Original Addon

Revelation

Spaceman
I would like to propose an add on for 'The Reckoning' which is just a complete remake of Privateer for Freelancer. THe original story plus possibly righteous fire.

an add on for the righteous mod that contains the following features for freelancer:

* Stiltek story line
* Autopilot mode
* landing sequences
* privateer music
* on planet locations
* Privateer comodities and weapon / shield / part upgrade
* cockpit view
* removal of freelancer tunnel thingies

and designed not so much as a mod but a total conversion with a virtually complete art replacement.

What do ya think?
 
* get all the speech from Privateer and use it on the mod
* better yet, record new lines
* re-draw all the interiors and planets to match the WC universe
* new skins based on Privateer
* sell maps so we don't have to map everything manually

Are the Stiltek the evil twin race of the Steltek?

And I think you should *definitively* include the Mantu.
 
heheh, that's what I've been wanting, but 1st off, no storyline modding tools have been made yet for freelancer. 2nd, from what I can tell this mod is just a replacement of old freelancer ships with wing commander ships, not really a remake of privateer. I wouda liked to have seen all the original systems be made, but I understand that would make it be either a multiplayer only mod, or a after story single player mod cause if the original systems were taken out, couldn't do the FL story.

Autopilot? Lol, that's what "goto" is :)

Landing sequences? Not sure bout what you mean, but you can't make new animations, only reuse older ones in different ways.

Other ones are possible, just takes awhile to make new cockpits or planet surface views. No direct exporter to the 3db file type, you have to manually place everything in the utf editor after extracting vmeshdata from the cmp file.
 
Okay, firstly, "Stiltek" / "Steltek". Whatever. If my computer could run something as old as Privateer I would be pushing for this a little less.

secondly 'goto' is not Autopilot, or atleast not in the form that I want it. Autopilot, if you have ever played Wing Commander before, involves a fly-by and a significant jump in the time before you press "a" and reaching your destination.

Landing sequences reference a few different things. In privateer, prerendered ships arced in towards planets. In Freelancer, 3D ships landed on real-time rendered 3D planets. I am thinking of a hybrid between the two. 3D realtime rendered ships landing on realtime rendered 3D space stations and planets. Statements like "can't make new animations" don't particularly interest me. All we have is a nasty little Direct-X program. Direct-X programs typically have animations in them. Thus, if you put two and two together, if you have a direct-X program, and an animation, you can merge the two. Just because it may not have been done before, doesn't mean it can't be done now. The game obviously has the ability to run real time animations. If the single player mode can do it, I believe we can as well, unless Microsoft has put in some specific coding to prevent story and animation replacement... which I doubt that they have.

Its true, I haven't touched a game mod in a while, and I have no idea how to convert 3DS MAX models to game models, but I have worked as a professional 3D animator for a number of years, and I am a computer systems engineer. I doubt there is really a problem here, just a lack of having tried.
 
You really think it's that easy hmmm :rolleyes:

Stuff like autopilots are an impossibility right now because it'd require mods to the source code and that's not going to happen since
a)we *don't* have the sourcecode, and it's unlikely to be released in the next months/years/ever.
b)if we tried we would probably get our ass sued

There is the possibility of workarounds like we have seen in the Vision engine, but only to a limited extent.

And yes you can create everything for the game, but the problem is the lack importing and editing tools, unless someone pulls them out of his ass now, we're pretty much stuck with what we have now. Inserting new ships and weapons is possible right now, but that's pretty much it.
 
even if it was possible to code a wing commander auto pilot in (which it isn't) How would you possibly play multiplayer? It instantly brings you from one spot to another until a hostile encounter occurs in the line of path. Explain how that would work in a multiplayer game? You could just cruise up a couple hundred K above the system (where no hostiles are ever in your path), goto auto nav, and could instantly appear anywhere in the system allowing you to jump from one spot to another - if another player was trying to track you down, impossible because your defying the in game timing. When flying to one spot to another, it takes time, wing commander is sp only, so it didn't matter if you took out the time it takes to get from one spot to another. Freelancer is multiplayer, autopilot would ruin any sense of realism, it's the cruise engines which are designed for getting between places quickly while keeping a stable clock.
 
Eh, what's the deal with getting caught up in the most minor issues here? Sure, it's an impossible idea with the current tools, but not because of the ultimate high-techness of (drumroll) AUTOPILOT!

What you described as being the multiplayer-wrecking, time-warping, disaster-inducing autopilot looks a lot like Freelancer's cruise engines.

I mean, take the words "cruise engines", replace with "scoops open", and you already have a pretty reasonable explanation for the quick travels from one place to another (you could just make all the distances longer, so flying from one planet to another wouldn't be as quick as in Freelancer, but it's still essentially the same thing)... I rather doubt that WC ships actually fly at their cruise speed from one navpoint to the next. AFAIK, all ships have scoops, and all ships can attain much faster speeds and not waste any fuel when flying with scoops open, so I've always considered that to be what happens when I press "a" - even if it isn't, it's still a damn good "WC-ness vs. gameplay" compromise for a multiplayer game, IMO.
 
Hi Guys.

Alright, I think I should add my two cents worth here. Firstly, I loved Privateer. No, more accurately I LOVED Privateer. It was a great game and before Freelancer there was nothing that touched it. The thought of being able to remake it using Freelancer as the base is what has me working on this mod, but there are limitations.

1) Audio.
This is really hard to do in a mod. A lot of money in games these days goes into voice acting, and recording new tracks is prohibitive for those of us doing this as volunteers. Secondly, the use of sound is different in both games. Most of the audio tracks I liked in the original Priv was talking to the bartenders. All the useful info you will get in bars in Freelancer is in text. Easier to mod, but not so simple to convert to audio.

2) Core game elements
Trade lanes are how you get around in Freelancer. Auto Pilot was how you did it in Privateer. This is part of the core behaviour of the game and therefore is there to stay. Ripping out trade lanes is possible with Freelancer, but adding in an auto pilot is next to impossible. All you would achieve is making the game harder to get around if you took out trade lanes.

3) Storylines.
It is possible to do in some games, but it would be difficult to do with Freelancer. You can however modify the existing missions somewhat, but that is about as far as it goes.

4) Commodities / Equipment / Ships
Now we're getting somewhere! This is an area of Freelancer that will be much easier to attack than the others so far. While a complete and perfect conversion is probably not possible, those of you who really want to run Brilliance again will probably be able to do so with a little tuning of the right files.

5) Ships / Bases
These can also be modified reasonably easily. This is evident with the proliferation of ship mods out there already. Bases are a little harder, but I am working on a model spec for bases so that we can incorporate models like the Vesuvius into Freelancer as battleship bases.

In conclusion, it will certainly be possible to make Freelancer look and feel much more like Privateer than it currently does, but there are limits. You have my personal assurance that we all will push those limits on this mod.

That having been said, Freelancer already has many elements that are similar to Privateer. The gun types are roughly similar, however the variety among each weapon type to me is an improvement on the original game. Commodities work in an improved manner IMO, and docking and navigation are improved in the new game. I always found the Priv universe a little too small, and Freelancer has made dramatic improvements in that regard.

The trick with this mod will be giving everyone the sensation that they are back in the Priv universe while taking advantage of the strengths in Freelancer.

The bottom line is that we will probably not be able to swap out the Blood Dragons with costumes and heads of Kilrathi, with voices to match, but we will try to make the environment as immersive as possible.

We are all still working on an initial public release, and it will be quite modest in what is implemented. It will be a good taste of things to come however, and I hope you all like it when you get to see it.

Regards,
Acid.
 
Revelation said:
Its true, I haven't touched a game mod in a while, and I have no idea how to convert 3DS MAX models to game models, but I have worked as a professional 3D animator for a number of years, and I am a computer systems engineer. I doubt there is really a problem here, just a lack of having tried.

Direct 3D can load .x files without any problem. There is a plugin for it in the DirectX SDK or in an addon to the SDK on Microsoft web site. Most games have their own vertex format and you'll need to add your mesh to the object list to be able to render it in the game. You will probably need the game SDK and plugins for Max to add you mesh to the game.
 
secondly 'goto' is not Autopilot, or atleast not in the form that I want it. Autopilot, if you have ever played Wing Commander before, involves a fly-by and a significant jump in the time before you press "a" and reaching your destination.
First off, Auto-Pilot is where the computer takes over for you, so you dont have to do the flying. Wing Commander just speeds that up, so you dont have to wait forever while moving between waypoints. And to do that in freelancer, youd most likely need the source codes


My 2 cents on the audio

Not sure if its possible or not, but replacing the little videos with the faceless helmet from WC3 would be pretty cool, or possibley get some with faces..

Also, if possible, replace some of those lines with more Wing Commanderish lines, get some voice actors to do that.
 
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