[chief1983]

We haven't done a lot of decision making on story, and briefing design yet.  We do know we intend for any campaign to currently be set in pre- new trilogy stuff, so either original trilogy or EU novel stuff.  We definitely intend to be more than a modeling shop, but whatever campaign gets done should be fresh, creative and impressive.  So a smaller release will probably come before a full campaign.

[aRaven]

I'm all for episodic releases, like Valve does with Episode 1 and 2... it is quite nice and better for TCs

[Acin]

I took a look at what the guys at the Wing Commander Saga did until now, and (without wanting to copy them) I think they took the right approach to modding, by firstly publishing a "preludium" to the big game testing all the bugs and so, and at the same time getting a real big feedback from  the public. I mean it's impossible to satisfy everybody's taste, but even 40 positive feedbacks with ideas would be helpfull to make up one's own mind on how to carry on with the game. I personally imagine a plot around the x-wing development, i.e, a story on how it was first implemented into the Rebell's forces. At first there might be an X-wing still in dark/black paint (wouldn't that be a texturing challenge ?) as an Imperial Prototype which gets stolen or highjacked by the player and has to be brought to the Rebellion. The Player would be of course flying this mission, while covering/protecting the designers that flee with him. The pre-release might then deal with just two or three missions out of the Imperium's AREA 51. It would fit in the time that was desired (pre Episode4) and such story has a lot of mission potential...  I'm open to your suggestions.

[Black Wolf]

On a different note...
Who is responsible for the mission design? Is there already a concept in place on how a mission briefing is supposed to look like? Because besides a stunning graphic design, the players need a mission briefing. And if we do a campaign -even a short one-, we ought to come up with a storyline. Are there any plans to branch a story depending on the mission's outcome? Or do you rather prefere to have number of missions that you have to fly consecutively and all over again?
Are any standard replies for wingmen (and hopefully women) in plan ("Confirm. Break and attack! ", "Attacking [Corvette/TIE.../StarDestroyer]," , "Roger, Red one. Falling back into Formation.") ?
Sorry that I ask so many questions, but I had a feeling that this mod has now evolved to a mere modeling workshop.

Cheers, Acin

Don't worry. There are still a few people around from the old mod (me, Topace) and a few new people who have an idea about how to make things more that a model collection. I have a small campaign all plotted out that I'll be building once the shipset gets to where it needs to be, and I thik there'll be a main campaign being developed before long. A solid shipset is important though, before you can start FREDding.

[maje]

I would like seemless hyperspace transitions like XWA did if possible, and if that is possible, it would be cool to have multi-part missions in different regions (XWA had so much potential with that and never seemed to really capitilize on it).

Story-wise, I think it should remain the Galactic Civil War pre-Yavin, or at least pre-Hoth.  Too many of the X-wing games deal with between Hoth and Endor (TIE Fighter and XWA), whereas I think X-wing is really more dated in how missions were done, so maybe certain missions could be referenced or possibly redone to be more interesting (for the love of Pete, put in-flight radio chatter in those if it's decided to recreate a mission like say "Capture the Frigate Priam").

In fact a good idea might be to do something based on the formation of the various Rebel factions that unite to form the Alliance to Restore the Republic.

[chief1983]

I've always thought system hopping would be a good thing to have implemented, but currently there's no obvious mechanic for it in the engine.  We'd either have to jerryrig something to seem like you're system hopping or have something added to the codebase, and it'd be a significant workload either way.

Voice chatter is always a must for long pauses between action, we should have plenty of it.

Direct mission conversions are probably something we're going to avoid first, instead focusing on bringing an original, involving campaign, but rest assured that the shipset itself should be capable of conversion down the line.

[Scourge of Ages]

Do you mean system hopping as in "at will" or something more like the red alert screen, just without the alert?
Would it really be that hard to switch out a skybox and every single ship (less one) in an instant?
IDK, but it sounds like something FRED could do. (Not sarcastic)

[jr2]

IIRC, Allegiance has this, too.

[chief1983]

Well, FRED could maybe do it, but it still sounds pretty painful.  You'd have to be tracking which other ships have left the area if they're heading to where you're going, and which ones stayed behind, and when they should make the jump in too.  To do it XWA style, where each ship has to reach the navpoint, you'd have to actually be tracking two areas at one time.  I'm not sure fred could do that, but I could be wrong.  The other way is to actually try to fit multiple areas into one mission field, and just change the skybox.  You'd 'warp' via a method similar to what WCS is doing maybe from one area to another.  But I think the mission area would need to be increased a tad.  We're already gonna have a hard time fitting some models inside of it from what I've heard.

[maje]

You know there was one other thing I was wondering about and that's if you guys are planning on making cockpits visible so we can see the pilots moving around, kind of like XWA and also The FSU are doing with the updated fighters.

[chief1983]

Yes, later on.  It'll probably be something like a massive fighter upgrade once we get this project going a little better.  In fact, we'll be detail boxing the cockpits for use with the Virtual Cockpit mode as well.  And if we get the render to texture or whatever option to dynamically generate a texture, well, you can imagine where we can go with that...

[maje]

Render to Texture?  Are you talking about trying some way to implement a normal map? (I'm sure that there are ways to fake normal mapping in games that don't support it).  Sorry my knowledge of the FS2 engine and implementing new models is a bit non-existant.  The only games I worked with were UnrealED2k3 and 2k4, and X-wing Alliance 3rd party editors like OPTech and Ace_DXF.

[jr2]

For the multiple areas FRED idea, could you have "rooms" so to speak, and have the game only render the contents of the room you're in, but still have the ships in each room able to do everything like normal?  I mean, sort of like what happens to stuff that you're not facing; it doesn't get rendered.  And, you wouldn't have to play any sounds.  Ships would be able to jump back and forth from these rooms, but you can't just fly off the edge of one room into the other, there would be "warp points" in each room that connect them to each other at different locations.  Prolly impossible, but...

[maje]

Another thing I was wondering.... would it be possible to incorporate seemless transitions between entering and exiting a planetary atmosphere?  I'm sure that there are ways to fake this, though it may be more SCP editing related.

[chief1983]

It might be possible but the time involved in leaving an atmosphere could very well not be worth doing.

[Acin]

This "leaving the atmosphere" thing, was something I have already put forward, but I also agree it is better to introduce such things later on.

[jr2]

I suppose the cutscene / autopilot feature of WCS would come in handy there...  have you seen their demo?

[GT-Keravnos]

First of all, Let me say that the force is strong in this one.

Very well done. The daily progress in this mod is nothing short of amazing If you don't mind some fun to help you along here is what I found on the net...

Jabba the Cat is very anxious that this mod is done, so that he can take revenge for his long lost cousin... Damned SOLO!

[jr2]

[chief1983]

Lollercats and roflcopters!  Great!