Freelancer porting of Wing Commander ships

[L.I.F.]

those Dragon fighters looks dangerous, I think I'll replay Freelancer, it's been some time, now with Wing Commander ships

That's the entire idea behind the project. Right now, BTW, I'm changing the various descriptions for the ships to fit the CIC archives.

EDIT: all ships got their infocards modified to fit their new appearance. Next step will be working on guns and turrets.

EDIT 2: I've managed to work DefianceIndustries' textures for the Tarsus in the game in a better way than in the initial integration, so that you can enjoy his ship properly in the files now (October 6th onwards).

 

[Panther1.0]

looks great, the ship makes it feel more like 'starting from scratch' building up towards bigger things, looks so huge ! I like it

 

[L.I.F.]

@gevatter Lars Now you know why your team did so much work for the inside of Saga's carriers. :-D

Note to self, I will have to make these hangars a tad bigger to have the fighter bays fit the fighters as well.

 

[Panther1.0]

looking fantastic !

I played first few levels, ,man I can't aim, I'm playing with the mouse, takes me ages to destroy an enemy, am I doing something wrong ? I tried varying my attack speed but it seem so hard, darn, the gameplay is very different from any Wing Commander. I'll have to get some missiles...gosh !

 

[L.I.F.]

looking fantastic !

I played first few levels, ,man I can't aim, I'm playing with the mouse, takes me ages to destroy an enemy, am I doing something wrong ? I tried varying my attack speed but it seem so hard, darn, the gameplay is very different from any Wing Commander. I'll have to get some missiles...gosh !

XD

OK, which ship are you using and in which part did you have the issues (so that I can see by myself)? FYI, your guns now have a much smaller field of movement, -5/+5 degrees around their axis, so you really need to point your ship at the aiming point rather than in vanilla Freelancer, which should be the only difference. I'll check, though.

 

[Panther1.0]

if feels that the aiming is to slow, even the target assist does not catch up with the moving, I can mostly hit the target coming straight ahead towards me or when flying away, not when escaping left or right.

 

[L.I.F.]

if feels that the aiming is to slow, even the target assist does not catch up with the moving, I can mostly hit the target coming straight ahead towards me or when flying away, not when escaping left or right.

Are you pointing the ship towards the cross, AKA the targeting point rather than the enemy ship itself? It's pretty different from base FL, though I guess I could see if an agility increase would help, particularly as you're most likely to be flying the Tarsus. If you want to check it by yourself, go to \DATA\SHIPS\ and open shiparch.ini with a text editor.

When you're in it, have it replace all over the file "max_bank_angle = 15" with "max_bank_angle = 90" and tell me how it works out for you.

EDIT: the next update will have all ships using the 90° banking angle for testing, and both the Lexington and Confederation class carriers will have modified hangar decks.

 

[L.I.F.]

@Panther1.0

I've played a bit more one of the early missions, and I gotta say you're probably right, I will try increasing the default field of fire to 10° and see how it goes. One of my plans is also to increase quite a lot the firepower of missiles to make them pretty dangerous early on, though not to the level of IV. In the meantime, let's see how the new environments hold in the game's cutscenes:

Commander Zane with two Navy armsmen onboard a Lexington-class heavy carrier, taking charge of the prisoner caught by Trent. It's not a FMV cutscene, but I dare claim it holds out pretty well overall.

Pictured above: Dexter Hovis and Edison Trent chatting about professor Quintaine's whereabouts on the flight deck of abandoned Confederation-class carrier Hood.

 

[DefianceIndustries]

Darn it, now I have to find my copy of freelancer...in my storage space...somewhere

 

[L.I.F.]

Darn it, now I have to find my copy of freelancer...in my storage space...somewhere

:-D

Told you so! Oh, and as said on Discord I'll probably update the mod again to get your Intrepid as the Osiris, since we're going to have a couple of cutscenes on-board near the end of the game.

 

[Panther1.0]

Thanks I will, I managed to beat level 2, maybe just me, long time no play, need to get into it.

At least I got the wide-screen and resolution fixed, ships look gorgeous now, looks like a new game 😉

 

[L.I.F.]

Thanks I will, I managed to beat level 2, maybe just me, long time no play, need to get into it.

There was a bit of a frustrating issue with 5°, which seems to be gone with 10° while you still have to maneuver to get a shot.

At least I got the wide-screen and resolution fixed, ships look gorgeous now, looks like a new game 😉

Link to the current version with the 10° fix, the first two hangars and the such: https://www.dropbox.com/s/z3xd8tc3yo70o6n/Mod Wing Commander.zip?dl=0

The link was updated in the OP and the posts with Dropbox links, and I've set it up so that it shouldn't change from now on, simplifying the downloads.

 

[gevatter Lars]

Very well done. Ships look good, the hangar are a nice addition and about the cutscene. You could say that is wanted to look like that ^_^
I remember a animated movie where they went with the approach that the characters looked cartoony and the further back objects where the more "real" they where looking....also real was limited by design and tech at the time.

Again, very well done.

 

[L.I.F.]

Very well done. Ships look good, the hangar are a nice addition and about the cutscene. You could say that is wanted to look like that ^_^
I remember a animated movie where they went with the approach that the characters looked cartoony and the further back objects where the more "real" they where looking....also real was limited by design and tech at the time.

Again, very well done.

Thanks! By the way, has anyone from Saga made half a dozen bar scenes, including Kilrathi ones? :-D

Kidding, I know I'm gonna have to improvise quite a bit for these, which will make things interesting.

 

[Panther1.0]

@Panther1.0

I've played a bit more one of the early missions, and I gotta say you're probably right, I will try increasing the default field of fire to 10° and see how it goes. One of my plans is also to increase quite a lot the firepower of missiles to make them pretty dangerous early on, though not to the level of IV. In the meantime, let's see how the new environments hold in the game's cutscenes:



Commander Zane with two Navy armsmen onboard a Lexington-class heavy carrier, taking charge of the prisoner caught by Trent. It's not a FMV cutscene, but I dare claim it holds out pretty well overall.

glad i could be of a little help !

 

[L.I.F.]

glad i could be of a little help !

It's a beta, and all reports help, particularly when it comes to gameplay.

 

[gevatter Lars]

Nope, no bar scenes ^_^
Only things of the interrior I did was the briefing room, mainhall and a Kilrathi bridge for a small destroyer but it was never finished because it wasn't used.

 

[L.I.F.]

Nope, no bar scenes ^_^
Only things of the interrior I did was the briefing room, mainhall and a Kilrathi bridge for a small destroyer but it was never finished because it wasn't used.

... I'm curious now. The way Freelancer uses its interior assets is directed by fixed camera angles, so a bit or coding can make partial meshes look complete.

 

[gevatter Lars]

None of the stuff was made for ingame use. To many polys and very....inefficiently made. They where more or less static background images so we rendered them once and where done.

 

[L.I.F.]

None of the stuff was made for ingame use. To many polys and very....inefficiently made. They where more or less static background images so we rendered them once and where done.

Are you telling me you don't have a 16K-textured full interior of each and every carrier, with animatronic kittens and volumetric whiskers?

*is disappointed*

:-P