The wxLauncher team is happy to announce the release of beta version 0.9.4, which features an easy toggle for FRED launching and enhanced mod customization, among other changes.  For anyone not in the know, wxLauncher is a cross-platform launcher project for the FS2 Open engine which aims to be the go-to launching utility for all mods and total conversions.  Head over to the release thread to download the new version and leave some feedback!

For those of you who use the forums rather than just looking at the front page, we've made some changes to the way we will be moderating HLP in the future. You can find details here.

Welcome to June, everybody! I'd like to begin this newsletter with some FreeSpace related poetry, if that's okay with you. I'll take your silence as an affirmative.

O, my friend, the Orion destroyer,
The beams that you fire surely past muster,
For the evil foes, a great forceful kick,
For the many friends, a home in a brick.

Thank you.

Now lets get down to business!



Not too much to talk about here this month. Things have been slow on this front.

Shadow Genesis announced work on a version 1.1 patch that will hopefully clear up any issues people have been having with it.

Since things are slow, I'll also show this neat and interesting video that was linked to in the celebration thread, showing off a gameplay preview for some random upcoming mod! (Heh, real smooth there Axem, that was so flawless- wait. Computer, stop dictating. Delete. NO. Whatever, I'll remove that in post.)




Quiet on the coding front as well! Well that's no good! Remember to help test the latest release candidate for 3.7.0! Find bugs, help test changes and lovingly remind coders that we're total fans of them and not to stop with the code progress! (And wait a year for the final release like a certain other build!)

(Also the rumour mill says that RC2 will be along very soon! I'm on to your game, SCP coders!)



Now HERE we have some fun stuff being released!

BlackWolf continues his crusade to ensure that everyone has small installations to play with for their campaign with the PVI/GVI Abydos, a small vasudan installation that would go great in those many Vasudan campaigns we play with!


In other wolf related news, ShadowWolf has finally released the GTF Pharaoh, his very first model and fighter! Complete with maps, tables and shield icon. A perfect addition to any fighter fleet.


UnknownTarget comes from unknown space to deliver us a... Taiigara transport? Hirgani science ship? Point is, it's pretty fricken cool, especially after BlackWolf converted it to POF for us.


And while not really new, we should give a quick shoutout to the rediscovery of the GTF Icarus. PLEASE do not fly the fighter near suns. Actually on second thought, don't fly any ships near fighters.


Enioch shows off a cool ship from the Renegade Legion, the Revenna (not to be confused with Ravana!). There's a lot of other cool ships at the beginning of the thread as well, be sure to check those out too!


rhettro has come out of nowhere, doing a gorgeous job of texturing this beautiful Dagger starfighter by mandobardanjusik for the Star Wars TC, Fate of the Galaxy. Impressive.


And apparently there's been some asset releases from the old Terran-Vasudan War Project. It's a pair of gas miners, one already was released, but the other is NEW! Get it while it lasts!


And again, hidden in the depths of the New Eyecandy Thread in the Inferno board we have... a pretty cool looking vasudan fighter/bomber/ship/thing! Another great Vasudan model from The Dagger!


When we last left our brave hero, Oddgrim, he was making steady progress with the Anuket model. A month later, we find him in bed with ANOTHER Vasudan model. What a playboy. He must enjoy docking with the Nephthys, IF you know what I mean.


Oh and Hades also has some updates to the Levi. Yay for 10m/s cruisers! (Also the model link in that post has been updated since the original date, so this isn't a belated update!)


Headdie continues his work with small containers with... a large container. C'mon man, spice these up with cool names. Again this one isn't quite finished, but it shouldn't need anything more than a simple texture job to bring it to life!


And finally, this month on ScoobyWatch (I'm going to have to come up with a graphic for him), we have a bunch of new cockpit models in development. Perfect for the new render-to-texture hud gauges!




Forgive me if you've heard this story before. A lone guy makes an original campaign with community released assets, throws in some amazing unique missions, has a certain cinematic vibe to it all AND... branching missions. Oh and voice acted too.

Sounds too good to be true? At one point it would be considered the holy grail of a campaign release, but now its becoming just a given. So let's take a trip to Burning Heaven.

The campaign has an interesting take on things. The story is placed in the pre-GTVA days of the FreeSpace universe, before we even left the solar system. Yet there are recognizable ships everywhere, from the FreeSpace 2 fighters we know and love to the Orion and Hecate. It's an odd mix of old and new, and I think we've got enough ships around to have replaced those, but it doesn't really break it for me. It just feels kind of weird sometimes.

But those feelings go away quickly when you start playing. The opening cutscene, is awesome. We've got our subtitles that give us the setting. (Earth government is jerks, people on other planets don't like this. So we're fighting. A squadron prepares for battle.) Then its some amazing camera work as we slowly fly out from a station to the squadron assembling. The music builds the sad atmosphere that this campaign is full of. We've even got opening credits for work done! Maybe it could be considered a little pretentious to go this far, but it shows we're having fun.

So the first playable mission is one big battle of endor, where the player is just there to shoot stuff. It's basically a death throe of the rebelling forces that you're flying with. There's no way to win and there's nothing the player can do about it. Earth's might reigns supreme! The mission ends with the rebel forces either dying or surrendering. Most campaigns (or stories even) usually don't start with the protagonists side surrendering. But here it gives us a window into the methods of where the campaign takes us. Which is Earth cannot be taken on with a straight military force, atleast not yet. The next mission is rebels surrending to the Imperial Navy over Earth, which has them executing everyone on the spot. This sends the player and Phoenix Squadron to rethink their surrender and start a guerrila war against Earth's Imperial Navy.

Because its a guerrilla war, it just gives us a reason to have great fun with missions. They're unique, tense, and very focused. Gain entry into a restricted area by "replacing" an escort to a freighter, then use the defenses in the area to destroy your target for you. Sabotage reactors, sneak into shipyards. If you liked the Fedayeen missions in BP Act 3, then you should like these (and they don't require a PhD to win either).

Probably the most powerful moment of the campaign is


It should be considered an immersion success when the player feels they should be doing something because its what feels right, not just because the game tells you to do it.

Similarily, a pretty tense mission afterward is when you're hiding in the atmosphere of a gas giant and the enemy is trying to hunt you down. With sonar. I'll admit, the sonar part is pretty crazy (the inner science/physics nerd inside wants to say how many kinds of wrong this is), but we can pretend they're active sensor sweeps or something. So you're on the run, but you've got to go slow or else they'll pick you up so easily. So all throughout this mission, its this weird erie feel where you hear the "sonar-like" beeps and hope that's not the one where they finally find you.

Something I also really liked was the command briefings. They're presented as newscasts for the events going on at the time. An interesting look to see how the enemy views your little rebel rousing party. You see them and think "boy I hope I made the news tonight!". Hopefully without "resulted in 10,000 civilian deaths" being in there of course.

Also the branching missions! Okay, its kind of minor branching. The branched missions are mostly variations of each other with a few changes. I haven't played through all of them, but certainly kudos for actually doing stuff like that. Its not easy and certainly shows the devotion to the craft of campaign making.

Burning Heaven is another great example of what one guy can do. Its not a perfect campaign, but it still rises above and stands up to other great campaigns very nicely. If you can get past the future-anachronistic ship classes, I'm sure you will enjoy it.

So Burning Heaven was pretty bleak and not happy, next month let's do something a little more lighter! We're going to go fly with some Neo-Terrans in... Crossing the Styx.

Wait, that doesn't sound any better. (I believe it was made for 3.6.10 mediavps, so just re point it to the 3.6.12 ones if you have just those!)

Nope! Doesn't work! Lets punish this campaign by playing Rogue Intentions instead!




Lots of cool pics this month! The theme was giant beams, quality large beams (and not a quantity of beams!!). And boy was it a hard decision this month. But ultimately it goes to...

Belisarius and his striking picture of himself not surrendering.

He will be remembered as a victim of showing off eye candy.

But I also want to give a mention to Arpit for recreating the scene from the FreeSpace 2 box art!

Screencap Scoreboard:
ssmit132 - 1
X3N0-Life-Form - 1
FreeSpaceFreak - 1
mjn.mixael - 1
Belisarius - 1

This month's theme shall be: The Quiet Life. No enemies or weapons being thrown around. Just a peaceful day in the life of FreeSpace. Maybe a fighter patrol around civilian stations, or transport groups going about their business. Something relaxing.

And remember the rules: No HUD. No Photoshop. Max 3 entries per person. Final Destination.
Screencap script makes taking pictures easy and affordable on a low income budget.



In sort of space sim related news, Mesotronik linked to a game called Void Destroyer, a hybrid RTS/Space sim with a free alpha as well as a kickstarter to make the game grow even more. There's videos and pictures to give you things to drool over, give it a glance!

And finally... FreeSpace poetry slam! Give me your best!

Merry May everyone! April came and went, leaving us with wonderful spring weather... Right?

*checks forecast*



 

Well anyway, the age old question of when we will see FreeSpace 3 was finally answered! The answer though, may not surprise you. Well let's get to what we were up to last month.




Well we only have one big piece of news this month, FSPort 3.4 was released, updating the FreeSpace 1 total conversion with many new assets, including a totally redone and remixed soundtrack by none other than Dan Wentz, the composer for the FreeSpace games! Radical!

Oh Axem, I just realized that you Forgot this release.

Oh apparently there's a second release this month! Isn't that neat!




Well it looks like the SCP was 19 days too late when it came to releasing a new build to punk the newsletter. But to make up for it, they've gone onto a completely new revision number. Yes 3.7.0 RC1 was released! The 3.7 builds include new pilot code that let players use the same pilot for any number of mods without crashing. Give it a play and help squad bugs!

Now technically there's still a code freeze, but that's not stopping some people from showing off new features they're just itching to add.

For example, Yarn's coded Adaptable Hud Scaling. This allows the hud to automatically scale to your resolution, without having to scale from preset resolutions. This will surely help the crazy people with 3+ monitors.

Zookeeper's been hard at work with stuff like Auto Spread Shields, which allow shields to fit to the shape of the ship without a shield mesh plus a bunch of other small features, all of which I would love to see ingame.

Are you on a platform like MacOS or Linux and want to peak into the VP files, but you can't, because the programs are all Windows only? Well FreeSpaceFreak has you covered with WxVPViewer! You too, can discover the hidden files in those VP files you keep downloading.

Are you on Windows 8 and want to peak into VP files, but you can't, because the programs don't follow the Metro interface, and that really bugs you for some reason? m!m has you covered with VPGUI! Technically this was from last month, but I missed it.

The scripting board was sort of quiet this month, but FelixJim's updated his in-mission tech room script. Contains some new features, such as viewing your own ship, viewing your weapons, and viewing your enemy! Freaky stuff.




The ORFg Tychicus/GTFg Unamit comes to us from Korbar and Scooby Doo. With those two large looking turrets on the front, it looks perfect for giant BEAMS. Modders, do not disappoint!


fightermedic releases a stand alone fighter cockpit for anyone that wants to add it to their own mod. But just keep in mind, that not everyone's a fan of complete immersion. But i must say, it does look pretty cool.


AndrewofDoom's released a ship pack of Sword-like ships for anyone to use. They don't come with tables (or chairs), so you'll need to craft your own. Perfect for the modder that needs more ships.


Inferno shows off a WIP shot of their amazing GTSD Bastion flagship. Dat runway.

_{Apologies for missing this}

headdie made a tanker container, for people transporting mass amounts of Pepsi and/or Coca-Cola. Comes with a converted pof and table, but its not quite textured. So its up to you to finish that last part!


And just 3 hours after that tanker container, Doko shows off his tanker ship! Why, this could carry even MORE Pepsi and/or Coca-Cola! Not released yet, but I do hope we'll be able to see it done!


Admiral MS shows off his latest work with the RTS Mod, and holy cow, does it look like an RTS. Attacking specific subsystems? Queued orders? Creating waypoint paths? This is amazing stuff.


This month on ScoobyWatch: The Scimitar!



Those overachievers working on the MediaVPs give us updates on 5 ships. The Alastor, the Anuket, the Ra, the Hermes and the Shivan Comm Node. We'll have all of those ships done in no time!

Alastor
Anuket
Ra Escape Pod
Hermes Escape Pod
Shivan Comm Node Textured!



Homesick is quite a fitting title for this campaign. Also fitting would be "How Could Things Get Worse?" As the name implies, the campaign takes you far from the GTVA systems and you and your friends are trying to find a way home. Along the way we get some insight into how the citizens of the GTVA think and how the GTVA thinks, atleast in the window that Blaise Russel constructs; which I know that there's some of you who think its sort of rubbish.

I think what I liked most about Homesick was the transition from a sort of easy-going atmosphere into one where the laid-back inhabitants are thrown into a deep and dark pit. The campaign starts with a command briefing about applying to join the GTVA. However all positions are filled, save for being a janitor. So naturally, you join the Custodian Mercenary Group (because quite frankly custodian sounds much better than janitor!). So when you fly out for the first few missions, you get to know your wingmen. Out of 7 fighters that fly with you, 3 have distinct personalities and are sort of immortal (which helps in the long red-alert series missions).

You have Alpha 3, a bit of an airhead. Asking weird questions out of nowhere and doesn't like going too far out of his comfort zone. Then you have Beta 1, a stronger pilot who is more no-nonsense, but she's a little more prone to anger when things aren't going so hot. And Beta 4, our Vasudan friend who likes to analyze our friends and drops us background exposition. He appears a lot more stoic and level headed, even in the face of all the pressure that comes in the story. The interactions between these three save some repetitive missions from becoming totally unbareable and upgrade them to bareable enough. More on that later.


Beta 4 is totally missing out on the hilarity that is Two and a Half Zods

So our calamity of errors and screwups begins when the Custodian is escorting a convoy, and some of the transports turn up to be carrying high tech equipment that they shouldn't be. The rather heavy-handed GTVA declares everyone in the group traitors, and starts to attack the convoy. So starts your running from the GTVA and a jump into an undiscovered node with an exploding capital ship behind you later, and you're stranded. So starts your long trek home. And boy, is it a long one. First you scavenge around an old Terran-Vasudan battleground, then a nebula, then a system with the GTVI who appear to be taking 'shoot on sight' with exceptional pride, then another nebula, nebula, nebula, yeah, a lot of nebula stuff. Along the way you pick up some friends, a derelict Fenris, a Vasudan support ship, and even some GTVA Vasudans late in the game.


Pirates! Yarr!

A lot of missions are 'Protect the Custodian' and usually it can take care of itself. The challenge is keeping yourself alive. Quite a few missions are tied together with red-alerts (when they work), so going into a new mission with 5% hull can end up being a little more fustrating sometimes. There's never really a warning that you should think about conserving ammo or being more careful than normal, but usually the second-parters are shorter. But I guess what's sort of the most jarring thing about the missions is the quantity of enemies that get send after you, and a bunch of rag-tag mercs with civilian quality hardware takes them all on and wins. This comes with the territory of being a retail compatable campaign, since the AI alone can't really give that much challenge alone, like in the Aeos Affair. So I can't fault it that much, but it still leaves a weird taste when I manage to destroy a bunch of prototype and unknown fighters.

So like I said before, what saves some of these repetitive missions from being totally unbareable are our three wingmen's interactions. Watching them go from "happy-go-lucky" to "oh my god, get me out of here now" helps the tension and builds the atmosphere of really being away from home. Alpha 3 is easily panicked and spends a lot of his time freaking out, leaving Beta 1 to try to smack some sense into him. But even Beta 1 begins to break, especially when the Custodian decides to take a seemingly safer but much longer route. And again, Beta 4 sort of plays a straight man between the two, giving us interesting background info that merc pilots probably wouldn't care to know about. But even in the descent into despair, our plucky wingmen try to inject some humour into everything, such as Alpha 3's description of the GTVA Colossal.

Inevitably, as we go into the final act, we meet the Shivans.


Oh don't look so surprised.



Homesick tells two tales. One of survival and persistence. Just how long could the Custodian group have kept on going with all these threats gnawing at them? And the other is with an unstoppable foe that could appear around any corner, how far are you willing to go to protect civilization? With all the heavy handedness the GTVA pulls, could you justify their actions to bring everyone into line, to ensure no cracks form that would lead to the deaths of million. And are these actions symptom of the coming Neo-Terran problem?

Anyway, I can see why some people don't like the ending, and I too wish it would have been... slightly happier. But I guess the message is: The universe is a hostile place.

Oh and inspect your cargo!

So this month we dealt with being on the run from authorities, so let's do the same next month with: Burning Heaven, released just last year!

Fly in battles that helped define the future GTA and GTVA. Fully SCP featured, tons of modded ships and even voice acted!




Last months theme was: Outnumbered. There were some really nice pics this month, but we can only have one winner each month. And that was mjn.mixael and criminally amazing picture!



Hard to believe that the pic is ingame, but it is!

Screencap Scoreboard:
ssmit132 - 1
X3N0-Life-Form - 1
FreeSpaceFreak - 1
mjn.mixael - 1

Next month's theme is: GIANT BEAMS. Show me large beams that made FreeSpace so unique when it was released. And I want to see good quality beams, not just a good quantity of beams!

Be sure to check out the Screencap Script to take great pictures! And I don't want to see any hud in the pictures! NONE!




This month's completely random closing question: what was the first custom mod/campaign you played?