Raptor guns modified to be more practical, may I share with others? Screenshots here

-danr-

Vice Admiral
Once again, I am not trying to say I know how to do things better, because quite frankly I don't. As a fan I totally agree with everything being done to scale for once as has been achieved in Standoff, it makes for a more realistic gaming experience.

That said, now that the game has been completed, and most fans have finished all the missions, I've started to mod some of the gun positions to make some of the ships more practical in combat - namely the Hornet and Raptor guns.

As has been mentioned on here, it's hard to hit anything in a Standoff Raptor because of the wide spacing between the cannons - it has already been pointed that this is NOT a Standoff flaw, if anything, it is a design fault on Origin's part for the scale they used for the Raptor blueprints.

Here is the standard Standoff Raptor gun alignment:

raptorold.png


The spread of the weapons makes it hard to nail anything smaller than a Kamekh, really.

But after adjusting the ship's MESH file, and altering the axis data for the guns, we now have:

raptornew1.png


same shot a few seconds apart...

raptornew2.png


Similar to the WC1 dimensions, although not game perfect, simply estimated.

It does however mean you can use the Raptor to good effect, and she's actually a very potent ship now. The position of the guns on the model obviously are now out of scale with the way they are projected from the ship.

But it means the Raptor is pretty damn good again, a joy to fly her against the cats again after all this time.

TO STANDOFF PRODUCERS: With your permission I wish to share this mod with other fans, by offering the modified Raptor mesh file for download or e-mail. It will mean everybody learning how to use TREMAN, but I'll happily write a user-friendly tutorial. If you don't want people extracting their TRE files, then it's absolutely fine to erase this thread. If it's cool, I'll start a new one with detailed instructions and some download links. I'll even include a 'BACK UP YOUR STANDOFF' disclaimer if you like.

I will understand if you don't want me to do this, it ruins Standoff's precise scale, but WC1 did not consider this scale when the game was developed and the game felt just fine - I feel the modified Raptor will only add to the Standoff gaming experience, given the popularity of the ship back along.

Thanks for taking the time to check out my mod.
 
Hey, look - we never asked the Secret Ops people if they appreciated us releasing a mod to their game :).

So, you don't need to ask us permission to release mods for Standoff. In fact, I very, very, very strongly encourage it - if Standoff gives you a reason to learn how to mod SO, that's fantastic. And I hope you don't stop at merely altering ship files - maybe in time you can start working on missions, too? ;)
 
Thanks Q, really appreciate your support on this. As for misssion modding, well it's next in my plan to become proficient in this kind of things, I'm still a very basic modder... I'll start a proper upload thread here tomorrow when I've put the ZIP online.

Meantime, anybody wants the file e-mailed to them...simply PM me with your e-mail address and I'll send it over when I go online this evening.

Cheers.

Dan
 
I think the tutorial would also be very helpful. When you have the tutorial and file available, we can post them two together. (It also looks like a couple of your screenshots above broke)
 
Evening Chris, not sure about the pics as they seem to be working just fine here...which ones are not working?

The tutorial is all ready, here's a direct copy and paste - it will be in the zip with the file itself:


MODIFIED RAPTOR MESH
By Dan Reeves, November 2009.

For use with Wing Commander Standoff.

A new mesh file for the Raptor with tighter gun spacing to
allow better in-flight combat performance.


Disclaimer:

The mesh has been tested and should cause no problems to your
existing install of Standoff, nor to your system. However by using
this mod you agree that I will not be held responsible for ANY
adverse software or hardware issues that occur with
your system subsequent to use.

I hate to say 'use at your own risk' because the mod really won't
damage your setup, however.... use at your own risk. There, I'm covered.


*Installation instructions* - FOLLOW THESE TO THE LETTER, AND MAKE A BACKUP OF YOUR STANDOFF GAME FOLDER FIRST!!

1. Create a directory within your Standoff folder, name it mesh, in lower case.

2. Extract the raptor.iff file from my zip file, and copy it to the folder within your Standoff directory called mesh.

You're almost done... just one small adjustment to make to your Standoff directory.

3. Open the folder where Standoff is installed, and find the file called stan_1.cfg. Open it with NOTEPAD, by right clicking and choosing 'open with.'
4. Before the first line of text, insert a ; symbol. The first line will now read something like:

;install no_folders 0


...and you're ready to go. Load up Standoff as usual, get in the Sim and try the Raptor out...please, and report any feedback to myself via the Wing Commander CIC boards, at crius.net/zone

Thanks, and enjoy.

-danr-

Special thanks to the whole Standoff team for an excellent project

http://standoff.solsector.net

 
Danr, you shouldn't work with the mesh file from stan__e1.tre unless you're certain that a given mesh existed only in the Episode 1 files. Most of the mesh files were subsequently updated in Episode 5, so it's extremely probable that there's a newer version in stan__e5.tre.

Also, people don't actually need to extract files from TREs just to replace them with the files you provide. You just need to tell them what folder to create (in this case "mesh") :).
 
Danr, you shouldn't work with the mesh file from stan__e1.tre unless you're certain that a given mesh existed only in the Episode 1 files. Most of the mesh files were subsequently updated in Episode 5, so it's extremely probable that there's a newer version in stan__e5.tre.

Also, people don't actually need to extract files from TREs just to replace them with the files you provide. You just need to tell them what folder to create (in this case "mesh") :).

So the game will read from the files even if the TRE hasn't been unzipped? Time for a change of instructions then --- drastically :)
 
Yes, it will. Once you alter the config to accept folder files, the game actually only uses files from inside the TREs as a last resort - first it checks the game folders, and it only checks the TREs if it doesn't find a given file in the game folders.

Also, one more thing you should mention in your instruction - any such changes will make it impossible to send scores to the CIC. That's worth explaining, just in case somebody thinks it's an error.
 
Yes, it will. Once you alter the config to accept folder files, the game actually only uses files from inside the TREs as a last resort - first it checks the game folders, and it only checks the TREs if it doesn't find a given file in the game folders.

Also, one more thing you should mention in your instruction - any such changes will make it impossible to send scores to the CIC. That's worth explaining, just in case somebody thinks it's an error.

That's a very good point, presumably switching the stan_1.cfg file would just need to be switched back to ignore folders for the Sim scores to work again though?
 
That's a very good point, presumably switching the stan_1.cfg file would just need to be switched back to ignore folders for the Sim scores to work again though?
Correct. If you restore the "install no_folders 0" line back into STAN_1.CFG , the mecanism that sends the simulator scores to the webscoreboard will work again.
 
I like this. How did you go about modifying this, anyway? I would like to modify the Sabre's mass drivers to be closer together (to be just barely wider than the particle cannons), since I find that they are spaced far enough apart that it is nigh-impossible to get both mass drivers to land on the same target unless said target is wider than the Sabre.
 
I like this. How did you go about modifying this, anyway? I would like to modify the Sabre's mass drivers to be closer together (to be just barely wider than the particle cannons), since I find that they are spaced far enough apart that it is nigh-impossible to get both mass drivers to land on the same target unless said target is wider than the Sabre.

Hi, I'll make an adjusted Sabre for you and send it privately instead of offering it on here, I don't want to ruin the game for everybody with my amateur attempts. Or I can send you some pointers on how to go about making these changes, it's really not complicated if you can get to grips with extracting data from the game's TRE files.

I only modified the Hornet and Raptor to bring them both in line with the WC1 dimensions. The Sabre for me is already WC2 standard and it works just great already in my opinion, however I'll tighten the mass-drivers up and send you the file as a one off.
 
Be careful... I don't remember for certain, but I think some of the Sabre's guns might have a convergence angle. So, if you set them too close, the bullets will wind up crossing paths somewhere in front of you. If you want to avoid that, you'll need to change the guns to a non-convergence version.

(provided they do indeed converge - I don't remember)
 
Be careful... I don't remember for certain, but I think some of the Sabre's guns might have a convergence angle. So, if you set them too close, the bullets will wind up crossing paths somewhere in front of you. If you want to avoid that, you'll need to change the guns to a non-convergence version.

(provided they do indeed converge - I don't remember)

This is one of the problems with the Raptor mod, I'm trying to get it fixed right now and you've pointed out what I was looking for.

Since there are a number of Sabre variants in the game, I'm assuming they have different mesh files too?
 
No, all Sabres have the same mesh. The difference is in the ship files.

Edit: basically, the non-converging laser, particle, neutron and mass drivers (in that order) are guns 0-3. If you see a gun with a different number, that means it has a convergence angle.
 
Hi, I'll make an adjusted Sabre for you and send it privately instead of offering it on here, I don't want to ruin the game for everybody with my amateur attempts. Or I can send you some pointers on how to go about making these changes, it's really not complicated if you can get to grips with extracting data from the game's TRE files.

I only modified the Hornet and Raptor to bring them both in line with the WC1 dimensions. The Sabre for me is already WC2 standard and it works just great already in my opinion, however I'll tighten the mass-drivers up and send you the file as a one off.

Hey thanks. ^_^
 
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