Freelancer porting of Wing Commander ships

I have no idea how to capture a video from a game, I have never uploaded a video online and I have no Youtube account nor any intent to get any - I'm not on any social media besides LinkedIn, which I do not use besides updating my resume anyway. And, TBH, there isn't much to show off in terms of new mechanics. What I'm working on is pretty much behind the scenes for the game, a LOT of coding to get tons of new equipment ingame and allow Privateer-level ship customisation.

Even if there aren't new mechanics, people still like to see videos. They're like screenshots in motion. A couple of top Google searches on how to record gameplay footage on PC produce decent results. We can post videos here at the CIC.
 
Fraps comes to my mind, I think Nvidia and AMD also offer some recording software and then there are others. Some are also free.
I also agree with Chris, people love videos.
 
I might try to get a shot at it, but that still is pretty low priority compared to making the new stuff work properly and be relatively balanced. Combine this with a critical oral exam coming in less than two weeks and I don't think I'll start learning how to use such capture tools before November at the very earliest. As for voiceover in the vids, that's a big nope, the massive accent would be frightening viewers.
 
I thought he would be like Scotty.
- Captain that takes 36 hours
- Scotty we need it in 12
- Okay I will do it in 10
Now I do appreciate the comparison, but usually, miracles take me one week or two, and I'm currently busy performing one IRL. :-P
 
Argh, next step finished. I've managed to get all the in-game shops to sell the goods according to my logic:

1572784732847.png


1572785491769.png


33 thousand lines of shop references. I'd be dead without scripting. Experimenting now with flight dynamics, and balance. I'm probably going to buff the storage volume of the fighters to allow more freedom of experimentation as well as carrying acceptable amounts of cargo, but at the moment, it seems kinda nice. If this holds, I'll go with the next step, to change the loadout of the various NPCs. If it works, I'll add some more diversity to the random missions - I want to add capship attack ones. Though I guess it's coming close to a new release.

EDIT: I'm now modifying the loadouts for the NPC ships. Amusingly, the Liberty and Rheinland elite fighters, respectively the Hellcat and the Excalibur each make roughly 10 % of the total size of the file, given how often they are featured in the campaign. I'm halfway done, with some tests here and there to verify the correct working of the file. On another note, the Excalibur featured in the first mission are now fitted will full military gear, and it was terrifying to see them tear into the Order's Lance fighters, which did not have the new equipment. This scene is definitely going to be a heavyweights' fight that the player should carefuly steer away from when any of the fighters can annihilate them with one burst.

It also means that the endgame Excalibur enemies are going to be monsters to fight. As they very well should be with four military grade tachyon cannons and two similar anti-shield pulse guns, combined with antimatter power and superior shields.
 

Attachments

  • 1572784760391.png
    1572784760391.png
    168.4 KB · Views: 109
Last edited:
Nice work L.I.F. seems you were quite busy lately !
Yep! I'm taking out various gameplay bugs, but it really looks increasingly good now. Combat during the early game is likely to be a tad frustrating and will rely on you making trade rather than killing all pirates within five parsecs (you really, really aren't going to best a flight of Lance with your busted Tarsus and its two civilian-grade laser cannons), but since you get gifted a Tarsus and a pretty decent shield at start... and are already friendly with the Liberty authorities, there's a pretty good base upon which to build - though I might reduce the level of appreciation you get at the beginning for the Liberty Police and Security Force, because the game puts you on an absurdly high relation with them.

I've checked, a Tarsus with heavy equipment will get between 45 and 250 mps depending on the equipment, which feels pretty fair. Overall? I might post a Beta in a few hours if it goes well.

EDIT: keep in mind that if I actually do so, it will be playable but incomplete, I still need to get the missiles reworked, normally with Dumbfire, Javelin, IMREC and FoF with specific seeker angles. After that, probably see how to integrate glow textures on DI's models. Perhaps some stations, though I'm unsure I'll be able to pull it properly with the diversity required. Beyond that? I'd probably need WC models for characters and planetside/station scenes. XD
 
Last edited:
OK, so here is the link to the Beta of the new version of the mod with equipment rework. Right now, I do not make ironclad guarantees, but a few tests show that it seems to work as intended, though values for thrust, power, volume, etc., are not set in stone since I did not test all combinations. Therefore, I'd appreciate it if you people could find ways of getting totally broken ships. Also, the thrusters are not working as intended, not producing the kind of thrust/energy consumption I'd want for a final version. For this reason, the current stable version of the mod, with FL vanilla equipment, is still available at the usual link.

Beta version link: https://www.dropbox.com/s/xv5rdmci27kezyu/Freelancer WC Mod v2.zip?dl=0

Right now, though? I'm working on missiles (NOT included at the time of this post they're in, now). Five models of missiles, with five levels of lethality each - which tend to improve soft and hard parameters such as burn time, acceleration capability of the engine, missile life time, seeker cone, seeker range, damage and agility.

Dumbfire: it has medium-high acceleration with a long duration for its rocket engine, combined with very high damage. Anything smaller than an Excalibur or an Avenger will die in one shot from the civilian variant of the rocket if hit unshielded. There, you are warned. The military variant will one-shoot anything without shield it hits, period.

Javelin: it has a small delay before engine activation, a medium acceleration and medium duration for it, with high damage. All light and medium fighters will be one-shot by an unshielded hit from police-grade onwards (pirate and military). It has decent agility but a small seeker cone.

IMREC: your bread and butter, very short burn time, highest acceleration and long range, a sniper missile that does medium damage and enjoys a pretty large seeker cone - roughly your field of vision.

Friend or Foe: a melee weapon par excellence, medium burn time, low acceleration, it however has a maximum seeker sphere and high agility but low-medium damage.

Leech: small burn time, medium-low acceleration, it has a slightly smaller seeker cone than the IMREC and does extreme shield damage. If you can combine it with other missiles, the one-two punch is usually terminal for any target.



MissileSmallest surviving craft (civilian missile)Smallest surviving craft (military missile)
DumbfireBloodfang/ExcaliburNONE
JavelinEpeeNONE (some Tarsus can survive)
IMRECFerretExcalibur
FoFFerretThunderbolt
LeechN/AN/A
EDIT: the missiles are included now for testing.


EDIT 2: I'm now working on early implementation of corvettes and capital ships in random missions, I'll have to learn the whole structure, but a quick and dirty proof of concept was successful, so in time, it should be possible to get random missions involving bombing a destroyer/cruiser with its corvettes escorts.

1572997944443.png

1572997974263.png


So, here you can see the quick and dirty test, showing that it's possible to have some of the installation destruction random missions be reconfigured to have the mod's capital ships as fixed targets (I've managed to replace fighters in a mission with moving corvettes as well, so I imagine dynamic capital ships should be doable as well). This offers some pretty interesting possibilities, in particular for including more of the capital ships I have in store.
 
Last edited:
Will the full 2.0 release include the nomads being replaced with the bugs from prophecy?

EDIT: Installed the beta but when I try to run the game it will CTD after going through the intro
 
Last edited:
Will the full 2.0 release include the nomads being replaced with the bugs from prophecy?

EDIT: Installed the beta but when I try to run the game it will CTD after going through the intro
CTD? Means I must have forgotten a file or two. Grunt, gonna recheck when I get back home, either in one or eight hours. As for the Nephilim, not until their models get released for general use - they're currently associated with the MUP, and are less of a priority considering how the Nomad are alien-looking already?
 
CTD? Means I must have forgotten a file or two. Grunt, gonna recheck when I get back home, either in one or eight hours. As for the Nephilim, not until their models get released for general use - they're currently associated with the MUP, and are less of a priority considering how the Nomad are alien-looking already?

By no means am I saying the nomad-bug conversion should be priority 1. Just asking :)
 
By no means am I saying the nomad-bug conversion should be priority 1. Just asking :)
It's planned as an ideal result, but pretty secondary overall, particularly as the Nomad are present only in the storyline* and the Nephilim models are currently designed as part of another project - in contrast to some of the models which were made specifically for Flag Commander or for Saga which was released a decade ago.

Anyway, I guess I should have a corrected version in a couple of hours tops. X_X

* and in a couple of very remote places in the open-ended universe.

EDIT: I think I located and eliminated the issue, it worked when I unpacked the .zip in a vanilla install of mine.
 
Last edited:
Hate to say this but I found another CTD. It happened right after I got off planet during mission 1. Specifically after the Rheinland cruiser does its flyby towards the camera. Just before it would communicate with Newark
 
Hate to say this but I found another CTD. It happened right after I got off planet during mission 1. Specifically after the Rheinland cruiser does its flyby towards the camera. Just before it would communicate with Newark
Huh. I'll try to reproduce it and will see what could have caused the issue. Thanks!

EDIT: OK, excellent news, I could reproduce the CTD, so I'll be able to work on it.

EDIT 2: located the file that caused the CTD, now to pinpoint the part of it that is an issue.
 
Last edited:
@NextYearInKilrah The scene is fixed. You can either download the entire mod again (I replaced the file there), or simply the file attached to this post. Change its type to .ini (you want to have loadouts.ini rather than loadouts.txt) and put it into \FREELANCER\DATA\SHIPS\ replacing the current one.
 

Attachments

  • loadouts.txt
    327.7 KB · Views: 133
Yet another CTD...after mission 1 is complete I try to land on Pitt, boom. Tried it a 2nd time but no luck. Then I tried going to other places to visit (I will definitely do heavy trading before tackling missions) via the lanes, and boom. I would try going through the debris field, but this CTD seems to happen when the mission is over and you travel to Pitt
 
Yet another CTD...after mission 1 is complete I try to land on Pitt, boom. Tried it a 2nd time but no luck. Then I tried going to other places to visit (I will definitely do heavy trading before tackling missions) via the lanes, and boom. I would try going through the debris field, but this CTD seems to happen when the mission is over and you travel to Pitt
XD

OK... I guess there must be some kind of issue with mission-related ships and their loadouts. Wait a sec... did you test the mission when I added the new guns/engines etc. but before I added the missiles? If you did so, then it'd help me locate the problem.
 
XD

OK... I guess there must be some kind of issue with mission-related ships and their loadouts. Wait a sec... did you test the mission when I added the new guns/engines etc. but before I added the missiles? If you did so, then it'd help me locate the problem.

Possibly? I remember seeing the excaliburs and hellcats using them when the black lances showed up. I had none of them on my ship though
 
Back
Top