed On A VERY LARGE Scale

    My friend Griffin Pyros asked me to make a post on TLR asking for everyone's help. He has recently been working on a massive TC-PVP mod for fun, but wants to publish it as well. That's where I'm asking on behalf of him for anyone who has created and published a ship to please grant us permissions to use it in a mod. To learn a little more about this mod, check here, and to post your permissions, please either reply to this post, or post it on our forum here. Any help is greatly appreciated. Thank you in advance.

    Is he looking for just "Fighters"? Or is he looking for various types.


    (I did post a link to my website, but many of the ships you'ld see there
    have been given major facelifts by myself)


    Might I suggest taking a look at Asylum51 in the 20 Years Later Mod section.

    Yeah, we're only asking so that it can eventually be released. If we don't get all the permissions from everyone then it's just going to be a personal lan thing with us and our close personal friends. I'm not trying to make this sound threatening in any way. We don't intend on stealing your hard work, but rather making a "Community Expansion Pack". Built by the community for the community so that everyone can see their work side by side together.


    The only thing that I am going to find sad about this project is the amount of people that I know will dislike this idea. When the final project was ready I would like to (if they agreed) have the creators look over their works and see them ballanced with weapon systems, engine drives, manuverabilety all as acurate to the real scifi ships from their universes along with the origenal content ballanced to compliment them with all the little neat features that we want to test and add.


    The FL-PVP Ultimate was not to make a name for myself by taking away from everyone else but to find a way to give back to everyone else for all the amazing work they did. Kind of as a monument to Freelancer and it's community, as spread across the net as they are. TRL may not be as strong as it used to be, but there are still new people coming to the game and they should be able to see the true wonder that is Freelancers fanbase. I'm hoping that we can get all the permissions, and even a helping hand to see more and newer models, ideas and aspects to add to the future of Freelancer.

    I had been working on a mod for the past 2 years. Primarily doing all the work which includes designing and building my own ships.
    I've requested help before in building this but nobody was really interested.
    You can ask Glock36 about my works. He's seen the ships and used a few of them in his last two mods. You can ask a few of the people who have recently played a teaser release as to what they thought AND that involved only two new systems.
    My works are NOT scripted. They are CODED BY HAND.
    My ships are very detailed, low poly and top class.
    It seems every fascinated soul who has learned that FL can be modded, wants to become a modder and just have everybody jump on their band-wagon.
    It seems to me, a lot of people do just that.
    I've worked countless hours from the very beginings. Since the first stage
    development of my first fighter all the way up to three back breaking "back to the drawing board" restarts on the mod because I asked for help to identify and fix certain problems. NOBODY and I mean NOBODY has been able to identify the problem that's been repeating. They're doing plenty of guesswork but that sure hasn't helped me get any closer to releasing this mod and has forced me to start from scratch at least three times because of it.
    I ask for a simple hash code translation and I get the runaround about where to download some tool that turns out to be a worthless p.o.s. (I had to do a complete hard drive format because of one of them totally screwed my system just like a virus) or a lecture that I should "learn to do it myself". Well, BY GOD, I've been doing in myself and I'm getting pretty darned good at it.
    However, I've helped other people build up their works including letting them add my developments. Then seen the very same people abandon their mod
    projects at some point for various sundry reasons. So, there went my hard earned works to the trash because someone didn't have enough appreciation to finish the blasted job they started out to do. I've also given up my own personal time to assist them and let my own works slide, not anymore. During the latent stages of this development, somebody wants to start building a system for their "CLAN" so I can just drop it into my mod for them and they don't have a clue how to do it.
    This is what I say: HORSE PUCKY.
    I've offered my creations to others who were looking for new additions, but they apparently prefered contemporary popular TV series and Movie Themed
    ships. Freelancer ain't about Babylon 5, Star Trek, Battlestar Galactica, Halo, Serenity, Gundam Wing, blah blah blah. The bad boys are the nomads, plain and simple.
    My works are unique and uniquely Freelancer and I prefer to keep them that way.
    I'm certain you'll start getting offers. All sorts of them. But you better take a look at what your getting with a fine tooth comb. You're going to need.....
    REQUIRE a quality control expert to sift the good stuff from the trash.


    On a personal note, I wish you the best of luck. You're gonna need it.
    You get your "mod" at least 95% completed (that's fair since I've gotten to 99% just before release when I started having a server hang and crash).
    Get that far and then talk to me.

    Oh wow, that sucks, 3 restarts? Yeah, I know where you're coming from. I've been Beta Testing for Warzone 2200 and we've had alot of cool ideas that we've tryed to implement but we kept them back due to trying to keep it simple so that we can get all the bugs cleaned up.


    I realy don't expect to see much help on the FL-PVP Ultimate project, seeing as it's my own side thing that I'm doing as a training ground for our main project. Alot of what we want to add to that one will probably run through FL-PVP just to see how it holds up under that preasure. I just did a complete system reformat and am running on a clean windows install, so that will help alot (and performance wise, it has already) along withanyone new to the team will be able to use FL-PVP as "Basic Training" to see what we're doing. Though alot of what's going into the main mod/tc will undoubtably be origenal works and very little if any Vanilla. The use of existing Scifi is great, but only for a mod addon. So unless it's a Total Conversion or Total continuation of the origenal Freelancer base, anything is fare game. After all, that's all it is, a game. I do take it seriously, but I'm not going to let it run my life, nor am I implying that is the case with anyone viewing this post. I have however run into the occasional hardcore that is completely closed minded on the subject of modding. And they are addicted to a specific mod. No names.


    I would like to get the permissions if anything though, just so when we are done with FL-PVP Ultimate then we can release it for everyone to just have fun, without having to pick it appart. And if anyone is worried about the material being tampered with we can heavily encode everything so it's not "easy" for them to get at it.


    Thankyou again for all the amazing work you all have put into making Freelancer what it is already.

    Rankor
    Is that really fare to the community? Just because you don't like what someone is doing doesn't mean that you should turn the other way. I've helped a lot of projects myself that were all abandoned for unknown reasons, and I can admit I understand where you're coming from, but like me, you can at least take a look at the mod and decide if you feel you should allow permissions to your files. That's all he's really asking. Not for your help to do this.


    Like you, I was always told to learn to do it myself, but how do you learn if no one will show you? I learned by sitting back and watching everyone else on the old TLR, but now I just tell anyone who wants to IM me, please do as I will help them to the fullest extent, as long as it's not me doing it for them. Take my Static Gateway for instance; do you know how many people want it for their mods? They don't care to figure it out from what I've said, and only ONE mod have I actually turned it over to. Even Griff's mod I'm not doing for him. I know it sounds stupid, but we decided that was his own project, and if he needed help, I would help him, but otherwise he figures it out. It's great and all that you're willing to help, whatever that may be, but I don't see why it's so bad to allow permissions to use your ships, when it's something he couldn't (legally) make the exact same of.

    Quote from "Rankor"


    My works are NOT scripted. They are CODED BY HAND.


    With respect Rankor, it doesn't matter if you code a ship into a dll or script it, coding it into a dll doen't make it any better, its just a way for the game to access the information, nothing more. You're implying that coding it is somehow superior which it's not. Coding or scripting are just two distinct ways to put ships into the game.

    no disrespect intended. I've discovered that scripting ships tends to
    generate a lot of ids names and ids info's for the same ship for different players. When you have a lot of scripted ships and a lot of players, you end up with way too many files for the same ships. Basically, it boggs it down eventually with excessive files.
    Scripting always generates a brand new set of ids numbers even for the same ship. This adds up to problems because it's not consistent. I've seen this for myself. I've experienced it with other big conversion mods that used scripting for new ships or replacing existing ships.
    Coding them in by hand guarantees that every ship used has it's own specific, consistent ids name & info regardless of how many players use the ship.


    However, scripting is a useful tool when it comes to testing a new
    development when you want a set of numbers generated quickly that
    allows you to test the ship (or equipment for that matter) in a Single player
    or open single player environment. But, That's just my opinion.


    The ids name & info is selectively entered into the respective .dll's
    using the ids editor. (nameresources.dll, infotext.dll, infotext2.dll)

    Quote from "Alfa Astrix"

    how do you put code it into a .dll?


    We're not talking about putting code into a dll (bangs head on desk) but coding a dll, its the process of adding information to the dll of your choice. You know exactly what we're discussing here alfa.


    @ Rankor


    You're right about the different numbers being generated but its not something i've ever percieved as an issue. I know there are certain things you can't script, like character names on bases for example, least not if you're doing hundreds of them, those definately need to be stuck in a dll. There are a number of mods out there, mine included where the bulk of the custom code is scripted without any after effects but i can see why you and many others prefer to do do it the other way

    Quote

    When you have a lot of scripted ships and a lot of players, you end up with way too many files for the same ships. Basically, it boggs it down eventually with excessive files.


    lolwut?


    This does not make any sense however I try to interpret it.

    Quote from "w0dk4"

    lolwut?


    This does not make any sense however I try to interpret it.



    Okay.
    Run a server with mostly scripted ships, you'll see it more clearly
    in your files. After a few days, tell me if your server does not crash because of
    ids collisions. OR that players aren't getting kicked (or banned) for
    unexplainable reasons.

    Nope, simply doesn't happen. I can use my mod as a good example of this as ALL my ships are scripted, ALL my weapons are scripted and so on. My server is solid as a rock and none of what you describe happens. Not sure where you've been seeing these problems but i don't that's for sure.


    To clarify the IDS situation, FL generates the numbers once it has loaded the script into FL. These DO NOT change once generated whatever you may think. If the script is done properly then you won't have issues, and certainly no extra files are written for ships for instance, not sure where you get that from.


    What DOES cause problems however, is when you add a ship or base, do an update on the server and a player turns up with a previous version of the mod, that can cause havoc with the wrong ships appearing, wrong IDS numbers being generated and i suspect this is what you have been experiencing in the past.


    As i mentioned before, both methods work if done properly, scripting and hard coding, but i wouldn't put people off doing things by scripts as its a perfectly legitimate way of adding objects and will cause none of the situations you seem to have experienced. Something else will have caused that.

    Well Gibbon, what you just said describes the experiences I've had in previous years before I decided to learn how to code.


    When a player deactivates their mod, then activates another to play on
    a different server for example.
    The #1 reason why most all servers require a "clean install".
    (btw, has anybody ever posted an explanation why a clean install is required?)
    The big problem exists because most average players will go from one server
    to another without knowing the consequences.
    Their FL files become clogged up with leftovers from other mods which is
    primarily the ships, equipment, systems and bases (even IF they restore
    backups). Granted, the scripts themselves are removed when the mod
    is deactivated.
    However, the player decides that server "A" was better and returns. They
    activate their mod (or try to activate it). The mod won't activate or worse,
    they go to the server but start crashing when they try to launch or are kicked
    from the server for reasons they don't understand.

    Well, that's very interesting. But anyway, I hope we can get back to the topic of the thread. I realy hope we can get the ship permissions so that everyone gets to play it.

    Alright, sofar this closed project is coming along nicely. 1000+ ships in the shiparch and it's about have done. Slowly weeding out the many duplicates, rearanging the files, pointing them all to the right directories, Setting new IDS Names/Tags, and all the extra ship nessisary scripts, like weapon systems, new equipment models, loadouts, all those fun ini's.


    We're expecting this to push the engine alot harder than what has already been done. FL-PVP Ult is the testing ground for much of what we intend to put in our primary mod and future project.


    And again, we're asking for permission from the comunity to release this behemoth when we've finished experimenting on it. We hope that everyone will get to play with us when the time comes, and ask questions. We'd love to help out anyone who might need that little bit of information on something that they are trying to build. We don't have all the answer, hell we don't even have half of them, but we'll gladly pass on what we know when the time is right.