Posts by Argh

Hmm. My suggestion here: 1. Use MS3D´s CMP and SUR exporters to see what the CMP and SUR geometry look like now. You´re right- the CMP is probably sitting way over the origin, instead of being centered properly. 2. Move the mesh for the station downwards and closer to the position required. I´m assuming that you exported all of the textures in the MAT file to TARGA formats, so you´ll just need to check that all of the textures are placed right... and then re-export the corrected CMP. 3. If the imported SUR doesn´t in any way, shape or form resemble your CMP, then you´re in for all kinds of trouble. Go searching through the CMPs with HardCMP, and hit the S key to show the associated SURS. Find a SUR that´s a better match, and then copy-paste it to the Desktop. 4. Open the newly-exported CMP with FLModel Tool, and set its Radius and Bounding Box by hitting the Save button. 5. Open the SUR you selected with FLModel Tool, and resize it, using the new CMP as your reference. 6. With large objects, such as Stations and other Solars, it´s very wise to then re-import the resulting objects into MS3D (don´t bother with the textures this time, as you won´t need them), and check to see that FLModel Tool has sized your SUR appropriately. Some SURs will never, ever work for some CMPS- the closer the GEOMETRY matches the CMP, the better- do not worry about the SIZE. FLModel Tool does a good job matching the size, and when it doesn´t... pick another SUR. 7. Assuming that everything is now right with the object´s SUR and CMP, you can now put the Hardpoints back on. Keep your old version handy, so that you can match the Station´s Loadout with the Hardpoints, of course... or edit the Loadout to reflect the new Hardpoints... Basically, fixing large Solars is a time-consuming process, but it can be done. Good luck! Edited by - Argh on 11/9/2004 12:37:35 PM

Please correct this article, so that the information contained in it reflects the experimental results obtained (and replicatable by others, as I´ve made mini-mods to demonstrate my points) in the following article: <A href=´http://www.lancersreactor.org/t/forum/topic.asp?topic_id=35690&amp;forum_id=18&amp;Topic_Title=Freelancer+Physics%2C+2%2E0&amp;forum_title=Freelancer+General+Editing+Forum&amp;cat_title=Freelancer+Editing&amp;M=False´ Target=_Blank>Click here to view my Physics article.</a> Basically, this tutorial, while correct in some places, is still quite wrong in others. Sorry to be controversial, but the facts demonstrated in my article are quite clear.

For a more complete- in my opinion, but it´s backed up by mini-mods that demonstate all of the concepts- picture of how all of this works: <A href=´http://www.lancersreactor.org/t/forum/topic.asp?topic_id=35690&amp;forum_id=18&amp;Topic_Title=Freelancer+Physics%2C+2%2E0&amp;forum_title=Freelancer+General+Editing+Forum&amp;cat_title=Freelancer+Editing&amp;M=False´ Target=_Blank>Click here to view my Physics article.</a> Dev´s correct, but there is a nuance here. Basically, ships in the mod you´re playing are halting super-fast because the ship´s Linear_Drag has been tinkered with (I don´t suggest this to modders, for reasons that are clear if you understand what that Linear_Drag is for). What matters for slow/fast acceleration curves, as I showed in my article, is the relationship between Linear_Drag and Mass. So, for example... in the mod you´re talking about, if you want ships to slow down much more slowly on Engine_Kill events... simply up the ships´ Masses by 3. This will NOT change the top speed of the ships, as my article explained, but it WILL affect handling aspects of the ship, including true turning behavior. To see some pretty dramatic examples of this sort physics editing, download my mod, Warriors of the Sky, which you can find a download link for in the Mod Announcements forum. Edited by - Argh on 11/9/2004 12:05:47 PM Edited by - Argh on 11/9/2004 12:10:46 PM Edited by - Argh on 11/9/2004 1:48:48 PM

I´m just a relative newbie to FL modding, but in my mod I´ve been working on, I´ve run into some specialized issues that I´d like FL Explorer to handle properly. This is just a wishlist, of course... what you have works very well for more people, in most situations <img src=smilies/icon_smile.gif width=15 height=15 border=0 align=middle> 1. Please get patrol path editing working right. I´m sure that´s the #1 issue for most folks here. 2. Please make it possible to edit the Y positions of objects, instead of just the x, z. In my mod, for example, relative height is *extremely* important, and I´d love to have an editor that understands that. Right now, I do all of my editing by hand, because using FL Explorer isn´t satisfactory for this (no insult implied, guys, this is a nice tool if you´re not doing weird stuff like I am). 3. When making the final version of the text, it needs to put line-breaks back into the file before every [ symbol. It´s very confusing to look at the text without line-breaks. 4. When copying the settings from a given base to another base... it´d be super-sweet if it´d make a duplicated entry in mbases.ini that was correct down to the last Rumor. That would save a TON of time and painful hand-editing. I basically ended up hacking NY system for my mod, for example, because editing a new mbases.ini for my system was turning into such a royal pain in the rear... 5. It´d be nice to have a built-in tool for editing Rumor strings, setting the reward/difficulty for Missions. 6. I´d really love an Encounter editor that was less error-prone, which wasable to set up the appropriate strings for the arbitrary Faction placement (i.e., if I want Kusari Blood Dragons to show up in NY, it´d &quot;get that&quot<img src=smilies/icon_smile_wink.gif width=15 height=15 border=0 align=middle>, 7. Zone manipulation that made distinctions between types of Zone, such as Solar, Gate, Hole, Tradelane, Death, etc. 8. Last, but not least, in the current version under Windows XP SP2, trying to &quot;delete all systems&quot; results in a crash, every time. Please, fix this... it´d be a great boon for those of us who haven´t quite figured out how to fix the ShortestLegalPath and other information (for example, mbases again), which causes constant crashes in FL if not properly edited...

Hey Warzog... please, don´t take this the wrong way- this is meant as helpful information, not a critique: You *can* get things to quit disappearing when their centers aren´t on screen. Doing so requires some careful work with the SUR and CMP, though. I have absolutely HUGE objects in my mod that´re showing up just fine (among other things, I have a flattened cube that´s 200,000 units wide/long), and they show up whether or not players are pointing at their centers. I strongly suggest that you take a look at my mod, where I´ve been using Anton´s FLModel Tool and some careful SUR research to produce my results... believe me, I am now quite certain that no matter what the object is... no matter how large it is, you can get the SUR to act like you want it to. Check out Mod Announcements and download a copy of Warriors of the Sky... you´ll see that I´m not just talking smack <img src=smilies/icon_smile.gif width=15 height=15 border=0 align=middle>

New screenies up... if anybody´s downloaded the mod, please... give me some feedback <img src=smilies/icon_smile.gif width=15 height=15 border=0 align=middle>

I´ve gotten some islands working, and put into the mod! And fixed a few other minor things that were bugging me, while I was at it. I think the version that will get put up is this current version (I sent him a last-second message about this, which hopefully he got/read/understood), but you can download it directly from my website, by following the download link above. If you´ve already installed the mod, delete it, download the current version... enjoy the islands... buy yourself some cannons... and LIGHT THINGS ON FIRE... uh, I mean, &quot;play the game in a gentle and non-violent way&quot; <img src=smilies/icon_smile_wink.gif width=15 height=15 border=0 align=middle> BTW, as to the &quot;test server&quot; concept... if anybody wants to host one, that´s great, but the Alpha changes builds daily right now, and Beta is a very long way away, unless people come out of the woodwork and start making me models and skins, rewriting the nasty code that needs fixing, and other things. So an Alpha server would always be horribly out of date... I´m guessing it´ll be at least a month or three before Beta, as I only can do so much in one day here.

I guess I´m just stupid, but why is having to dock and bribe an official such a terrible thing? IRL, it costs money and time to get through Customs... you have to have a passport, which ain´t free, and you have to deal with Customs officials who check your vehicles out at the borders, at least here in the U.S. To me, it´s little touches like that that actually add a lot of reality to a game- sure, it´s annoying, but if the game designer is smart and savvy, he/she won´t design the game so that you´re crossing borders every ten minutes. The real problem with this idea is that if you did it with the FL universe set up in the silly way that it was done originally (which seemed, at least to me, to be designed primarily to waste players´ time as much as possible), then it´d get old fast- most of the halfway-decent trade routes take you through multiple &quot;nations&quot; with neutral/semi-hostile areas between them. In a smart and sexy SP mod, there would be plenty of reasonably-profitable routes within every nation´s borders. You´d cross national bounderies only for the following compelling gameplay reasons: 1. Because you wanted to see what was over there. This is assuming that in your smart and sexy mod, there´s a lot more to see and do than there was in the original game, which was, to be honest, pretty empty and lifeless, aside from random encounters and the occasionally spectacular scenery. 2. Because you could make the HUGE fortunes required to buy... whatever was important to buy, by risking a very dangerous trip through the neutral areas delivering whatever special technology/delicacy(don´t knock food, Europe conquered much of the world in search of spices)/illegal substance that could make you rich &quot;over there&quot;. There´d be the extra-special tensions generated by police scans... if you made that Faction´s police too angry, then the price of the &quot;customs bribe&quot; would get huge <img src=smilies/icon_smile_wink.gif width=15 height=15 border=0 align=middle> 3. Because you´re a wanted felon in the nation you just left <img src=smilies/icon_smile_wink.gif width=15 height=15 border=0 align=middle> Basically, I think this idea could be great, in a mod that finally &quot;got it&quot; about what was wrong with FL SP, imho: it isn´t about more &quot;uber ships&quot; and more &quot;uber guns&quot;... it´s about having a universe that doesn´t seem to be utterly lifeless and dead. For example, y´all know that you can use custom soundtracks for a given Zone, right? So how come I have yet to see a mod that has, for example, a Station or Planet with its own special soundtrack? For example... it´d be awesome to see a Space Diner floating above New York, with 50´s rock n´ roll and a bit of crowd noise mixed in playing as you approached the rows of parked (ok, either moored or placed) ships and landed. Darnit all, this makes me want to start working on my mod again, hehe... my mod helps me to gradually erase FL´s empty and boring universe, even though it´s probably still pretty opaque to everybody else thus far <img src=smilies/icon_smile.gif width=15 height=15 border=0 align=middle>

If you do a search, you´ll find the answer to this one pretty easily. There are threads up at the top (marked in red) that are there to help you, and this Forum has a search function... use it. Now that I´m done barking <img src=smilies/icon_smile_wink.gif width=15 height=15 border=0 align=middle> here´s an answer, because lord knows I pester people around here a lot, too <img src=smilies/icon_smile.gif width=15 height=15 border=0 align=middle> First, go get a copy of the Freelancer SDK 1.3, if you haven´t already. Open the following file: newcharacter.ini (it´s in the CHARACTERS folder). There, you´ll see a listing that looks something like this: <pre><font size=1 face=Courier> [Pilot nickname = trent body = trent comm = trent voice = trent_voice body.anim = Sc_MLBODY_STND_000LV_A_31 thumb = interfaceintroobjectsMULTI_blackdragonmale.3db comm.anim = Sc_comm_body_unfold_female, Sc_headCOM [Package nickname = ge_fighter strid_name = 11051 strid_desc = 11551 ship = ge_fighter loadout = MP_ge_fighter money = 20000000 [Faction nickname = new_player rep_group = co_ic_grp base = LI01_01_Base Package = ge_fighter Pilot = trent </font></pre> Simply change the two lines that say &quot;ship = ge_fighter&quot; and &quot;loadout = MP_ge_fighter&quot; to whatever is appropriate. For example, if you want starting players to have a Liberty Freighter as the starting ship, then change the lines to &quot;ship = li_freighter&quot; and &quot;loadout = co_li_freighter_loadout01&quot;. IMPORTANT NOTE: let´s say, for a minute, that you´re really trying to learn how to mod, and not just how to have an easier time playing SP through. If you´re working on a mod, then you don´t want to give players the &quot;co_li_freighter_loadout01&quot;, because (if you look in the loadouts.ini file, in the SHIPS folder) and look it up, you´ll see that Loadout was clearly intended for the AI to use- among other things, it has &quot;infinite_power&quot; listed as the engine. This means that this freighter, when flown by a competant human player, will have one heck of a lot of firepower, because it´ll never run out of energy for its weapons. To fix this problem is actually pretty easy, but it requires doing some copy-and-paste (don´t cut anything, or you´ll hose yer game, unless you really know what you´re doing, hehe): 1. Open up the file named Goods.ini (it´s in the EQUIPMENT folder). This file contains the default Loadouts of all the ships you can buy. Later on, you can try to tweak this in various ways- a lot of modders have made ships available as a &quot;package deal&quot; that also includes whatever the modders thought would be cool for the ship to have in terms of guns, shields, and so on. 2. Do a search for the following line: &quot;nickname = lfr_package&quot;. This is the &quot;package&quot; sold to players when they buy a Liberty Freighter normally. Obviously, this is probably what we´d want new players to start with, so we need to put this into the Loadouts.ini file. Let´s copy everything from [Good down to the line break. 3. Open up Loadouts.ini, and do a search for &quot;co_li_freighter_loadout01&quot; again. Now let´s write a new Loadout that we can assign to new players in MP. Since we copied the information that we needed in the previous step, we can just paste it below that Loadout (hit your Enter key to put another line break in there, so that you are sure to be editing the right block of text): <pre><font size=1 face=Courier> [Good nickname = lfr_package category = ship hull = lfr_hull addon = ge_lfr_engine_01, internal, 1 addon = li_freighter_power01, internal, 1 addon = ge_s_scanner_01, internal, 1 addon = ge_s_tractor_01, internal, 1 addon = contrail01, HpContrail01, 1 addon = contrail01, HpContrail02, 1 </font></pre> Obviously, this isn´t the same as the other entries in Loadouts.ini, but it looks really similar. To make it into a new Loadout, just change a few things, and you should end up with this: <pre><font size=1 face=Courier> [Good nickname = Multiplayer_Starter_Ship archetype = li_freighter equip = ge_lfr_engine_01, internal, 1 equip = li_freighter_power01, internal, 1 equip = ge_s_scanner_01, internal, 1 equip = ge_s_tractor_01, internal, 1 equip = contrail01, HpContrail01, 1 equip = contrail01, HpContrail02, 1 </font></pre> The &quot;archetype&quot; refers the ship´s Hull, which in turn refers to the model. It also works with the Shiparch.ini´s listing of the Hardpoints available on the ship, so that neither shop nor the larger game engine get confused about what objects should be attached to this ship, and what they do. Changing &quot;addon&quot; to &quot;equip&quot; basically just means that these things will already be mounted on the ship. Now, go back to newcharacter.ini, and change the lines to this: <pre><font size=1 face=Courier> ship = li_freighter loadout = Multiplayer_Starter_Ship </font></pre> ... and that´s all there is to it. Now your new players will get a free Liberty Freighter, that´s equipped with just the basics, and whatever starting money you specify (that´s in newcharacter.ini, too, if you didn´t notice in the example above).

I´ve now landed on Pittsburgh (that´s a rather long trip in my mod, so I hadn´t tried it yet), and the ship worked just fine, no matter what view it was at, and during the landings sequences. I NY, NY... you´ll see the ships for a few moments, and then they´ll disappear. Again, they´re acting fine in the mod in general, so whatever´s going on is kind of strange... What´s funny (kind of, anyway) is that both the bomber and the player´s starting fighter have this problem, but the Bloodhound replacement doesn´t. And all three of them are using DDS textures, of different resolutions (the bomber is 1024*1024, the other two are 512*512). As far as I can tell, there are zero significant differences between these three aircraft- they´ve all been assigned radii by FLModel Tool, they all have DDS textures which work fine everywhere EXCEPT for the landing sequence in NY, NY... and two out of three of them have this problem. Eventually, I´m removing the planets themselves from the mod... I haven´t gotten around to building the first islands yet, but they´re coming. But this isn´t a problem with the planet... it´s something about that CMP. I´m going to go take a long look at it and see what´s going on. I´d kinda like to keep NY, NY as a landing-site, y´know?

I´ve been using Anton´s FLModel Tool to set the radius, and it´s been working great... when I run FLAddRadius, it doesn´t return any different values when I re-open it with FLModel Tool... that said, I´ve been bugging Anton about clearly-erroneous radii settings (this came up in the context of creating the OCEAN.cmp that I use in my mod), and he said that this had to do with a bug in people´s assumptions about radii calculations that nobody had noticed until recently, so maybe I´m being affected by that. Other than Shiparch.ini, there aren´t any ship-specific LOD calls elsewhere in the game, right? I keep thinking that it´s gotta be something like a mis-set LOD... but since the models work perfectly at all ranges in the regular game and in the various shops, I keep wondering if it´s something weird about NY, NY...

If y´all would include the Invid and Robotech Masters stuff in your mod, that´d be awesome- I´d happily play in an Alpha Fighter against an Invid swarm <img src=smilies/icon_smile.gif width=15 height=15 border=0 align=middle> BTW, any shots of Glaug Pods or Officer´s Pods?

I think that the main problem with a Death Star is that it´s going to need lots and lots and LOTS of LODs built, if it´s going to be halfway-decent. I´d be happy to build you a single-LOD CMP of it... I mean, it´s not like the fully-built Death Star is very complicated to model (assuming that you keep within FL´s polycount requirements, of course). Skinning it would be a royal pain, of course- you´d have to use a pair of spherical projections for the top and bottom halves, and then deal with the trench and the main weapon dish. And since everybody knows what it looks like, it´d have to be a pretty big DDS... 1024/1024 or so, to get all the detail in. If anybody wants to skin a Death Star, I´ll be happy to make one, mesh it and make it available in OBJ format. I´m too busy working on new stuff for my mod to skin something that complex, though- it´d take hours to do a halfway-decent job <img src=smilies/icon_smile_tongue.gif width=15 height=15 border=0 align=middle>

You can start a server yourself, by using FLMM to start the FLServer application (click on the File Menu). Then, once you´ve got your game set up, simply log into your server. On my machine (which, granted, is an AMD 2800 with a gig of RAM) I´m able to run the server and client without any problems. I´ve been pretty careful to keep the new models around 5000+ polys, so they won´t lag you too badly <img src=smilies/icon_smile.gif width=15 height=15 border=0 align=middle> Now, some new screenies: <img src=´http://www.wolfegames.com/Freelancer/Islands.jpg ´> <img src=´http://www.wolfegames.com/Freelancer/BadGuys.jpg ´> <img src=´http://www.wolfegames.com/Freelancer/BombersAreDangerous.jpg ´> <img src=´http://www.wolfegames.com/Freelancer/Alpha2_Promo.jpg ´> <img src=´http://www.wolfegames.com/Freelancer/Alpha2_Promo2.jpg ´> <img src=´http://www.wolfegames.com/Freelancer/Alpha2_Promo3.jpg ´> Edited by - Argh on 11/12/2004 12:01:41 PM

@Slivik: Check out the latest version of the mod... I´ve just posted it up. More kewl stuff there (among other things, check out the physics implementations, based on my earlier research thread, as well the the vastly-improved AI behaviors), I

Hey Slivik... I´m going to release Alpha 2 of my mod today... please download it, I think you´ll find that I´ve included a bunch of solutions to certain things that you might find relevant to your mod. Among other things, I´ve developed invisible guns, which means any SW ships that have guns sticking out of their model can now have the shots emerging from the correct point, which would be cool <img src=smilies/icon_smile.gif width=15 height=15 border=0 align=middle> I´ve also done a ton of work on making guns with limited/no fire arcs work, which I think you may find useful for making the ships perform more like SW, and I´ve also done a few other interesting things with AI and gameplay.

There´s also a CameraEx (that´s &quot;camera, external&quot<img src=smilies/icon_smile_wink.gif width=15 height=15 border=0 align=middle> HP in the cmp file (or there should be one, if there isn´t), that is used to determine where this viewpoint is located. If you don´t see one, use HardCMP to put one in, at the same (Z, Y) points as the lines in Shiparch.ini...

Hehe, not in my mod, it ain´t <img src=smilies/icon_smile_wink.gif width=15 height=15 border=0 align=middle> Transports actually fight back, and even now, with weapons that are relatively weak, they do a surprisingly good job. Eventually, Transports will become Blimps, but that´s another story. Let´s just say that I think that in my little game universe, &quot;free lunches&quot; are more difficult to get. On the other hand, the fighters are a lot more deadly, too, so if you concentrate on a Transport, his escorts may get on your six and perforate you <img src=smilies/icon_smile.gif width=15 height=15 border=0 align=middle>

I eventually fixed this problem, in part by messing with the SUR file I was using and the FLModel Tool, whose developer has been kind enough to help me out with a few of the issues. The next Alpha release will show how I´ve implemented an &quot;ocean&quot; that´s 200,000 units in every direction... and aside from some pop-under (which is not the object´s fault, really- the FL engine draws Planets and Objects in a different order), it works beautifully. In the final mod, I won´t have any planets, so even that issue should go away

Wasabe, I got it... I even got Transports to quit being so passive <img src=smilies/icon_smile.gif width=15 height=15 border=0 align=middle> Picking a fight around New York as a pirate is bad for your health now, with the changes in the game right now... it´s actually exciting to be a pirate <img src=smilies/icon_smile.gif width=15 height=15 border=0 align=middle> Basically, I changed pilots_population.ini... almost everybody is rated as &quot;ace&quot; now, and the Freighter and Transport pilots have been given fighter-pilot Ace ratings. I´ve also carefully tweaked Freighter_Job and Transport_Job, which also factors into their passiveness... freighters which get attacked will chase you off for a short period, while fighter pilots will chase you 30K or more... which with the Xenos (who´re flying the only fully-modded ship in the game right now, the player´s starter ship)... gets super-exciting, because unlike in the original game, you can´t put Cruise on and leave them behind. Cruise causes the AI to give up the chase... using thrusters, you have to flee the whole distance listed for the Job before they´ll give up... and there´s nothing like being chased by 4 Xeno pilots who´re armed about as well as you are for 30K (at 430 KPH, over water that will smash you flat if you run into it) to get your pulse pounding. Man, I´ve never had this much fun playing FL... it´s not like &quot;uber-super mods&quot;, where you´re just getting aced by ships whose shields you can´t penetrate... you really feel like the AI is giving you a run for your money... you feel like an ace when you can actually win against 4 Xenos, trust me. Trust me, this is like nothing I´ve ever seen in a mod up ´til now... when firefights break out, every ship gets actively involved... and freighters with only a few turrets equipped in their Loadouts have become just as dangerous as the one flown by human players... it´s so cool to watch them dodging and trading shots with one another, and scary to watch a pair of Rhinos pour a wall of firepower at you... Now I´m going to get back to the Most Important Thing... replacing the Bloodhound with a suitable aircraft... and then I´ll release another Alpha. I´ve decided not to call it a Beta until all of the spacecraft that you normally see in NY have been replaced with appropriate aircraft... and then I can start worrying about the ships and hovercraft. I want to get some player feedback soon, though <img src=smilies/icon_smile.gif width=15 height=15 border=0 align=middle> Edited by - Argh on 11/6/2004 5:33:05 PM Edited by - Argh on 11/6/2004 5:34:39 PM