Hard Light Productions Forums
FreeSpace Releases => Mission & Campaign Releases => Topic started by: HLD_Prophecy on December 17, 2018, 08:07:24 pm
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Hello all, HLD_Prophecy here to bother you AGAIN. :D I mentioned getting around to this on the Discord a while ago. Now I'm hoping to make good on that idea.
I'll put it as simply as possible! (Let me talk for ten seconds and I promise you I WILL RANT, so I'll keep the brief brief.)
This is a dump of an old mod I made. Quite some time ago, like on the order of four years or longer since I last closed it up. The files are very outdated and may or may not be radioactive. This is Legendary, my first real mod project and the first one I made substantial progress on. Funnily enough I have never made anything larger since. And that's very much the point: Legendary was supposed to be a narrative/dialogue heavy, two-act, 14 mission campaign with entirely new ships/weapons/combat dynamics.
Entirely too much for one guy to handle. I plugged along, eventually more or less finishing the first act. More or less. Not really.
As it's been sitting on backup for years, I thought it might be fun to take it out of cold storage and see what it looks like now. I know I've learned quite a bit since then. I'd like to talk design ideas, dump plot details, see what y'all think!
And yes. I did have a design document. In my head. :rolleyes: I didn't have it written down on paper. Should have. In all seriousness, though, I had this thing planned. Almost to the letter. Down to each dialogue line, every weapon, where I wanted the ships placed, etc. And I can tell you as much as I can if you like. As best I can; notwithstanding anything I can't remember.
<link removed by OP!>
One final note BEFORE you open up this backup archive: I say again, this was a creation from the mind of a much younger me. A me without FRED experience. Or beta testers. It is extremely outdated. Cringe may be present. (no NSFW I promise, what do you take me for? :p) The contents, namely the "intro" document, may or may not be insightful as to the state of the mod. Furthermore I apologize for the sheer amount of custom community assets present here. My crediting plan was incomplete at the time. I couldn't make assets to save my life. Many of the assets were hacked, shoehorned, and/or renamed to somehow work in my setting.
My hope is to update this topic as I have time, dumping the setting first, then the plot (yes as I said, I knew exactly what was going to happen every mission) then the design ideals/principles/flavors etc.
I hope to be back soon with the setting dump. In the meantime, uh, enjoy I guess! :nod:
Or get out while you can and leave this pile of trash alone... :nervous: :p
Sorry, looks like I failed in my brevity objective. :D Oh, and should this be in another forum...?
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Quick Reminder: A LOT of the files/comments/stuffs in this archive make no sense out of context. I'll explain it all eventually I promise!
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I'll read it anyway~
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kewl :nod:
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(no NSFW I promise, what do you take me for? :p)
Evidently not for some one of fine taste and culture (https://i.somethingawful.com/forumsystem/emoticons/emot-colbert.gif)
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What would you say is the highlight of this dump? What single element are you most proud of?
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Was that the campaign with the futuristic setting, at least a couple hundred years after Capella? Looks rather like a pirate campaign (what is perfectly OK), without any particular starting point aside the numerous new ships.
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What would you say is the highlight of this dump? What single element are you most proud of?
Fantastic question, thanks! Wow, that's tough. I think it was the plot to be honest - strangely enough, the plot is possibly what I love/hate most about the mod. Full of forced moments, but I thought it was going to be very cool when Act II came around and the big plot twist that this was a millenia or so after Capella. The Shivans had passed out of living memory, and only a few footnotes in dusty history books helped the characters when a derelict Sathanas shows up... :D
Was that the campaign with the futuristic setting, at least a couple hundred years after Capella? Looks rather like a pirate campaign (what is perfectly OK), without any particular starting point aside the numerous new ships.
Xactly! The main enemy was pirate groups, raiders, rogue human factions allied with said pirates/raiders, etc. Big conspiracies behind closed doors, whole systems sold out to crime groups, etc. The human government is particularly weak and posturing, it takes the events of the campaign to bring them to their senses and finally take a stand. The derelict Sathanas I mentioned above does not actually include Shivans - it's hijacked by the villians (with veeeeeery limited control) to be used as a terror weapon - the gun pointed at the head of the universe if you will.
Ran very low on time today guys; which would you like to see first? Design principles/driving ideas/themes or a background/setting summary? Specific plot will have to come after setting.
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One more note: the fact that there were a LOT of assets renamed for Pokemon. Yeah that. Deal with it. To quote another academic moke equally educated and unfamiliar with fine taste and culture: I HAVE NO REGRETS :nod:
rly tho come on spoon
i was a younger teenager
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So this is a pirate campaign set in the future, with humanity grown so big that selling a couple sytems isn't a big deal? Did you have a story how to get from FS2 to there? Did the Shivans just move on or something?
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So this is a pirate campaign set in the future, with humanity grown so big that selling a couple sytems isn't a big deal? Did you have a story how to get from FS2 to there? Did the Shivans just move on or something?
Humanity hasn't grown much bigger if at all, systems are basically the same. Government is a twisted mess of loopholes and bureaucratic procedures - it's not actively evil mind you, they have a nominal naval presence and they'll occasionally do something. But even for the few people who really care, it's all but impossible to MOVE anything into action. Also the government tends not to hire/employ/enlist people of action, generally the higher-ups like people who keep their heads down and their words mild.
In short government isn't evil, just bloated and supremely apathetic.
Shivans have not returned since the Second Incursion. Or maybe they did, in secret - thing is nobody really remembers. The last half-remembered vague footnotes recall their appearance in Capella, but that's it. No, they were not intended to show up in this campaign. Also the fate of the Vasudans remains unexplained. They are not there. If they are they were totally unmentioned. My headcanon was that zod systems were now under Terran control. This was equal parts lampshading and cool mystery: Vasudans would have been pretty out of place in the story I wanted to tell, so I just left them out. :)
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And what about technological progress? Right now it seems as if the futuristic date was only there to establish some vastly-different-but-still-FS setting... well I'm not so much convinced so far (though I don't know what you had in mind as plot yet of course), personally I hoped for something like Starforce ( https://wiki.hard-light.net/index.php/The_Starforce_Mod ) as the only other campaigns that I know from that they're set further into the future (OTT started in 2464, Paradigm Shift 80 years after Capella) never delivered. :(
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Wow, never thought this would get this much attention, thanks guys! I'm enjoying opening this idea up once more. :nod:
I guess what you're saying is that if the setting is that far into the future, you need tech advancement to make it convincing - this is where I respectfully disagree with a lot of fiction, especially sci-fi.
I'd like to wait on a proper explanation of the technological situation until I've got more time. To put it as briefly as I can: I study history a lot; it's fun! :D One of the conclusions I've come to is that technology need not advance as time passes, or at least not always at the same rate. It could even decrease. This is not experimentally the case so far, but I believe it is theoretically the case especially for the future. Basically I believe in a certain point of diminishing returns. And there need not be a cataclysm to send us back - people could just not feel a need for advancement. Atrophy. Apathy. Or more likely a simple lack of necessity. There are only so many elements, so many alloys. And they can only hold so much energy/stress/information.
There seems to me to be a general feeling that tech and "science" is a never-ending grade upwards, will always get better and better, becoming some kind of transcendent salvation of mankind, FTL travel, de-aging, teleportation, the cure for entropy (ha!). I see it as something that can only improve so much. But that's just my take.
It's interesting to think about, anyway. :nod:
Forgive the esoteric ramble, that's just the bare scaffold of theory that drives my science fiction thoughts. How it plays out in Legendary I'll describe later - it's not really that deep.
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Aha, one more thing I've remembered - the intro document contains a mild dig at Blue Planet and Exile. As with the whole work, that was made years ago. I hope people can forgive that.
bp is still kinda weird tho
;)
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Good point with the tech levels, although I disagree somewhat due to reading too much Orions Arm.
However, for most things, you'll always find somebody willing to buy them, and hence spinning the wheel further.
But indeed I needed to invent a stop mechanism for LITF, elseway the plot would've been corrupted somewhat. It's still pretty futuristic with Terrans, Zods and Shivans etc having uploaded their personalities to motherships and pilot robo fighters. :D
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Lol, wrote a way too big post! Cutting it down to size:
As technology rises rapidly, we encounter the very real danger of thinking that we are more than what we are.
That alone should give us pause.
Also in my setting no one is really interested in buying up advanced tech, lol! And it's been that way for quite some time. Save the better funded pirates (who are kinda stupid and don't use it well!) and the main characters... :D
Forgive me, what was your stop mechanism again? I don't quite remember how that all went down...
Begging space for one more note: I guess the truth is that I write better fiction in a setting with some "grounding". At a certain point mind control, energy weapons, reality warping, teleporting, artificial "intelligences" (as if!) just get beyond me. I like human stories about humans being humans, not humans acting like they're not human. (Oh look I've transcended old societal and common sense norms now I can talk unintelligible 'erudite' dialogue laced with racial/political/gender commentary suspiciously directed at people of the 21st century becuz the future is that much MOAR!) :D
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Forgive me, what was your stop mechanism again? I don't quite remember how that all went down...
My campaign is - partitially - based on Sushis "The Historian" fanfiction. At some point after FS2 the 3rd Great War happened, and the Shivans ended up being tamed by having their tech implantats overwritten by an ETAK, putting the entire resources the Shivans had (most of the Milky Way) under GTVEA control. Terrans and Vasudans than spread out into the galaxy which was still mostly sterilized by the Shivan actions, and focus switching on individual well-being than common progress by getting supplied by local Shivans; making evereything more static. I had something in mind like medieval Europe or colonial Africa (just without fulfilling the needs of a central colonial power), where stability mattered more than progress.
Still they solved virtually all secrets of the universe, but without the brute computational power of having a true Dyson Sphere full of computronium operating around or inside a star (because if everything's fine, why built one?) they lacked the knowhow to launch attacks upon space-time itself and hence were stuck in this universe when the lights slowly went out...
Admitatly, I didn't took quantum computers into account which to my understanding can create substantial computing power from very little energy, nor Strong AI which would automate progress but I think that's fine with FS where you still need people to pilot fighters in the mid 24th century.
Begging space for one more note: I guess the truth is that I write better fiction in a setting with some "grounding". At a certain point mind control, energy weapons, reality warping, teleporting, artificial "intelligences" (as if!) just get beyond me. I like human stories about humans being humans, not humans acting like they're not human. (Oh look I've transcended old societal and common sense norms now I can talk unintelligible 'erudite' dialogue laced with racial/political/gender commentary suspiciously directed at people of the 21st century becuz the future is that much MOAR!) :D
Yeah at the beginning I wanted to write a complete originally story without any relations to FS. But I'm so uncreative with characters (or as in this case the characterisation of entire species) that I ended up with things that were almost identical; use of ships that were originally made for FS didin't help either. So I thought it'd be better if I drop being entirely original and make the best of what I had.
I don't care about any weird racial/political/gender debate (and TBH, in the... almost 6 years I've worked on this I haven't even thought a single time about that until right now, leave alone implemented), I felt the idea whether people who have uploaded their personalities a trillion years ago and existed merely as databanks floating around a dying sun are still "alive" or a mere computerprogramm more interesting.
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launch attacks upon space-time itself
because the future is what we make it! :D
Interesting that you should bring up "stability mattered more than progress" Did it really, though? Did anyone think that thought or plan that out? I guess what I'd say is that it just happened. But that's my take... Also - Europeans bringing advanced tech into these nations, industrial capability, modern weaponry and farming techniques, urban centers: is that stability over progress? Could it be both added stability and progress?
I felt the idea whether people who have uploaded their personalities a trillion years ago and existed merely as databanks floating around a dying sun are still "alive" or a mere computerprogramm more interesting.
That is pretty darn interesting - at what point would someone "lose" their humanity, if that happened? Would they lose it at all? Would they have forfeited it in the transfer, or are they as much human as the "living" are? I get you, you're asking pretty cool questions and that's very much something fiction can be great at discussing. :nod:
Anyway this is becoming a tad off-topic, my bad! :lol: Sorry for the lack of follow-up, I promise I'll post about Legendary once I get my thoughts together. Anyone got an opinion: setting explanation or design principles first?
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Interesting that you should bring up "stability mattered more than progress" Did it really, though? Did anyone think that thought or plan that out? I guess what I'd say is that it just happened. But that's my take... Also - Europeans bringing advanced tech into these nations, industrial capability, modern weaponry and farming techniques, urban centers: is that stability over progress? Could it be both added stability and progress?
I was rather thinking about the daily live of the Europeans in Africa which was not unlike to those of feudal lords rather than the implications of actual colonialism (compare the development of South Africa - under white rule until 1994 - with the rest of the continent).
That is pretty darn interesting - at what point would someone "lose" their humanity, if that happened? Would they lose it at all? Would they have forfeited it in the transfer, or are they as much human as the "living" are? I get you, you're asking pretty cool questions and that's very much something fiction can be great at discussing. :nod:
My personal line of thought is that they dont change that much the way they think, their brain is just technological instead of bio, everything else can be simulated to a degree. Sure your live will change but you can live in a virtual reality instead. But it might seem pointless from outside.
Anyway this is becoming a tad off-topic, my bad! :lol: Sorry for the lack of follow-up, I promise I'll post about Legendary once I get my thoughts together. Anyone got an opinion: setting explanation or design principles first?
Heh don't stop that I was hoping for some discussion. :p
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Lol, more discussion if you want! ;) But at this point it's becoming a bit of a historical debate-ish on one point, a discussion about humans in a computer on the other. Neither of which are really about Legendary... :lol:
Regarding humans inside a computer: Yeah, it's a useful discussion: if there's no more biological material left, where is the human? I think this points to a piece of humanity outside of the material brain... but that's opening a large, large can of worms... :D
Regarding the state of Africans: feudalism is an oft-repeated and kind of misunderstood concept. The actual conditions under which those under lordship lived varied widely from place to place, even within the same country. Blanketing that lordship/serf dynamic under the term "feudal" is dangerously over simplistic. If you compare the conditions of Africans - okay, which one of the myriad forms of that "feudal" dynamic are we talking about?
Mind, and again this is about staying on topic: we need not discuss these things here and now.
My cotton socks I need to get that setting summary up and return to the point! :p
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Truth is guys this is getting out of hand, no offense Nightmare! But I am beginning to tread on very dangerous ground that really has little to do with my mod dump! - potentially ethical and historical controversy, and if I get on about it I WILL get on about it and we could well have an argument on our hands.
I'd rather stop this here, Nightmare? Can I keep my thread on topic? :)
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Can I keep my thread on topic? :)
Yes you may! :D
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Thanks man, it's all good! I do like to talk about these things sometimes but TBH I can definitely bite off more than I can chew, especially online. :nod:
Will be back in a few days, I think, with the setting!
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im useing your mod for happynewyear do you mind
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im useing your mod for happynewyear do you mind
I don't mind at all! Enjoy! :D Just make sure that you credit the original creators of any assets. :nod: unfortunately that might be tricky - I do not remember at all how complete my documentation was. You might have to investigate the sources yourself if I don't have them written down...
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Setting time! :D A tad busy tonight so I'll set up the basic background. I'll return later with more setting details and technology level to flesh things out, then move to what my plans were for the plot, mission by mission.
Legendary takes place at least one millennia after the end of FS2. Possibly more, maybe up to or exceeding two millenia. I didn't really care too much, honestly the further out the better for my purposes. Most sci-fi that reaches that far out would radically upgrade humanity, introduce new aliens, psychic phenomena, galaxy-spanning empires with hundreds if not thousands of new systems...
Lol, I didn't go for any of that. Terran borders are roughly the same as FS2 GTVA, if not a bit smaller. No new aliens. The Sol gate was never re-opened (I think?) The Shivans have never returned since Capella, surprisingly. Or if they have, they were only stealthy spies - I suppose it could have happened but that wasn't addressed at all in my plot.
The systems are still nominally allied/controlled under a Terran government: colloquially referred to as United Humanity, or UH. Granted it sounds cheezy but hey so does the UN. ;) UH administration lays claim to all inhabited systems, but the systems where it actually holds any semblance of control are pitifully few; Delta Serpentis is the seat of government. The fringes (say past Ross 128 or Aldebaran for example) are all but ignored by the overtaxed government, leaving them free for intrepid pioneers. Or pirates.
Unlike, say, the GTVA, the UH is simply inept. It's huge, on paper there are more than enough bureaucrats to handle every system and then some, but in fact they barely manage the affairs of those few systems where they have a bit more power. In the name of simplicity it was organized more like one massive body, with branches poorly recognized. A miserable state of affairs with crossed signals and confused chain of command.
There is a UH Navy. It's poorly equipped even by the slightly regressive tech standards of the setting (no more beams as I recall, see my tech explanation later). Three massive, lumbering, aging destroyers, armed only with blobs, form the fleet's only real bulk. (These used the GTD Henderson user-made model) There were a bunch of cruisers and auxiliaries, presumably, and fighters (though the destroyers had no fighterbay!!). Fleet assets, with little else to do, would lumber around the systems with no proper cover and poor efficiency, responding often belatedly if at all to distress calls.
The UH was not actively malicious as a whole, simply incredibly apathetic and poorly equipped. If any in the government wanted to help matters, they were stifled not so much by deliberate force as by the wretched inefficiency of the whole mess. And yes, there were outright crooks in high places.
This corrupt state of affairs had a few results: A lack of technological advancement. A reinforcement of simple desire to survive among civilians. Distrust of centrality and government. A major movement towards isolation and self-sufficiency among individual systems and colonies. Local efforts to fight back against pirates.
And yes, pirates.
Decades before the start of the story, piracy and other criminal activity had been a dominant factor. Naturally the weakness of the government encouraged predation. By the time of the story there's basically pirates pirates everywhere. And they don't not do anything this time. :D They've even infiltrated the government; despite the plethora of pirate groups and their constant infighting, some groups have made dark deals with ostensibly loyal officials. A conspiracy is in the works... more on that later. Their attacks made an already bad situation worse - as support for the UH drops to all-time lows, they can't scrape funding and willpower together to fight back against the influx of raiders. Local militias and disgruntled police fight back as they can, desperately clinging to whatever territory, livelihood, and civilians they can protect...
The state of affairs is a short step away from total anarchy.
Into this world step our heroes. Short description here: Vigilantes. Led and funded by a former UH governor (maybe a navy member?) known as "The Chief". Elderly but with fighting spirit, he has had enough of the disintegration of his people. Digging into a deep personal pocket and relying on old friends/government contacts, he manages to scrape together a small task force of an old carrier and a handful of fightercraft. With UH sanctions on his heels yet with little to fear from the inept Naval command, the player character (one of Chief's hand-picked pilots) and the rest of the small group perform quick-response duties, browsing all channels for distress calls and hunting down pirates. Immensely popular among civilians, as they gain fame they start to be referred to as "Legendary"...
Thanks, guys, that was a rough sketch of what I can remember about my setting! Wow, that was years ago... :p Still very fun to bring this out and dust it off! I will be back later with more details. Questions, comments and advice are welcome! I can use the help. :nod:
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While the overall setting is pretty fine, you're in serious need for a better backstory as your "somehow like FS, but completely different" doesn't make much sense to me. A couple examples:
-Vasudans just... disappeared.
-Jump nodes are almost identical to FS2, although they last only for decades, maybe centuries.
-It has been several millenia since FS2, but over the entire time (I doubt that they would remain static for thousands of years) an all-Terran government didn't bother to built a Sol Gate, or atleast establish sublight communication? At that time scope, people could have traveled to Sol and back at sublight speed.
-Did UH disarm themselves voluntary? Just 3 destroyers without fighterbays isn't that much...
Some ideas how to come such a scenario (bit like Exile).
Plans to built a Sol Gate are dropped after the light from Sol going Supernova reaches Alpha Centauri.
Couple years later, the Shivans reappear on multiple fronts, destroy all Vasudan and several Terran systems as well as most of GTVAs fleet.
In a last-ditch attack GTVA equips all remaining destroyers with meson bombs and blows up all subspace nodes.
The remaining Terrans are isolated and sparsely populated (there are much more systems that were Terran at some point of FS1/2), causing their civilisation to collapse.
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While the overall setting is pretty fine, you're in serious need for a better backstory as your "somehow like FS, but completely different" doesn't make much sense to me. A couple examples:
-Vasudans just... disappeared.
-Jump nodes are almost identical to FS2, although they last only for decades, maybe centuries.
-It has been several millenia since FS2, but over the entire time (I doubt that they would remain static for thousands of years) an all-Terran government didn't bother to built a Sol Gate, or atleast establish sublight communication? At that time scope, people could have traveled to Sol and back at sublight speed.
-Did UH disarm themselves voluntary? Just 3 destroyers without fighterbays isn't that much...
Some ideas how to come such a scenario (bit like Exile).
Plans to built a Sol Gate are dropped after the light from Sol going Supernova reaches Alpha Centauri.
Couple years later, the Shivans reappear on multiple fronts, destroy all Vasudan and several Terran systems as well as most of GTVAs fleet.
In a last-ditch attack GTVA equips all remaining destroyers with meson bombs and blows up all subspace nodes.
The remaining Terrans are isolated and sparsely populated (there are much more systems that were Terran at some point of FS1/2), causing their civilisation to collapse.
Do remember guys: this was written years ago when I was a teenager, any plot holes are mine! :p
1. Yes, Vasudans are not present. I'll explain that now; it largely was a lampshade of the fact that zods would not have fit into my plot very well. I leave the absence of Vasudans unexplained in the plot. I didn't visit any zod systems. My headcanon was that there were two main possibilities: First, they were well and truly extinct. Only of interest to historians and archaeologists. The Terran inhabitants of Vasuda Prime go about their day without ever thinking of what came before. Second option is that the Vasudan Imperium still exists but, witnessing the fall of Terran society, they've become incredibly insular, removing themselves to a few core systems and shutting themselves off completely.
2. Jump nodes can fluctuate yes... I'll admit that's a bit of a plot hole. I didn't say the nodemap was perfectly identical, mind, just similar. The Capella nodes just recently came back into existence BTW, that's Act 2 I'll get to that. :) Also remember that natural phenoma do not always occur at the same rate forever. For example the half-lives of elements, the rate of catastrophic occurrences on a tectonic level, even the speed of light are known to have fluctuated. Could be nodes started becoming more permenanet. But yeah, that's very much an after-the-fact explanation and it was mostly an oversight that I did not notice as I liked the setting feature.
3. They could well have tried a Sol Gate. Or not. Maybe they tried one, but failed? It was millennia ago. Of course they could have sent someone sublight, but who would sign up for that? Entropy is very real; things fall apart over time and not every decision makes sense with a millennia's worth of hindsight. :D
4. Yes and no. More like they couldn't scrape together the motivation or funding for anything larger. I meant that their relatively tiny Navy should symbolize their incapacity to GET STUFF DONE. :p
Okay, and I say again: I may try to defend decisions ex post facto but this is not a setting or plot that I am trying to bring back or make watertight for a modern release. Again, this was as a young teenager. ;) Look at your average cringey teenage fanfic and tell me I have that many more problems. :lol: Also, I never had "somehow like FS but different" in mind. I did not have that preconceived necessity when making the universe. A lot of these things are unexplained, yes, but plausible IMHO. If only barely plausible. :D
you're in serious need for a better backstory
I guess your comment here just rankled me a bit even if you didn't mean it that way. :) M8 I'm not interested in fixing it up, this is how it was.
All that said your advice is useful for future projects! But if y'all could remember that it's general design advice that's useful, rather than poking specific holes in something I already know is tenuous at best... :nod:
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Sry if it came across a bit harsh, it was just what was going right through my head. :)
Which is still under the influence of a mod which is the epilog to BP and FS as well as related to ME, BSG, Star Ixiom etc...
All that said your advice is useful for future projects! But if y'all could remember that it's general design advice that's useful, rather than poking specific holes in something I already know is tenuous at best... :nod:
Well I said I didn't meant poking at specific holes, just to show examples of what I felt was missing. The setting itself is interesting and unusual for FS, but how did you end up there? Having your setting related to FS can of course get people interested as they have a certain expectation with that you can play- another example I had was following concept: GTVA returns to Earth, but Earth is now a lush green forest world, and there's no single human in Sol. There're no Shivans, no destruction but also no message left behind. And of course there's no sudden inter-universe travel. All GTVA has is a giant mistery.
If you relate an elseway unrelated plot to FS without a particular reason just because you felt you liked it that way (see a certain other thread, or the "Terrans are now the native species of Vasuda Prime for some unknown reason") there might be people here would just play the mod as you envisioned it, but others would question that. One way or another, it might still be a way to make things better.
When you can't find a reason why your setting is related to FS (but don't feel like writing an original plot) you can either say "****, how did I forgot these plotholes, my story is so bad etc" OR you can use that to figure out what your backstory could be like, and use it to make your main mod more interesting (even though the backstory might not play that much of a role for the actual plot). Atleast that's what I would do and actually did with the "empty Earth" concept above. That's what I tried to do with the backstory in the previous post, though I don't know whether you found my ideas good or bad, I threw them together in a couple mins.
I may try to defend decisions ex post facto but this is not a setting or plot that I am trying to bring back or make watertight for a modern release. Again, this was as a young teenager. ;) Look at your average cringey teenage fanfic and tell me I have that many more problems.
Half the magic is that you don't show old **** to anybody! :p
https://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=28883.msg588565#msg588565
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Right. All this is pretty darn useful for writing new plots from this point onward. :nod: I would definitely think about some more background if I were to re-write it - although bear in mind a good story need not explain every single detail that brought it there. Over-exposition is the bane of many. But even if the audience doesn't hear everything, the author should have his setting's ducks in a row - it helps coherent writing.
Unlike, say, a certain epilogue to BP, I'm more or less aware of the problems in this setting. Generally any holes/problems could be explained away with "it's been a really really long time" and "things can change but also not change at all". I guess that's the way I see history; it's not safe to say what will and won't change. But I digress. Much of that is after-the-fact although I did have some of those "explanations" in mind at the time.
It may be wise for me to stick to explaining what the plot/setting was, just as it was, without giving a modern defense.
I guess I should've seen more of this coming when I decided to show this old stuff. I did ask for comments after all! :lol:
Will get back to this topic in a few days or so with some more setting/design commentary for your enjoyment thoughtful critique. :D
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shivans too
theres two ships broken i need fix ofit
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File: modelread.cpp
Line: 1062
ntdll.dll! NtWaitForSingleObject + 20 bytes
KERNELBASE.dll! WaitForSingleObjectEx + 162 bytes
fred2_open_3_8_0_x64_SSE2.exe! <no symbol>
fred2_open_3_8_0_x64_SSE2.exe! <no symbol>
fred2_open_3_8_0_x64_SSE2.exe! <no symbol>
fred2_open_3_8_0_x64_SSE2.exe! <no symbol>
fred2_open_3_8_0_x64_SSE2.exe! <no symbol>
fred2_open_3_8_0_x64_SSE2.exe! <no symbol>
fred2_open_3_8_0_x64_SSE2.exe! <no symbol>
fred2_open_3_8_0_x64_SSE2.exe! <no symbol>
fred2_open_3_8_0_x64_SSE2.exe! <no symbol>
fred2_open_3_8_0_x64_SSE2.exe! <no symbol>
fred2_open_3_8_0_x64_SSE2.exe! <no symbol>
fred2_open_3_8_0_x64_SSE2.exe! <no symbol>
fred2_open_3_8_0_x64_SSE2.exe! <no symbol>
fred2_open_3_8_0_x64_SSE2.exe! <no symbol>
fred2_open_3_8_0_x64_SSE2.exe! <no symbol>
USER32.dll! CallWindowProcW + 1217 bytes
USER32.dll! CallWindowProcW + 139 bytes
OPENGL32.dll! glDebugEntry + 62385 bytes
USER32.dll! CallWindowProcW + 1217 bytes
USER32.dll! DispatchMessageW + 467 bytes
fred2_open_3_8_0_x64_SSE2.exe! <no symbol>
fred2_open_3_8_0_x64_SSE2.exe! <no symbol>
fred2_open_3_8_0_x64_SSE2.exe! <no symbol>
fred2_open_3_8_0_x64_SSE2.exe! <no symbol>
KERNEL32.DLL! BaseThreadInitThunk + 20 bytes
ntdll.dll! RtlUserThreadStart + 33 bytes
Error: Can't open model file <tsc2.pof>
File: modelread.cpp
Line: 1062
ntdll.dll! NtWaitForSingleObject + 20 bytes
KERNELBASE.dll! WaitForSingleObjectEx + 162 bytes
fred2_open_3_8_0_x64_SSE2.exe! <no symbol>
fred2_open_3_8_0_x64_SSE2.exe! <no symbol>
fred2_open_3_8_0_x64_SSE2.exe! <no symbol>
fred2_open_3_8_0_x64_SSE2.exe! <no symbol>
fred2_open_3_8_0_x64_SSE2.exe! <no symbol>
fred2_open_3_8_0_x64_SSE2.exe! <no symbol>
fred2_open_3_8_0_x64_SSE2.exe! <no symbol>
fred2_open_3_8_0_x64_SSE2.exe! <no symbol>
fred2_open_3_8_0_x64_SSE2.exe! <no symbol>
fred2_open_3_8_0_x64_SSE2.exe! <no symbol>
fred2_open_3_8_0_x64_SSE2.exe! <no symbol>
fred2_open_3_8_0_x64_SSE2.exe! <no symbol>
fred2_open_3_8_0_x64_SSE2.exe! <no symbol>
fred2_open_3_8_0_x64_SSE2.exe! <no symbol>
fred2_open_3_8_0_x64_SSE2.exe! <no symbol>
USER32.dll! CallWindowProcW + 1217 bytes
USER32.dll! CallWindowProcW + 139 bytes
OPENGL32.dll! glDebugEntry + 62385 bytes
USER32.dll! CallWindowProcW + 1217 bytes
USER32.dll! DispatchMessageW + 467 bytes
fred2_open_3_8_0_x64_SSE2.exe! <no symbol>
fred2_open_3_8_0_x64_SSE2.exe! <no symbol>
fred2_open_3_8_0_x64_SSE2.exe! <no symbol>
fred2_open_3_8_0_x64_SSE2.exe! <no symbol>
KERNEL32.DLL! BaseThreadInitThunk + 20 bytes
ntdll.dll! RtlUserThreadStart + 33 bytes
2 ships missing
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HLD_Prophecy :wtf: ... did you not debug your modpack before releasing...? :hopping: ;)
@Wouter: just rename tsc2.pof to tc2x.pof in the ships.tbl.
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:nervous:
:D
Lol guys as Nightmare knows ( :D) this was never even release-ready all the way back then! It's literally been drawn from my dusty archive, untouched since all those years ago.
@wouter I do apologize, I had forgotten just how truly badly outdated this had become. I need to leave it to you for now, more or less. I'm going to be out for Christmas. I'll be back maybe a day or two or three after Christmas to revisit this topic. Hope you all enjoy Christmas and have a happynewyear! :nod:
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I'm fixing it now.
Clarification: Is this Happy New Year?
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I'm fixing it now.
Clarification: Is this Happy New Year?
No.
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correct but im alowwed to use this
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I'd presume this hasn't changed.
im useing your mod for happynewyear do you mind
I don't mind at all! Enjoy! :D Just make sure that you credit the original creators of any assets. :nod: unfortunately that might be tricky - I do not remember at all how complete my documentation was. You might have to investigate the sources yourself if I don't have them written down...
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/me beingnosey.gif
I like the sound of the UH. Civil service in space......utterly useless.
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Where do we get this file "tsc2.pof"?
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Is this not the name of one of the retail containers?
Should be tc2x.pof in the MVPs iirc.
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Just rename tsc2.pof to tc2x.pof in the ships.tbl.
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I've did. Now trying to look for more problems.
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Hey all :cool:
Just a quick update: I'm racing to get a few different mod projects done. In addition I've come down with a bothersome fever and a typical migraine headache (I get those a lot! :lol:). I'm a bit low on time and energy so I'm putting this topic on hold for a while until I can collect my thoughts. Same goes for the TFWFTM thread. Thanks!
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As of now, I've been revamping all of the missions. This include upgrading models, adding skyboxes, debriefings and briefings, all of it.
@Woutersmits, sorry for being late because of my Shattered Stars. Now it appears the Teaser Demo may have been botched after all.
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Bryan, this isn't the SS thread. Go talk about your campaign where it should be talked about.
Such as the release thread.
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Bryan, this isn't the SS thread. Go talk about your campaign where it should be talked about.
Such as the release thread.
Strygon is right. If it happens again, warning time.
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Bryan, this isn't the SS thread. Go talk about your campaign where it should be talked about.
Such as the release thread.
Strygon is right. If it happens again, warning time.
I agree.
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Unfortunately, as part of my general plan to withdraw from most HLP activities, I'm not able to return to this topic. Can the moderator close this, please? :)
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Can’t we just leave it open to talk about it?
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"After the fact discussion" sounds like we can to me.
:)
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Can the moderator close this, please? :)
...except that I asked politely for my own topic to be closed. :p
I said please you know. :)
Mods? ;)
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Then remove the download link. :p
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I removed the download link yesterday m8! ;)
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Beg pardon, my modification a few posts above was meant to be a new post.
Can the moderator close my topic?