[Axem]

Improving upon Goober's idea from a few years ago...

Press Alt+J, get that system viewer screen, click a planet, hit jump to and watch yourself be transported to your destination!

Of course this doesn't have to be a navigational system, it could used just for reference purposes to let people explore the system they're in. Outside of gameplay the Jump To button won't appear. As well the script allows for per-mission system loading (so the map can change as your campaign's events unfold), as well as a simple hierarchy of map "zoom levels".

Like below in this test Sol layout, you can click on Earth and "zoom in" to load a new map that's just Earth and the Moon.



There's lots of other little customizations you'll be able turn on or off. Orbits can be turned off, icons can be added. You can even draw arrows to show fleet or force movements!

All I need to do is stop starting new things and actually finish what I start...

[niffiwan]

Very cool

[Black Wolf]

Wow! This looks amazing!

Admiral MS has the FSRTS active again in his thread - maybe one day we can use this and have an FSRPG as well! So much potential with this, Axem, well done!

[m!m]

This is looking great, excellent work Axem!

[Admiral MS]

Wow! I don't even have an idea how he does this magic

[procdrone]

Amazing!

[Kobrar44]

Since when you make a jump you end the mission and get to the next one, does that mean that you can save your progress in the open world? I was thinking if that would work and it's cool to see that happen 

[Dragon]

Freespace: Privateer! I remember playing Goober's tech demo, it was quite a nice idea.

[The Dagger]

Wow, this looks amazing! 

[mjn.mixael]

Since when you make a jump you end the mission and get to the next one, does that mean that you can save your progress in the open world? I was thinking if that would work and it's cool to see that happen 

It would take some crazy FREDing, but this + Admiral MS's shipsave script could probably do what you are thinking.

[X3N0-Life-Form]

Witchcraft!

[Lorric]

Oh wow, Axem... just... wow...

Could someone show me what Goober's idea was please? That must be around here somewhere, yes?

[Axem]

This was the original FreeSpaceLancer (from 9 years ago!): http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=29170.0

[Lorric]

This was the original FreeSpaceLancer (from 9 years ago!): http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=29170.0

Thank you Axem. That was an interesting read. So what gave you the idea to try this? Reading that thread made me wonder.

[Axem]

I've had many campaign ideas where you choose where to go next. Not quite with completely open world concepts like this, but using the original idea of FreeSpaceLancer shows the extent that this can be used for. You could have this pop up at the end of a mission or just in a hub mission. The possibilities are endless!

[Dragon]

Axem, do you think that could make it possible to do a fully dynamic campaign in FS? Something like in Starshatter, you have a system/sector/galaxy map, and your only objective is to conquer it. So you can choose the target, the mission and it'd either generate your sortie based on the strategic situation, or engage a storyline mission (something Starshatter lacks, TBH). I imagined something like Carrier Command, except with fighters and capship command.

[Axem]

I would say its totally possible to do. But it would also be pretty challenging to do, and I've got enough stuff to do right now so someone else would have to give it a try.

[T-Man]

How?

No. Seriously. How did you manage this (That chromium add-in thing?) I'm genuinely speechless.

But aye so much potential with this, especially for campaigns that like rich stories or want to show a bigger picture (I've always loved the idea of the world 'beyond the player' being shown like that). And yeah something like this would work really well with the RTS project Admiral MS is working on (am suddenly reminded of Nexus: The Jupiter Incident's briefings, sounds like something to that affect would be very doable).

But nah, this is genuinely unbelievable. I am officially scared of your skills now .

[Axem]

Nope, not chromium, just lua. I designed my own interface backend (I called it AXUI, also used for the Journal) that does all the grunt work with buttons and special graphical elements. The rest is parsing a config file to create the system layout. When the time comes to press "jump to", I throw the destination's name into a sexp variable and let FreeSpace do the rest.

Really this is a overly complicated script to modify a single sexp variable.

[General Battuta]

Maybe the dreamscape war map doesn't have to be a gigantic ship any more.