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Community Projects => The FreeSpace Campaign Restoration Project => Topic started by: Admiral Nelson on January 16, 2018, 09:32:16 am

Title: BETA RELEASE: Wing Commander Saga for FSO
Post by: Admiral Nelson on January 16, 2018, 09:32:16 am
Wing Commander Saga

Quote
Wing Commander Saga: The Darkest Dawn concludes a forty-year galactic struggle between the Terran Confederation and the Kilrathi Empire, an imperialistic, xenophopic alien race. Victory and survival for humanity can only be bought at a terrible cost. Gather your wingmen and face the enemy. Make your mark as the Confederation faces its darkest dawn.

This beta version of Wing Commander Saga has been modified for use with standard FSO builds 3.8.x or later. Additionally, Some new features as documented below have been added.  Note that no changes of any kind have been made to plot, characters etc.  I have decided to release this beta version to try and generate interest in Wing Commander modding for FSO, rather than wait for every last feature to be fully finished.  Please let me know if you have any interest in further enhancing this release.

1) INSTALLATION

[DOWNLOAD] - Use Knossos:
 
Click below to get started. The latest revision is 0.9.5.
 
(https://fsnebula.org/static/kn_download.png) (https://fsnebula.org/mod/Wing_Commander_Saga)


2) CREDITS

WCSaga team - Original concept and campaign
WC Saga Deutch mod team - capital ship debris
Admiral Nelson - Patch to standard FSO as documented below
FrikgFeek - Testing
Axem - Model assistance
Nyctaeus - fighter LODs, debris and cleanup
X3N0-Life-Form - Dialogue skip, battle boards
MatthTheGeek - Original Alpha port
Goober5000 - checkpoint prototype

Special thanks to FrikgFeek for his tireless testing and debugging, and to Admiral Ralwood for implementing fixes for the issues detected in this process.

3) CHANGES IN THIS RELEASE

All missions, models, effects, HUD , interface etc ported to be compliant with standard FSO
Addition of MediaVPs style effects such as muzzle flashes, missile lens flares, flashy deaths and more
Debris for all capital ships and many Kilrathi fighters
Additional pirate taunts and death screams
Moved to autopilot takeoff and landings instead of player controlled as in WC3
APNG cbanis
The ability to skip dialogue in the darkest dawn campaign
Activated pilot self praise dialogue that was recorded but unused in the original release
Minor FRED bugfixes
Spelling fixes

4) KNOWN ISSUES / TO DOs

Unimplemented WC Saga features
The Longbow in this release has 4 secondary banks where it had 6 in WC Saga.  There were no missions in which the 2 extra secondary banks had a loadout which varied in a way in which this would cause any issues.
WC Saga had the ability to completely hide a ship's actual name from the player, which is presently not available in FSO
WC Saga had the ability to force battle music on when fighting stealth fighters, which is also not presently implemented

################################################
TO DOS
Change landing cutscene camera location in each mission
Review launch message ANIs and make sure they are length appropriate
Check uvec/fvec values on Yorktown -class angled turrets
Add checkpoints as appropriate
Add dialogue skip to prologue
Add wingmen taunts in the same way Kilrathi taunts are implemented
Some Kilrathi fighters still need debris
The dialogue skip can break mission 9
The Terran cruiser's name is visible in mission 20
Title: Re: BETA RELEASE: Wing Commander Saga for FSO
Post by: General Battuta on January 16, 2018, 09:36:01 am
whoa this owns
Title: Re: BETA RELEASE: Wing Commander Saga for FSO
Post by: Novachen on January 16, 2018, 09:42:10 am
I do not think, that the enhancements that were made by Wing Commander Saga Plus are not going to be included in this release?
Title: Re: BETA RELEASE: Wing Commander Saga for FSO
Post by: Admiral Nelson on January 16, 2018, 09:47:27 am
The capship debris from their Truemmer Mod are added.  I have not added their newer interface items yet, however.
Title: Re: BETA RELEASE: Wing Commander Saga for FSO
Post by: mjn.mixael on January 16, 2018, 09:52:00 am
So Much Yes.
Title: Re: BETA RELEASE: Wing Commander Saga for FSO
Post by: The E on January 16, 2018, 12:03:39 pm
Get this on Knossos, stat
Title: Re: BETA RELEASE: Wing Commander Saga for FSO
Post by: Colonol Dekker on January 16, 2018, 01:11:38 pm
Oooooooh.    So this will work with cheats now? (What are the cheats on these new builds by the way?)
Title: Re: BETA RELEASE: Wing Commander Saga for FSO
Post by: The E on January 16, 2018, 01:42:17 pm
....the same as they've always been?
Title: Re: BETA RELEASE: Wing Commander Saga for FSO
Post by: CT27 on January 16, 2018, 02:11:43 pm
Does this have both the main campaign and the prologue campaign?
Title: Re: BETA RELEASE: Wing Commander Saga for FSO
Post by: Colonol Dekker on January 16, 2018, 02:51:09 pm
....the same as they've always been?

It's been so long since I used them, I remember them being disabled somehow somewhere  (maybe a standalone mod?) There was an escorts mission in he original campaign I just couldn't quite beat and I think the old cheateroonies will help me get past it.
Title: Re: BETA RELEASE: Wing Commander Saga for FSO
Post by: Admiral Nelson on January 16, 2018, 02:53:12 pm
That mission is 100% fixed now; you don't need any cheataroonies. :)
Title: Re: BETA RELEASE: Wing Commander Saga for FSO
Post by: Admiral Nelson on January 16, 2018, 03:01:42 pm
Get this on Knossos, stat

Done.
Title: Re: BETA RELEASE: Wing Commander Saga for FSO
Post by: Admiral Nelson on January 16, 2018, 03:15:48 pm
Does this have both the main campaign and the prologue campaign?

Yes it does.
Title: Re: BETA RELEASE: Wing Commander Saga for FSO
Post by: CT27 on January 16, 2018, 03:21:41 pm
Get this on Knossos, stat

Done.

Will this be on the Installer too?
Title: Re: BETA RELEASE: Wing Commander Saga for FSO
Post by: FekLeyrTarg on January 16, 2018, 08:20:27 pm
Sounds very interesting. :)

The capship debris from their Truemmer Mod are added.  I have not added their newer interface items yet, however.

Just so I (and others) understand correctly: Are there any plans to include any or all of the features from WCS Plus/WCS Deutsch at some point? Is a possible cooperation with the team behind WCS Plus/WCS Deutsch under consideration?
(Personally, I like both projects as both aim to improve WCS but I honestly think it would make sense to join forces on this one to prevent any possible unnecessary incompatibility between both and... have the best of both worlds.)

On a side note: I'd still love seeing WCS-modding taking off properly. :)
Title: Re: BETA RELEASE: Wing Commander Saga for FSO
Post by: OverDhill on January 16, 2018, 11:29:49 pm
Personally I am not familiar with the WCS Plus. What  features does WCS Plus offer over the standard WCS?
Title: Re: BETA RELEASE: Wing Commander Saga for FSO
Post by: FekLeyrTarg on January 17, 2018, 03:52:13 am
Personally I am not familiar with the WCS Plus. What  features does WCS Plus offer over the standard WCS?

There are many changes over the standard WCS build, which was based on FSO 3.6.12.
So instead of listing these here myself, I simply share the links to the right topics. :)

https://www.wcnews.com/chatzone/threads/wing-commander-saga-plus-pack-development-started.28521/
https://translate.google.de/translate?hl=de&sl=de&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fforum.wcsaga.org%2Fviewtopic.php%3Ff%3D9%26t%3D14 (Translated from German by Google Translator)
Title: Re: BETA RELEASE: Wing Commander Saga for FSO
Post by: Admiral Nelson on January 17, 2018, 04:41:43 am
The thing with a lot of the WCS+ stuff is that those are changes to the codebase itself and not to the mod components -- I'm not a coder and I've never looked at the codebase.  The changes described seemed to be focused mostly on the interface portion. There is already a project going on (https://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=93176.0) to move the FSO interface away from its present clumsy implementation, and so one would likely want to make those interface changes in that new standard system.

My goal in making this was to try and revive interest in Wing Commander modding in general by making Saga available in a modern and supported build, so I'd certainly welcome any interest in such projects from anyone.  There are many things that could be done with it now -- for instance m|m's truetype font support would allow for using Slicker and other proper WC fonts throughout the mod. Scooby has made prototype cockpits which support render to texture which could be added.  And of course, since it is now in standard FSO, multiplayer and cross platform support are a given.
Title: Re: BETA RELEASE: Wing Commander Saga for FSO
Post by: Novachen on January 17, 2018, 05:53:26 am
Personally I am not familiar with the WCS Plus. What  features does WCS Plus offer over the standard WCS?

There are many changes over the standard WCS build, which was based on FSO 3.6.12.
So instead of listing these here myself, I simply share the links to the right topics. :)

https://www.wcnews.com/chatzone/threads/wing-commander-saga-plus-pack-development-started.28521/
https://translate.google.de/translate?hl=de&sl=de&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fforum.wcsaga.org%2Fviewtopic.php%3Ff%3D9%26t%3D14 (Translated from German by Google Translator)

Can you ask somewhere, if the WCSaga Deutsch Team is interested to make a Knossos compatible release of their translation? I think that would be nice move, because i also have released my translations on it (except for BtA, because i am still working on a new major release) :).
Title: Re: BETA RELEASE: Wing Commander Saga for FSO
Post by: Lorric on January 17, 2018, 09:49:21 am
Quote
The ability to skip dialogue in the darkest dawn campaign
:pimp:
Title: Re: BETA RELEASE: Wing Commander Saga for FSO
Post by: CT27 on January 17, 2018, 02:46:14 pm
I'd like to confirm one thing:

We put the "hermes core" file stuff directly into our FS2 folder?
I ask because I've always been told you never put campaign/mod stuff into the main FS2 folder...only into the campaign subfolder.
Title: Re: BETA RELEASE: Wing Commander Saga for FSO
Post by: Admiral Nelson on January 17, 2018, 02:53:02 pm
The hermes core 7z has a subfolder called Wing Commander Saga in it.  If you extract that 7z into your FS2 folder all the files will go into that subfolder.  You can also use Knossos and not have to worry about how and where it needs to be installed! :)
Title: Re: BETA RELEASE: Wing Commander Saga for FSO
Post by: PIe on January 17, 2018, 02:54:53 pm
Well, since this is a TC, you could put everything in a completely separate folder, extract FSO there and then make a new wxLauncher profile, if you're still using that.
Title: Re: BETA RELEASE: Wing Commander Saga for FSO
Post by: CT27 on January 17, 2018, 08:08:59 pm
The hermes core 7z has a subfolder called Wing Commander Saga in it.  If you extract that 7z into your FS2 folder all the files will go into that subfolder.  You can also use Knossos and not have to worry about how and where it needs to be installed! :)

I only have the Installer right now on my computer.  Can I have Knossos on there too?  (I.e., I know I don't use both at the same time, but will both being there be a problem?)
Title: Re: BETA RELEASE: Wing Commander Saga for FSO
Post by: OverDhill on January 17, 2018, 09:04:46 pm
I have WCS in a folder and being used by wxLauncher with no problems. I also have Knossos installed and it works there as well
Title: Re: BETA RELEASE: Wing Commander Saga for FSO
Post by: krevett62 on January 18, 2018, 01:53:07 pm
At least I can now play this TC with all axes recognised on my joystick (thanks to SDL).
Nice work ;)
Title: Re: BETA RELEASE: Wing Commander Saga for FSO
Post by: Torchwood on January 20, 2018, 10:47:54 am
This is an intriguing development, to be sure.

I admit that I have a weakness for Wing Commander things, so seeing Saga given a new lease of life means happy thoughts in my book.
Title: Re: BETA RELEASE: Wing Commander Saga for FSO
Post by: FekLeyrTarg on January 20, 2018, 02:00:20 pm
Can you ask somewhere, if the WCSaga Deutsch Team is interested to make a Knossos compatible release of their translation? I think that would be nice move, because i also have released my translations on it (except for BtA, because i am still working on a new major release) :).

I'm not sure whether or not Luke, the leader of WCS Deutsch and WCS Plus, is here on HLP. But he can be contacted over at wcnews.com, wingcenter.net and wcsaga.org. :)
Title: Re: BETA RELEASE: Wing Commander Saga for FSO
Post by: ngld on January 21, 2018, 04:30:17 pm
He's posted here before (https://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=93339.0).
Title: Re: BETA RELEASE: Wing Commander Saga for FSO
Post by: tomimaki on January 24, 2018, 03:47:35 pm
Any reason why hermes effects are not packed into VP? :nervous:
Title: Re: BETA RELEASE: Wing Commander Saga for FSO
Post by: Admiral Nelson on January 24, 2018, 07:58:52 pm
Effects can't be constrained in a vp, they have to live free... uh, link fixed....
Title: Re: BETA RELEASE: Wing Commander Saga for FSO
Post by: CT27 on February 11, 2018, 08:36:37 pm
Could this be put on the Installer or will it only be available on Knossos (or manual installation)?
Title: Re: BETA RELEASE: Wing Commander Saga for FSO
Post by: Admiral Nelson on February 16, 2018, 01:25:07 pm
Knossos or manual for now.  It's still beta.
Title: Re: BETA RELEASE: Wing Commander Saga for FSO
Post by: Chaotic Entropy on April 14, 2018, 08:05:08 pm
Loving that this is still getting some attention.

Is the utter disinterest that your allies show the missile barrage in the 4th Vega mission with the Valkyrie squadron fixable or a result of the changes? They shoot one or two missiles and then stop completely.

Also on the convoy protecting mission following, the landing sequence doesn't want to trigger so the mission won't end. : /

Edit: I've tried twice now and there is no landing sequence but the standard fly in to the bay is also switched off so it is not possible to complete the Convoy Vega mission now.
Title: Re: BETA RELEASE: Wing Commander Saga for FSO
Post by: core1401 on April 15, 2018, 01:26:10 pm
i have the same problem as well
Title: Re: BETA RELEASE: Wing Commander Saga for FSO
Post by: PIe on April 15, 2018, 02:24:00 pm
Is the utter disinterest that your allies show the missile barrage in the 4th Vega mission with the Valkyrie squadron fixable or a result of the changes? They shoot one or two missiles and then stop completely.
I remember that mission was actually a lot easier when I played it on High difficulty rather than Medium, due to your wingmen's increased intelligence.  I don't know what it's like in the rereleased version, but you might try bumping up the difficulty just for that one mission.
i have the same problem as well
You probably should specify which problem that is, the landing one or the missile barrage one.
Title: Re: BETA RELEASE: Wing Commander Saga for FSO
Post by: Admiral Nelson on April 16, 2018, 11:44:43 am
The missile barrage missions in the original never really worked right due to the retail bug which made missiles invulnerable for 25% of their lifetime.  I can look and see if there are some unexpected wingman orders in there. I'll check the convoy mission landing as well.
Title: Re: BETA RELEASE: Wing Commander Saga for FSO
Post by: core1401 on April 17, 2018, 11:13:13 am
 the missile barrage in the 4th Vega mission with the Valkyrie squadron

Also on the convoy protecting mission following, the landing sequence doesn't want to trigger so the mission won't end
Title: Re: BETA RELEASE: Wing Commander Saga for FSO
Post by: Chaotic Entropy on April 17, 2018, 12:49:29 pm
The missile barrage missions in the original never really worked right due to the retail bug which made missiles invulnerable for 25% of their lifetime.  I can look and see if there are some unexpected wingman orders in there. I'll check the convoy mission landing as well.

Huh... I was not aware of that bug but that would explain why missile shooting missions are so incredibly annoying.
Title: Re: BETA RELEASE: Wing Commander Saga for FSO
Post by: Admiral Nelson on April 23, 2018, 12:05:35 pm
I pushed out a small patch on Knossos to fix some persona issues and the landing sequence in mission 9.
Title: Re: BETA RELEASE: Wing Commander Saga for FSO
Post by: Crashdown117 on April 30, 2018, 04:49:08 am
It appears, mission 37 (the first of the Hyperion arc) has the same problem as mission 9, when it comes to landing on the Hermes. Tried it twice and the landing sequence wasn't triggered both times.
Title: Re: BETA RELEASE: Wing Commander Saga for FSO
Post by: Admiral Nelson on April 30, 2018, 11:39:26 am
OK, I have patched mission 37 on Knossos.  Thank you for posting your issues here.
Title: Re: BETA RELEASE: Wing Commander Saga for FSO
Post by: CT27 on May 21, 2018, 03:48:18 am
Can the issue be fixed for non-Knossos as well?
Title: Re: BETA RELEASE: Wing Commander Saga for FSO
Post by: Admiral Nelson on May 21, 2018, 08:30:28 am
I am traveling presently without access to my home PC, so not for some time. Best to just use knossos.
Title: Re: BETA RELEASE: Wing Commander Saga for FSO
Post by: Nightmare on May 21, 2018, 08:56:49 am
You can download manually from Knossos:

https://fsnebula.org/mod/Wing_Commander_Saga

The fix should be in there, don't know which file though.
Title: Re: BETA RELEASE: Wing Commander Saga for FSO
Post by: tomimaki on May 21, 2018, 05:19:04 pm
Probably hermes_core.
Title: Re: BETA RELEASE: Wing Commander Saga for FSO
Post by: Bobun on June 30, 2018, 01:13:27 pm
Hi guys,
Just wanted to signal you another landing issue on mission "Hyperion 3". At the end of the mission, i cannot land on the Hermes.

Game version: 0.9.2

I deleted the hermes_core and tried your fix at https://fsnebula.org/mod/Wing_Commander_Saga; but still cannot land.

I will wait for your fix on Knossos.

PS: Great job on this mod, a really good game with super music tracks.
Title: Re: BETA RELEASE: Wing Commander Saga for FSO
Post by: Admiral Nelson on July 09, 2018, 07:13:29 pm
I've fixed the landing issue in mission 39; the fix is available through Knossos.  Please let me know if you find any other issues.
Title: Re: BETA RELEASE: Wing Commander Saga for FSO
Post by: CT27 on July 09, 2018, 08:40:42 pm
Out of curiosity:

I have this installed 'regularly' (not Knossos) but as I understand it I can get Knossos files through here (https://fsnebula.org/mod/Wing_Commander_Saga).  Do you remember which of those files the fix you just mentioned was in?
Title: Re: BETA RELEASE: Wing Commander Saga for FSO
Post by: Admiral Nelson on July 09, 2018, 09:25:29 pm
Core.
Title: Re: BETA RELEASE: Wing Commander Saga for FSO
Post by: CT27 on July 09, 2018, 10:03:41 pm
Thank you.
Title: Re: BETA RELEASE: Wing Commander Saga for FSO
Post by: Bobun on July 11, 2018, 08:46:20 am
Ok just finished the mission 39 (Hyperion 3) and was able to land! great job! all works fine.
I'll keep you update if i find any other landing bugs in future missions.

Thanks again for the patch. :yes:
Title: Re: BETA RELEASE: Wing Commander Saga for FSO
Post by: Bobun on July 11, 2018, 09:56:08 am
well i passed the landing issue described bellow in being in godmod when i had to land on the Hermes (to avoid being killed by the dreadnough on landing approach). So like that "Hyperion 5" no more an issue, and works.

well another landing bug on mission "Hyperion 5". But this one is odd :

so the mission finishes and im heading to land on the Hermes. Im just behind the Hermes and the landing video starts (so at this point things look normal). But then, on the video i'm not anymore behind the Hermes but just under the Big Kilrathi capship in a landing approach, with the Hermes many many far away.
And it stays like that until either i die (cause im under its heavy fire) or until eternity (if i use godmod to pass the capship and time acceleration). Escape buttom just propose me to restart, leave...and cannot be used to skip the video.

It's like i was just behind the Hermes and then on landing approach very far away from the Hermes...odd

game version: 0.9.3
Sorry for the bad news.
Title: Re: BETA RELEASE: Wing Commander Saga for FSO
Post by: Bobun on July 15, 2018, 09:53:36 am
Hi guys, just passing the word on another landing bug:

Freya 5 same issue...cannot land at the end of the mission. I tried to enter in its flight bay but it doesn't work or end the mission.

Just for info for other players if you encountered this, sometimes it could seem you cant land cause there is no landing video on the Hermes approach. But actually you can if you enter the flight bay of the Hermes until you arrived at the middle of flight deck. It's the case for one Freya mission for example (mission 2 i guess...).
Title: Re: BETA RELEASE: Wing Commander Saga for FSO
Post by: Admiral Nelson on July 18, 2018, 05:02:21 pm
OK, fixed Freya 5 landing.  Fixed a small glicth with the Kilrathi Ace in the same mission.  Finally, set protect ship on the player during the landing sequence in Hyperion 5.  Update available on Knossos as 0.9.4.
Title: Re: BETA RELEASE: Wing Commander Saga for FSO
Post by: Bobun on July 26, 2018, 06:31:12 pm
job well done mate!  :)
Checked all missions till the end and no more landing issues.

do you think we will see one day a Wing Commander 3 campaign on Freespace engine (my prefer one) like Wing Commander Saga? Will be a dream come true to play like in the old time but with improved graphics.

Anyway, thank you for all your updates  :cool:

PS: by the way, after such a masterpiece of work, have you ever think of making a making-off of your mod? like showing us how you made things, built stories, all that stuff that make this mod so cool. I really liked the characters (So much laugh with Avatar...).
I was thinking of it and im sure it could be cool for everyone. I always love seeing making off after a great movie, so why not doing such things with great mods like this one?...think of it, mate.
Cheers!
Title: Re: BETA RELEASE: Wing Commander Saga for FSO
Post by: Chaotic Entropy on July 28, 2018, 03:04:23 pm
I've gotten to Cairo 4, mission 40 and after killing all cap ships and all fighters the "Destroy Kilrathi Fighters" objective will not complete. Combat music comes to an end but combat chatter continues, no enemies are present and no allies are chasing anything but the mission refuses to end.

Unable to proceed after multiple attempts.

Edit: Well I left the game running for 10-15 minutes longer and it just randomly completed, so not sure if there is some trigger being delayed or not firing at all. At least I can proceed.
Title: Re: BETA RELEASE: Wing Commander Saga for FSO
Post by: Admiral Nelson on July 30, 2018, 01:56:06 pm
job well done mate!  :)
Checked all missions till the end and no more landing issues.

do you think we will see one day a Wing Commander 3 campaign on Freespace engine (my prefer one) like Wing Commander Saga? Will be a dream come true to play like in the old time but with improved graphics.

Anyway, thank you for all your updates  :cool:

PS: by the way, after such a masterpiece of work, have you ever think of making a making-off of your mod? like showing us how you made things, built stories, all that stuff that make this mod so cool. I really liked the characters (So much laugh with Avatar...).
I was thinking of it and im sure it could be cool for everyone. I always love seeing making off after a great movie, so why not doing such things with great mods like this one?...think of it, mate.
Cheers!


I'm glad you enjoyed it.  Something which may not be clear is that WC Saga originally came out in 2012.  They used a custom build of the FSO engine so that they could get the features they wanted in the timeframe they wanted.  That custom build has remained unchanged since 2012.  What I did was to port the original TC to the current FSO engine so that it could benefit from the many improvements to the engine since then, as well as to make it available to non-Windows users, make multiplayer available and so forth.  Thus a "making of" story would require that original mod team to return - I was not part of that team.

Did you try the WCIV demo (https://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=94417.0)?  That is an example of what WC could look like in FSO.

I've gotten to Cairo 4, mission 40 and after killing all cap ships and all fighters the "Destroy Kilrathi Fighters" objective will not complete. Combat music comes to an end but combat chatter continues, no enemies are present and no allies are chasing anything but the mission refuses to end.

Unable to proceed after multiple attempts.

Edit: Well I left the game running for 10-15 minutes longer and it just randomly completed, so not sure if there is some trigger being delayed or not firing at all. At least I can proceed.


Did you mean Cairo 4 or mission 40?  Cairo 4 is mission 37.  I tried it a few times and could not reproduce this bug.
Title: Re: BETA RELEASE: Wing Commander Saga for FSO
Post by: FekLeyrTarg on July 30, 2018, 06:49:47 pm
WCSaga's FRED Release came with the Orsini Missions from WC3 as sample.
https://wcsaga.com/index.php/rs-downloads/download.html?path=tools%252FFRED.zip
Title: Re: BETA RELEASE: Wing Commander Saga for FSO
Post by: Admiral Nelson on July 30, 2018, 07:37:59 pm
Hm -- I completely missed those WC3 demo missions.  It should not take long to port those over to the knossos version as well.  Thanks for the heads up.
Title: Re: BETA RELEASE: Wing Commander Saga for FSO
Post by: FekLeyrTarg on August 03, 2018, 08:28:21 pm
Hm -- I completely missed those WC3 demo missions.  It should not take long to port those over to the knossos version as well.  Thanks for the heads up.
You're welcome. :)

If you wish to restore more WCS-stuff:
The Prologue Release from 2008 contains training missions which weren't adapted for WCS final:
https://wcsaga.com/index.php/rs-downloads/download.html?path=archived%252Fprologue_setup.exe

These were updated by Talon_1024 for version 3.6.12:
www.ciinet.org/kevin/3612mod.7z

He also wrote this Convoy Intercept mission and Arena Tribute:
http://www.ciinet.org/kevin/wc1remake/_dfiles/Capships.zip
www.ciinet.org/kevin/wc1remake/_dfiles/Convoy%20Intercept.zip

Aginor wrote a training mission, which is also included in "WCS Plus":
https://www.wcnews.com/chatzone/threads/assm-aginors-saga-simulator-mission.26182/#post-377359

X3N0-Life-Form made some interesting modifications for WCS:
https://wcsaga.com/index.php/forum-sp-468/22-mods/8594-release-various-modifications.html

Then there's is this asset release of the on-hold "Hostile Frontier":
https://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=77631.0

Perhabs "Hostile Frontier" could be upgraded with these assets:
https://www.wcnews.com/chatzone/threads/wing-commander-saga-klavs-ship-pack.28782/

I'm not sure whether or not I still have any stuff from "Enigma 2666", but I could have a look in the coming days.
Title: Re: BETA RELEASE: Wing Commander Saga for FSO
Post by: praseodym on August 04, 2018, 08:12:49 am
Hm, using Ubuntu 16.04 I dont see a HUD?! Both with 3.7.4 and 3.8.0. Ideas?

Note: I renamed all files to non-capitals
Title: Re: BETA RELEASE: Wing Commander Saga for FSO
Post by: Admiral Nelson on August 06, 2018, 02:34:49 pm
I'd suggest posting in the cross platform development thread about that -- I'm a Windows user.
Title: Re: BETA RELEASE: Wing Commander Saga for FSO
Post by: SL1 on August 26, 2018, 11:31:50 pm
Is there any way to get a Diaspora-style LCOS gunsight (AKA "lead sight" in FSO terms) working for this? I have a mod I use to have that sight for other campaigns, but my attempts to get it working with this mod just resulted in a screwed-up HUD.
Title: Re: BETA RELEASE: Wing Commander Saga for FSO
Post by: Admiral Nelson on August 27, 2018, 02:28:55 pm
Since Saga has a different HUD for every ship your LCOS mod would not work "out of the box" - It would be necessary to review how it works and then map it to each specific entry in Saga's hud_gauges table.
Title: Re: BETA RELEASE: Wing Commander Saga for FSO
Post by: SL1 on August 27, 2018, 06:42:49 pm
Since Saga has a different HUD for every ship your LCOS mod would not work "out of the box" - It would be necessary to review how it works and then map it to each specific entry in Saga's hud_gauges table.

I don't know much about modding Freespace, but I'm guessing that would be a very tedious process that someone wouldn't want to go through just for one guy. If you could point me to somewhere I might learn how to do it myself, though, I'd appreciate that.

If you'd like to take a look at it, you can get it here. (https://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=91197.msg1863845#msg1863845) Axem was kind enough to put it together for me when I asked about including it in his HUD mod. It doesn't appear to be very complicated - just a graphic for the sight itself and some parameters for the HUD gauge - but I realize it's probably more complex than that.
Title: Re: BETA RELEASE: Wing Commander Saga for FSO
Post by: Admiral Nelson on August 27, 2018, 04:40:16 pm
I think you'd have to actually replace the saga hud_gauges with a custom one that removes the entry for "      +Lead Indicator:" and adds in the entry Axem made for +Lead Sight: you see in the little tbm attached in there for every ship.  I don't think you can override and remove a gauge entry with a tbm.  It would have to be done for every ship because every flyable ship in saga has its own set of table entries.
Title: Re: BETA RELEASE: Wing Commander Saga for FSO
Post by: niffiwan on August 27, 2018, 06:10:12 pm
Hm, using Ubuntu 16.04 I dont see a HUD?! Both with 3.7.4 and 3.8.0. Ideas?

Note: I renamed all files to non-capitals

I just tried the Knossos release with Ubuntu 18.04/Mint 19 and the HUD appeared fine in the mission I started? Do you have a fs2open.log?
Title: Re: BETA RELEASE: Wing Commander Saga for FSO
Post by: praseodym on August 28, 2018, 01:24:57 pm
Log attached. THX for reading

[attachment stolen by Russian hackers]
Title: Re: BETA RELEASE: Wing Commander Saga for FSO
Post by: niffiwan on August 29, 2018, 04:22:53 am
uh... you seem to be missing the hermes_core.vp?!? But if that's the case how is anything working... maybe because you also have a lot of loose files in the base directory that I'd not expect to see?

Code: [Select]
Searching root '/home/oliver/Freespace2/Wing Commander Saga/' ... 133 files

Also you seem to be running this as a mod not a Total Conversion, so the Freespace2 retail files might be interfering. I'd recommend moving your "Wing Commander Saga" to a different location (i.e. not inside Freespace2) and running it like a TC. i.e. if you're using wxLauncher set the new location as the game base location.
Title: Re: BETA RELEASE: Wing Commander Saga for FSO
Post by: praseodym on August 29, 2018, 03:21:22 pm
Ok, copied it as TC, installed hermes_core.vp. Now it crashes. Log attached

[attachment stolen by Russian hackers]
Title: Re: BETA RELEASE: Wing Commander Saga for FSO
Post by: tomimaki on August 29, 2018, 04:22:38 pm
Disable 3D Shockwaves or FrameBuffer Shockwaves.
Title: Re: BETA RELEASE: Wing Commander Saga for FSO
Post by: FrikgFeek on August 29, 2018, 04:25:27 pm
Or use 3.8.0.
3.7.4. is 2 years old at this point and is lacking features and bugfixes that this conversion needs.
Title: Re: BETA RELEASE: Wing Commander Saga for FSO
Post by: SL1 on August 30, 2018, 09:34:27 am
Well, I've been able to make the sight appear, but it doesn't move. It just stays in the lower right corner of the HUD.

(https://i.imgur.com/Bhen19j.jpg)

Not sure what's causing that.
Title: Re: BETA RELEASE: Wing Commander Saga for FSO
Post by: kylekatarn77 on September 04, 2018, 03:16:58 am
Is anyone having issues with laying mines on the ALCOR 1 Mission? Where you have to mine the four jump points. The furthest I've gotten is the second jump node, but most of the time on the first it doesn't register on the task tab on the left that I've done so. Laid every line I have in the center, around it, etc, not working.
Title: Re: BETA RELEASE: Wing Commander Saga for FSO
Post by: SL1 on September 14, 2018, 10:16:55 am
Finally got my LCOS working. Turns out that I needed to remove $Required Aspect from the tbm. So I learned something about modding.

I'm thinking of giving FREDding a try, but I'm not quite sure how to learn the autopilot feature. The standalone version of WCS comes with an autopilot template mission, but I'm not sure if that's just intended as a tutorial or if it's supposed to serve as a base from which to create any kind of mission with autopiloting. That might be kind of irrelevant, though, because I'm not sure the template mission works with the FSO version of WCS. When I try to open the template in FRED, I get an error message about an unrecognized operator in the AutoNav Initialize event. FRED says the error appears to be lock-controls, which I'm guessing is related to how this version of WCS does takeoffs and landings automatically. I don't know how big a deal that is. In any case, I think it would be helpful if there were a tutorial on how to set up an autopilot-ready mission from scratch. I can imagine it getting very tedious to have to remove irrelevant parts from the template every single time you want to make a mission.

Finally, a question about WCS for FSO itself: Is it intentional for the game to automatically deactivate the Auto Target feature whenever Strakhas cloak themselves? If so, I'd prefer if that were changed. It doesn't really add any additional challenge or anything, it's just annoying to have to constantly reactivate it. It would also be nice to bring back the system that makes the HUD flash blue when you're only taking shield damage, and flash red when you're taking hull damage.
Title: Re: BETA RELEASE: Wing Commander Saga for FSO
Post by: Admiral Nelson on September 14, 2018, 03:19:36 pm
Finally got my LCOS working. Turns out that I needed to remove $Required Aspect from the tbm. So I learned something about modding.

I'm thinking of giving FREDding a try, but I'm not quite sure how to learn the autopilot feature. The standalone version of WCS comes with an autopilot template mission, but I'm not sure if that's just intended as a tutorial or if it's supposed to serve as a base from which to create any kind of mission with autopiloting. That might be kind of irrelevant, though, because I'm not sure the template mission works with the FSO version of WCS. When I try to open the template in FRED, I get an error message about an unrecognized operator in the AutoNav Initialize event. FRED says the error appears to be lock-controls, which I'm guessing is related to how this version of WCS does takeoffs and landings automatically. I don't know how big a deal that is. In any case, I think it would be helpful if there were a tutorial on how to set up an autopilot-ready mission from scratch. I can imagine it getting very tedious to have to remove irrelevant parts from the template every single time you want to make a mission.

I don't have that template handy, but it would need to be ported to standard FSO.  lock-controls is a custom sexp added by the original saga team in their branch and so will not work here.  If you post the mission I can fix it.

Quote
Finally, a question about WCS for FSO itself: Is it intentional for the game to automatically deactivate the Auto Target feature whenever Strakhas cloak themselves? If so, I'd prefer if that were changed. It doesn't really add any additional challenge or anything, it's just annoying to have to constantly reactivate it.

It is not intentional.  You have found a code bug!  I have created an issue for this one (https://github.com/scp-fs2open/fs2open.github.com/issues/1855).  A coder will need to fix this issue to stop this behavior.

Quote
It would also be nice to bring back the system that makes the HUD flash blue when you're only taking shield damage, and flash red when you're taking hull damage.

I missed turning this feature on.  I will publish a patch to address it.
Title: Re: BETA RELEASE: Wing Commander Saga for FSO
Post by: PIe on September 14, 2018, 03:36:12 pm
I don't have that template handy, but it would need to be ported to standard FSO.  lock-controls is a custom sexp added by the original saga team in their branch and so will not work here.  If you post the mission I can fix it.
Here it is.

[attachment stolen by Russian hackers]
Title: Re: BETA RELEASE: Wing Commander Saga for FSO
Post by: Admiral Nelson on September 14, 2018, 03:47:26 pm
Is anyone having issues with laying mines on the ALCOR 1 Mission? Where you have to mine the four jump points. The furthest I've gotten is the second jump node, but most of the time on the first it doesn't register on the task tab on the left that I've done so. Laid every line I have in the center, around it, etc, not working.

Sorry I missed this question.  All you have to do is drop 4 mines anywhere in the first part.  There is no check about where you drop them, the mission only checks the count of your mines.
Title: Re: BETA RELEASE: Wing Commander Saga for FSO
Post by: kylekatarn77 on September 14, 2018, 06:26:47 pm
Tried, still not working. I even turned cheats on to try placing dozens of mines everywhere, still not working
Title: Re: BETA RELEASE: Wing Commander Saga for FSO
Post by: Admiral Nelson on September 14, 2018, 07:34:20 pm
It looks at how many mines you have expended, not how many are in the mission.  Here is a small video, you see it at the end.  Just select a porcupine bank and press launch 4 times. Not sure why the sound is screwy.
Title: Re: BETA RELEASE: Wing Commander Saga for FSO
Post by: kylekatarn77 on September 18, 2018, 03:12:18 am
Thank you guys but nope, just tried another 2 times but still not working.
Title: Re: BETA RELEASE: Wing Commander Saga for FSO
Post by: SL1 on September 21, 2018, 06:17:51 am
This is a minor thing, but is there a way to make the target monitor the same color as the rest of my HUD? The ingame settings don't work. It just stays green.

Edit: Never mind, figured it out myself. Just had to go into hud_gauges.tbl and remove the Color section from the Target Monitor gauges. I actually had the same problem when I first installed the lead sight mod for FS2 - it was stuck on green and wouldn't change. The fix was the same as it was here, remove the Color section. One thing I'm not sure how to fix, though: The target monitor zooms in a bit too close when targeting a fighter, so the whole model doesn't fit inside the square. A minor annoyance at most, but it would still be nice to fix it.

I also figured out how to re-enable the blue flash for shield damage. Simple edit of the game_settings.tbl for $Generic Pain Flash Factor and $Shield Pain Flash Factor. In fact, once I figured it out, I went and added it to regular FS2 as well. If nothing else, at least I'm learning some stuff about modding Freespace.

How hard would it be to make some other Saga mods work with Saga for FSO? These two would be great for making something from the WC1 or WC2 era:
https://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=94984.0
https://www.wcnews.com/chatzone/threads/wing-commander-saga-klavs-ship-pack.28782/
Title: Re: BETA RELEASE: Wing Commander Saga for FSO
Post by: Admiral Nelson on September 23, 2018, 01:23:54 pm
Woolie's mod throws an error I have not encountered before; I will eventually figure it out.  I have a pack including Klav''s stuff cleaned of errors largely ready, but I need to first finish my current project.
Title: Re: BETA RELEASE: Wing Commander Saga for FSO
Post by: Woolie Wool on September 23, 2018, 03:39:03 pm
My mod was made for Wing Commander Saga Prologue, which is almost completely different internally.
Title: Re: BETA RELEASE: Wing Commander Saga for FSO
Post by: FekLeyrTarg on November 08, 2018, 05:32:23 am
Over on the WCS-subforum, a bug has been reported regarding Mission 41 (Hyperion 5) on WCSOpen Beta.

3 times in a row and it takes almost 30m to get there so im not going to try again, in the last part of the mission, It seems to happen as soon as the 2nd wave of bombers is killed.
Also the number of bombers is not show on screen, it says something like $bomber_count.

I just did a clean install with knossos for the 3rd attempt, same issue.

EDIT: to clearify, its not just a mission error, it crashes the game to desktop, whiout giving any error. Running default config, 3.8.0-3


Title: Re: BETA RELEASE: Wing Commander Saga for FSO
Post by: SL1 on November 07, 2019, 02:56:51 am
I seem to be getting a lot of shots passing right through my shields and damaging my hull. This is a serious problem in missions where you're flying a Thunderbolt or Longbow, because they rely on being able to tank damage with shields. I just played one of the Thunderbolt missions, got behind a Vaktoth, and took 7 percent hull damage from the first shot of its rear turret, even though my shields were at full.
Title: Re: BETA RELEASE: Wing Commander Saga for FSO
Post by: Rayna278 on May 11, 2020, 11:56:14 pm
Hi may I ask about mission 36 (Alcor 2). After destroyed the destroyer group and jumping back to alcor, the carrier is nowhere to be found and cannot be targeted but it appears in escort list.

So I looked around in playthrough by shivansps, after jumping the carrier should be in front of me at 20k range. Anybody can clarify this for me?
I replayed 3 times and it occurs every play. I'm on FSO 19.0.0 64 on WCS 0.9.4
Title: Re: BETA RELEASE: Wing Commander Saga for FSO
Post by: Nagah on May 14, 2021, 09:19:52 am
Hello! I was stoked when I stumbled over this gem, however I have a little issue:

I do not have a HUD when playing in 5120x1440 resolution. When using a lower resolution like 2560x1440 (which causes the screen to be cramped on the left side of my screen) the HUD is there.
So it is related to the resolution.

Is there by chance a fix for that?
Thanks for reading!
Title: Re: BETA RELEASE: Wing Commander Saga for FSO
Post by: Chaotic Entropy on July 08, 2021, 06:04:07 pm
Hi may I ask about mission 36 (Alcor 2). After destroyed the destroyer group and jumping back to alcor, the carrier is nowhere to be found and cannot be targeted but it appears in escort list.

So I looked around in playthrough by shivansps, after jumping the carrier should be in front of me at 20k range. Anybody can clarify this for me?
I replayed 3 times and it occurs every play. I'm on FSO 19.0.0 64 on WCS 0.9.4

I'm also getting this, which is a bugger... I assume you didn't find a way around?
Title: Re: BETA RELEASE: Wing Commander Saga for FSO
Post by: Admiral Nelson on September 21, 2021, 10:19:36 am
I have pushed a small patch to Knossos to fix the Alcor 2 issue mentioned here.
Title: Re: BETA RELEASE: Wing Commander Saga for FSO
Post by: FekLeyrTarg on January 23, 2022, 10:49:15 am
I hope you don't mind me necro-ing this thread for a question.

Have any important Saga-exclusive features been ported over to "mainstream" FSO in the past few years so that WCS-Knossos can use them?
Title: Re: BETA RELEASE: Wing Commander Saga for FSO
Post by: Admiral Nelson on January 24, 2022, 07:26:39 am
TBH most of those Saga features could be replaced with standard FSO functionality - after all the Saga fork was something like 10 years ago.  For example, one feature Saga added was around allowing custom deceleration values for ships emerging from subspace.  I could replicate that feature by using a LUA script.  One of the few features that does not yet have a solution is the ability to turn off and on battle music in FRED.  This was used in Saga to play battle music when stealth ships were about, whereas in standard FSO there needs to be a visible enemy to get it to play.  That is certainly a nice to have, but not the most urgent feature.  There thus really just isn't much in the way of Saga exclusive features to port.
Title: Re: BETA RELEASE: Wing Commander Saga for FSO
Post by: FekLeyrTarg on January 25, 2022, 05:40:04 pm
That great to hear. :)

What about the maximum number of missile banks?
IIRC, Saga allowed for 6 banks because of the Longbow and FSO only 4.
Has that ever been changed?
Title: Re: BETA RELEASE: Wing Commander Saga for FSO
Post by: Admiral Nelson on January 26, 2022, 06:50:25 am
That particular feature broke multiplayer.  As a consequence it was not implemented in "normal" FSO.  The thing is, though, when I looked thru all the missions in WCS there were no cases in which the extra banks were actually used.  In theory one could mix and match missiles more flexibly using these extra banks, but in practice a symmetrical loadout was always chosen.  Therefore the benefit of these extra banks was only theoretical anyway. 
Title: Re: BETA RELEASE: Wing Commander Saga for FSO
Post by: FekLeyrTarg on January 26, 2022, 01:43:19 pm
I see.
Thanks for your explanations.
I'm looking forward to future versions of WCSaga Open. :)
Title: Re: BETA RELEASE: Wing Commander Saga for FSO
Post by: andr3 on February 08, 2022, 01:13:43 pm
Love this mod. It'd be great to get some upgrades like the 4K HUD, or even cockpits like Diaspora. Just dreaming ;)

Anyways, is it possible re-enable the manual carrier landings like in the original stand-alone version?
Acutally landing on deck imensly added to the emersion.

thanks!
Title: Re: BETA RELEASE: Wing Commander Saga for FSO
Post by: Admiral Nelson on February 08, 2022, 07:41:32 pm
Well, as it happens, I also made the 4K mod.  I didn't see any issue with Saga that made me think some changes were required.  Did you see some problem at 4K?

The original team did show some screenshots before the first release of WCSaga that showed cockpits.  For whatever reason, they didn't finish them, or release the ones they did make.  Too bad.

I took out the manual landings due to all sorts of collision problems with those models with later versions of FSO.  Since WC3 itself offered the same kind of auto landings I felt that was the best way to support Saga in FSO.  It therefore isn't realistic to put those back.

Glad you enjoyed the campaign otherwise.
Title: Re: BETA RELEASE: Wing Commander Saga for FSO
Post by: andr3 on February 09, 2022, 09:28:56 am
Well, as it happens, I also made the 4K mod.  I didn't see any issue with Saga that made me think some changes were required.  Did you see some problem at 4K?

Wow, excellent. Sounds like you're suggesting the 4K HUD mod and WCS can be loaded at the same time in Knossos (I am interpreting here). If so, how do I do that?

I took out the manual landings due to all sorts of collision problems with those models with later versions of FSO.  Since WC3 itself offered the same kind of auto landings I felt that was the best way to support Saga in FSO.  It therefore isn't realistic to put those back.

Is there a flag / config file that lets me re-enable manual landings? I'd like to try it. At least in the original WCS stand alone version I had no collision problems.

Thanks!
Title: Re: BETA RELEASE: Wing Commander Saga for FSO
Post by: Admiral Nelson on February 09, 2022, 10:48:43 am
No, I mean that WC Saga looked fine to me in 4K - in "regular" FSO Axem's message box in particular would be too tiny at higher resolutions.  I didn't see a need for that in Saga.

There isn't a way to go back to manual landings and takeoffs - they were just a nightmare of collision sounds and not being able to move.  I am not sure if the Saga team did something special in the original Saga executable, or if 'normal' FSO is just more sensitive.
Title: Re: BETA RELEASE: Wing Commander Saga for FSO
Post by: andr3 on February 09, 2022, 11:28:30 am
Could you implement the 4K mod into WCS then? You're right, the readability is fine as it is. It just looks very pixelated. So if there's the option to have a better resolution on the HUD, I'd say go for it.
Title: Re: BETA RELEASE: Wing Commander Saga for FSO
Post by: ETPC on April 27, 2022, 03:42:33 pm
running into a showstopper crash where the game won't load the mission after destroying Stalker in the Torgo system. tried verifying in Knossos and it says nothing is wrong. is this a known bug? is there a debug log i can upload?

edit: here's my debug log https://fsnebula.org/log/6269adf9a91fb7a060f3407c
Title: Re: BETA RELEASE: Wing Commander Saga for FSO
Post by: Admiral Nelson on April 28, 2022, 06:50:43 am
As discussed on discord, this item is now fixed and pushed to Knossos in version 0.961
Title: Re: BETA RELEASE: Wing Commander Saga for FSO
Post by: Vidmaster on March 28, 2023, 01:32:51 pm
Will try to give this a spin soon, on the most recent stable.