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Hosted Projects - Standalone => The Babylon Project => Topic started by: karajorma on March 04, 2016, 10:24:05 pm

Title: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: karajorma on March 04, 2016, 10:24:05 pm
If there is enough interest in getting a team together to do it, I'd definitely be willing to make a release with everything bundled together and working. I think the difficulty of getting a working TBP set up is one of the reasons why it doesn't get the attention it deserves. I'd like to see it bundled up in the same way I did with Diaspora. One download, as an executable, that sticks everything in the right places.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: wesp5 on March 05, 2016, 08:56:12 am
If there is enough interest in getting a team together to do it, I'd definitely be willing to make a release with everything bundled together and working.

I don't think there is a team needed, if you could do a Battlestar installer you could probably do one for The Babylon Project too :)! I would suggest at least two new releases, maybe three:

1. The Babylon Project Installer 3.5 which should include 3.4b as installer inside an installer because I think there was a deal that the latter mustn't be modified and then Zathras 2.8 and FSO 2.7 and wxlauncher should be installed on top in one go. I even considered doing this myself, but I am still busy with the Bloodlines patch and I don't know how to do the installer inside the installer bit that would be needed.

2. The Babylon Project Campaign Pack 2.5 which should include all the stuff in the 2.0 pack, plus my fixes for the Star Fury Missions and the First Ones missions and all the updated and finished campaigns, like Drums of War and Operations 2.0 and the MP improvements. Some of these are on the ModDB, but a lot would have been found here buried somewhere in the forum, in the hope that all the links are still alive.

3. Optional: A DVD 2.0 version including the two installers above in one big iso file.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: karajorma on March 05, 2016, 08:41:03 pm
If I were to do this, I have no intention of keeping to the insane rule of not changing the 3.4 VPs, or using ISO files, or maintaining more than one download per platform. It's exactly this sort of thing that has been slowly strangling the life out of this project. We need a single download that sets up all the mods and files so that users aren't messing about with confusing multiple downloads.

Before I'd be willing to bundle everything together, I'd need help fixing any errors that debug flags. I believe there are still some. Things would need testing to ensure they work with newer FSO builds. I also have a very slow internet connection so actually uploading after bundling would be difficult. So if it proves impossible, I'd have to work out the process to make the installer work and then give instructions to someone with a faster connection. I'd also need someone to handle the Linux and Mac side of things. I see no reason to leave those platforms out.

So yeah, it's not a simple thing to do. I certainly am willing to do it, but I don't think I can do it alone.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: wesp5 on March 06, 2016, 12:05:32 pm
If I were to do this, I have no intention of keeping to the insane rule of not changing the 3.4 VPs, or using ISO files, or maintaining more than one download per platform. It's exactly this sort of thing that has been slowly strangling the life out of this project. We need a single download that sets up all the mods and files so that users aren't messing about with confusing multiple downloads.

I actually agree with you on this and never understood myself the seperation into TBP and Zathras. If you are willing to take the wrath of any old developers, I'm fine with that ;)! So should the name of the whole thing be TBP 3.5 or were there enough changes made to merit 4.0? I arrived a little bit late to the party when 3.4b was already out, but I always hated the "b" bit which sounds like "beta".

Quote
Things would need testing to ensure they work with newer FSO builds.

I could help you out with some of that. I think just recently someone fixed a FSO 2.7.2 issue in Zathras, but I didn't get what needs to be changed as I am not a great FSO specialist! If the mod does not actually benefit from new FSO features we could also include 2.7.0 with the whole thing, because this works with Zathras 2.8 for sure. Also how about features that are not yet included in 2.8, but mentioned here?

Quote
I also have a very slow internet connection so actually uploading after bundling would be difficult.

I could handle that because I have very fast upload at the university.

Quote
I'd also need someone to handle the Linux and Mac side of things.

I can't help you there...
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: Col. Fishguts on March 07, 2016, 02:26:06 pm
If I were to do this, I have no intention of keeping to the insane rule of not changing the 3.4 VPs, or using ISO files, or maintaining more than one download per platform. It's exactly this sort of thing that has been slowly strangling the life out of this project. We need a single download that sets up all the mods and files so that users aren't messing about with confusing multiple downloads.

I actually agree with you on this and never understood myself the seperation into TBP and Zathras. If you are willing to take the wrath of any old developers, I'm fine with that ;)! So should the name of the whole thing be TBP 3.5 or were there enough changes made to merit 4.0? I arrived a little bit late to the party when 3.4b was already out, but I always hated the "b" bit which sounds like "beta".


Go for it, this 3.4b is holy and should not be touched anymore was never a good idea.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: tomimaki on March 12, 2016, 06:24:18 pm
A bit whine :P
After installing patch I see duplicated DarkChildren.vp and GOLdemo3.vp in data\missions.
Other duplicated files are in extras\effects\effects and extras\effects\tables.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: wesp5 on March 15, 2016, 08:57:14 am
After installing patch I see duplicated DarkChildren.vp and GOLdemo3.vp in data\missions.
Other duplicated files are in extras\effects\effects and extras\effects\tables.

Ah, a problem with the installer. I'll fix it and upload an updated version...
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: OverDhill on May 15, 2016, 06:29:57 am
I have posted about this game on the Babylon 5 Project Facebook page and it has gotten quite a few interested in it. As many of these people are not computer guys I would love to see a TBP installer to make it easier to get into the game. It is quite the ordeal to find all the latest updates and patches and get it all up to date at the moment.

Any updates on your efforts?
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: wesp5 on June 01, 2016, 06:38:22 am
It is quite the ordeal to find all the latest updates and patches and get it all up to date at the moment.

My sentiments exactly and I was hoping karajorma was doing something like this! But then he disappeared...
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: karajorma on June 01, 2016, 09:35:20 pm
I'm still here. I'm happy to pull things together. I'm going to be rather busy this weekend but we can make a start pulling things together next week. If people want to get started on telling me what errors pop up when running with 3.7.4 that would be a good start.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: wesp5 on June 03, 2016, 11:02:19 am
I'm happy to pull things together.

Great to hear that :)!

Quote
If people want to get started on telling me what errors pop up when running with 3.7.4 that would be a good start.

Do we really need to include 3.7.4? I think the last version that worked fine with TBP and Zathras was 3.7.0! What new does 3.7.4 bring to the table? Because I can't even start the mod with it as I get the following error message:

weapons.tbl (line 7545): Error: Missing required token: [+Bitmap:]. Found [$Icon: icon Tempest] instead.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: OverDhill on June 03, 2016, 01:13:57 pm
I agree unless there is some graphics improvements that can be gained from 3.7.4 there is no reason to spend the time getting it to work. I was looking more of a new installer with all the latest patches and missions so a newbie can install and play. A lot of people on the Babylon 5 Facebook page showed interest but many are not IT people up to the task of gathering and figuring out what and how to install it.

Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: tomimaki on June 03, 2016, 06:16:13 pm
I'm happy to pull things together.

Great to hear that :)!

Quote
If people want to get started on telling me what errors pop up when running with 3.7.4 that would be a good start.

Do we really need to include 3.7.4? I think the last version that worked fine with TBP and Zathras was 3.7.0! What new does 3.7.4 bring to the table? Because I can't even start the mod with it as I get the following error message:

weapons.tbl (line 7545): Error: Missing required token: [+Bitmap:]. Found [$Icon: icon Tempest] instead.
Here is fix for this error:
http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=91499.msg1813973#msg1813973
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: AdmiralRalwood on June 04, 2016, 03:23:31 am
3.7.4 has not only a new renderer (with deferred lighting and soft shadows), but also fixes a lot of errors. There are also plenty of new features for modders, though obviously that's less important unless people would be interested in making new content for TBP. However, the bugfixes alone are worth the update; if there are any other errors with a recent build, they should be fixable. Just post about 'em and let's see if we can't fix them all.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: wesp5 on June 05, 2016, 07:42:22 am
Here is fix for this error:
http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=91499.msg1813973#msg1813973

Okay, I have done this but I still get the same error. Where do I need to put the fixed tbl?
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: tomimaki on June 05, 2016, 08:10:20 am
Zathras\data\tables
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: wesp5 on June 05, 2016, 10:04:15 am
Ah, didn't know I needed to create an extra folder. The game is starting now, but as soon as I launch some of the Starfury Pilot missions I get another error:

Assertion Failed!
Assert: n_points > 0
File: modelcollid.cpp
Line 64
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: tomimaki on June 05, 2016, 11:06:08 am
fs2_open.log ?
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: AdmiralRalwood on June 05, 2016, 03:23:51 pm
As I understand it (from what little of that section of the code I'm able to understand), that assertion means there's a submodel with no vertices somewhere. Since that's an asset issue rather than a code issue, that should really generate an Error() (if a serious problem) or a Warning() (if otherwise), rather than being an Assert().

(In this case, the Assert() appears to be guarding against calling malloc with a negative size, which leads to allocating massive quantities of memory due to malloc having an unsigned size argument; a value of 0 shouldn't have the same problem, but regardless, the code would need changing in some way.)
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: wesp5 on June 06, 2016, 03:19:05 pm
fs2_open.log ?

Attached!

[attachment DELETED!! by Strong Bad]
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: AdmiralRalwood on June 06, 2016, 03:52:43 pm
Code: [Select]
Loading model 'nothing.pof' into slot '13'I'm guessing nothing.pof probably lacks any kind of model geometry, going by the name...
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: karajorma on June 08, 2016, 12:01:59 am
3.7.4 has not only a new renderer (with deferred lighting and soft shadows), but also fixes a lot of errors. There are also plenty of new features for modders, though obviously that's less important unless people would be interested in making new content for TBP. However, the bugfixes alone are worth the update; if there are any other errors with a recent build, they should be fixable. Just post about 'em and let's see if we can't fix them all.

While that's definitely true, the main reason for going for 3.7.4 is because if we do find a problem that is caused by an actual bug we'd have to release and support our own version of 3.7.0 with that bug fix. I've been down that road before and it's dumb idea to start out on it again when as you say 3.7.4 is already a better build anyway.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: wesp5 on June 08, 2016, 08:11:47 am
While that's definitely true, the main reason for going for 3.7.4 is because if we do find a problem that is caused by an actual bug we'd have to release and support our own version of 3.7.0 with that bug fix.

Agreed. But right now I can't even start one mission with 3.7.4 and while I managed to create the Star Fury patch by fixing obvious problems in the mission files, all these errors caused by the main game files are over my head! I hope some of you can fix those...
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: OverDhill on June 11, 2016, 08:30:04 am
It would be great to see this game updated but I agree it is going to take some of the experts to help fix these errors.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: karajorma on June 12, 2016, 12:06:47 am
Agreed. But right now I can't even start one mission with 3.7.4 and while I managed to create the Star Fury patch by fixing obvious problems in the mission files, all these errors caused by the main game files are over my head! I hope some of you can fix those...

Sure. I'll finally have time to get started on things this week. The error you have appears in any Star Fury pilot mission?


Also, am I right in assuming that The Babylon Project doesn't have a SVN? It would probably be a good idea to get one if that is the case. Collaboration is going to be a PITA otherwise.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: wesp5 on June 12, 2016, 09:31:43 am
Sure. I'll finally have time to get started on things this week. The error you have appears in any Star Fury pilot mission?

I think it happened with one of the First Ones campaign too, so I guess it's a common TBP or Zathras problem.

Quote
Also, am I right in assuming that The Babylon Project doesn't have a SVN?

Maybe some of the original developers are still around. What is a SVN? Some kind of bug tracker?
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: niffiwan on June 12, 2016, 04:47:36 pm
What is a SVN? Some kind of bug tracker?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apache_Subversion

While designed for tracking changes to source codes, many FSO based projects use it to to manage mod files under development. It provides a way to collaborate on file changes, distribute those changes, and provides backups of every version of the file in the "repository".

Contrast that with Mantis (http://hard-light.net/mantis/my_view_page.php); TBP bug tracker
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: LaineyBugsDaddy on June 14, 2016, 01:34:28 pm
Personally, these days, I feel git works a lot better than SVN, and github hosts the repository for you, meaning free cloud backup. Only reason I don't use it for my web dev stuff yet is that I haven't figured out how to write a PHP script to pull changes from a git repo to be called by a post commit hook the way I can with SubVersion.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: The E on June 14, 2016, 01:39:10 pm
Personally, these days, I feel git works a lot better than SVN, and github hosts the repository for you, meaning free cloud backup. Only reason I don't use it for my web dev stuff yet is that I haven't figured out how to write a PHP script to pull changes from a git repo to be called by a post commit hook the way I can with SubVersion.

While I agree that git is generally better, it is much easier to explain how to work with an svn to people who aren't software developers (plus, FS2 mods and total conversions can quickly become too large for free hosting providers like github).
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: LaineyBugsDaddy on June 14, 2016, 02:09:45 pm
Point. I mean, there is at least one whole game project I know of hosted on git, but a mod might get too big, possibly. Naev really isn't that large a project...
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: wesp5 on June 15, 2016, 08:58:58 am
Okay, I don't think we need to discuss a system like this unless we would need to coordinate many people. Which I doubt we'll ever do as even the original developers have vanished and there are only very few people left. I'm maintaining the VTM: Bloodlines Unofficial Patch for over ten years now and it's basically me doing the fixes that others report. So as it seems that karajorma is the guy with the most FS2 knowledge here it could work that we give him our error reports and he fixes them. Or maybe someone else helps him out but it could all be done using this forum and nothing else! But for this I recommend we should at least open up a new thread like "TBP 3.5" or similar ;)...
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: karajorma on June 17, 2016, 12:22:54 am
The advantage of SVN is that when I fix something (or any other coder or modder), everyone else can immediately update the affected resource. Otherwise it would require lots of patches to make things work. Which is rather a PITA to deal with.

I don't mind seeing how we get along without it at first though.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: wesp5 on June 27, 2016, 10:54:21 am
I don't mind seeing how we get along without it at first though.

So is anyone able to fix the nothing.pof model which seems to break the latest FS2 versions?
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: chief1983 on July 05, 2016, 12:15:43 am
Ooh, TBP activity.  Would've missed this if not for the newsletter, I should read those more often.  Another distribution idea that might or might not be a good idea is the Nebula (https://github.com/Hellzed/hlp-nebula)/Knossos (https://github.com/ngld/knossos) mod manager.  I believe it was created with the ability that any standalone could use it for managing an installation.  If someone is interested in taking a look at this with me it'd be awesome, because I was also contemplating its use for FotG's release, as that's one of the major things blocking it currently (hint hint).  But if it doesn't look like a good road to go down, no problem.  Just reminding people it exists.  As I've learned Python and some of the other involved technologies since Nebula/Knossos were initially developed, if there's work needed to get them usable I might be able to contribute towards that effort now.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: karajorma on July 05, 2016, 09:11:58 am
Seems like it would need quite a bit of work to get running. On top of that, if it requires Linux, I'm not going to be able to use it as my only Linux machines are Raspberry/Banana Pi's which I SSH into. 

But I would love a cross platform installer solution.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: chief1983 on July 05, 2016, 09:20:41 am
No Linux required, but a PHP server environment and a Python client environment would be needed to run all aspects of the system.  Personally I use Vagrant if all I have access to is a Windows machine these days and I need a PHP server.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: Vidmaster on July 09, 2016, 04:05:05 pm
It always amazes me that there is still a small but dedicated group of people willing to keep this thing running :-)
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: chief1983 on July 09, 2016, 04:15:21 pm
Well there are almost as many campaigns for it as FS2 so I hope it keeps going :)
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: wesp5 on July 10, 2016, 05:11:15 pm
Okay, so if we can't fix the FSO 3.7.4 issues, we should at least do a TBP 3.5 with all finished campaigns and FSO 3.7.0 included which is known to run with the latest Zathras version! This would only mean to collect all files that should be included and create an installer. If there is enough interest in this, we could latter update to a newer FSO version if we want to. We won't be able to update to the latest FSO engine all the time anyway ;)!

Speaking of interest, I tried the free Elite Dangerous Arena version yesterday and I was quite disappointed. I know Elite is more a game about trading and stuff, but the arena wants to be a space combar simulator and it falls quite short of TBP in my eyes! The mouse controls are bad, the tutorials are unfinished and the graphics and ships are nothing special either. In my opinion good old TBP compares well and should use the current hype!
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: The E on July 10, 2016, 05:38:02 pm
I ran TBP through a cursory check yesterday, and there was only one breaking bug that has to be fixed. I very strongly recommend investing the two or three hours it takes to fix them, rather than shipping something on an engine version we no longer support.

Essentially, what I am asking you to do is to not make IPAndrews-level mistakes with this thing. You can and should do better.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: karajorma on July 10, 2016, 09:20:47 pm
I'm working on it. My biggest problem is that I have a slow net connection and it's taking me ages to download TBP. But if I don't do that, I don't know if I have the most recent versions of everything.

Later this month I'll be back in the UK and I'll have a decent net connection. But I'll keep trying from here cause at the moment I do have time to work on stuff.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: wesp5 on July 11, 2016, 04:11:30 am
I'm working on it.

Great! If you download my "Star Fury Pilot Patch 2.0" you'll get all the working FSO files for the latest Zathras version, the original and fixed "Star Fury Pilot" missions und both First Ones mini campaigns. Speaking of which, for TBP 3.5 I would suggest to rename the "Earth Minbari War demo campaign" to "Earth Minbari War mini campaign", as demo implies that a full version will follow which won't ever be the case. Unless someone with more knowledge of creating campaigns wants to merge the two SFP missions "In the beginning" and "Battle of the line" into the "Earth Minbari War campaign", which would provide good beginning and ending missions and could turn the whole thing into a true finished campaign in my opinion!
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: karajorma on July 11, 2016, 04:55:14 am
I can't imagine that editing those files in that way would be difficult at all.

The question is whether the missions are similar in style and gameplay. If not, it would be better not to merge them rather than having sudden jumps in difficulty. Unfortunately it's been a while since I played those missions so feedback from those who have played more recently would be useful. There would also be issues with things like crediting etc if the creators of those missions were not the same people.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: wesp5 on July 11, 2016, 07:34:49 am
The question is whether the missions are similar in style and gameplay. If not, it would be better not to merge them rather than having sudden jumps in difficulty.

I don't think difficulty would be a problem, but style might be different as Mad tried to make his SFP missions close to the show including original voice overs and I don't think the rest of the campaign did. Still it might not be that much of an issue, if one would use these two missions as seperate start and ending points with a fitting narration like: This is how the war started... normal campaign... and this is how it ended. I myself don't even know how campaigns are connected though...
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: karajorma on July 11, 2016, 12:28:30 pm
To be honest, it sounds better not to mess with the campaign at all and just change the name as you originally suggested.


In better news, the stars aligned, clouds parted, and angelic hordes descended for long enough for me to be able to download the TBP DVD and zathras today. So I can start work on fixing the issues mentioned above.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: wesp5 on July 11, 2016, 12:35:01 pm
To be honest, it sounds better not to mess with the campaign at all and just change the name as you originally suggested.

Yeah, I agree to that. The styles are very different, the campaign has mission briefings and the single missions have not...
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: karajorma on July 11, 2016, 12:54:36 pm
Okay, with the exception of Star Fury Pilot, are there any other campaigns which have been updated since the DVD which don't have the fixes in Zathras. Is there any other content I should be adding?
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: IPAndrews on July 11, 2016, 04:52:40 pm
The E,

The one and only right?

Essentially, what I am asking you to do is to not make IPAndrews-level mistakes

You mean the ones where the game engine wasn't developed enough to do things properly so we had to compromise? Or where PCS used to nuke random bits of the POF on save so saving 100 odd fully working POFs was like stacking marbles in a corner (JMS)? Or where things broke almost immediately post release because Source Code Project devs back then couldn't even spell backward compatibility? Or where we omitted a LOD because even back most graphics cards were getting to the point where they were looking at our 800 polys and laughing? Yes definitely avoid those TBP Team mistakes while you're disrespecting them and taking their work without asking. Just to re-iterate none of you have any permission from me to use any of my work. Not that I am under any misconception that this will stop anyone. You can appeal to a sense of honour but you can't instill one.

I honestly shouldn't and wouldn't care at this point. This thing is old news. It does look long in the tooth. It's a shame when there are good campaigns out there. I don't include mine in that. I might have forgotten past perceived slights. I might have trusted Karajorma to do something worthwhile since he knows what he's doing. I might have trusted the Zathras team since Zathras wasn't bad. It's a big mod so I'm not critiquing the buggy releases. Water under the bridge and all that. That's what I'd like to say.

Problem is. It's not. People on here are still bad mouthing me, TBP and by extension my team and the work we spent countless days on. Here's an idea? If you don't like my work, if you don't like our work, Don't use it. Go away. Go take someone else's work which meets your standards. Go make your own mod. Go make your own game! Learn Unreal or Unity. They're not difficult. Alternatively if you're going to take modders' work as your own consider basic manners? You are supposed to be a global moderator on a site "Bringing modders together". Not "Bad mouthing modders behind their backs". It's not a great look for a global moderator such as yourself.

Peace.




Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: wesp5 on July 12, 2016, 02:35:06 am
The E

Okay, just to make this clear. I don't know who "The E" is and while I do know that you were involved very heavy in getting TBP finished, this was all a long time before I even discovered that this great mod had finally been released! My goal and those of others here is just make a (probably) final version of TBP with all the Zathras fixes and missing campaigns included, because I believe this mod deserves to get more attention in the current space simulator hyping times :)!

Quote
Just to re-iterate none of you have any permission from me to use any of my work.

Okay, how about this solution: The current TBP 3.4b will be kept like it is and will just be installed inside a greated installer, like the old DVD version, which will add FSO 3.7.0, Zathras 2.8, OAL, the missing campaigns and any mission fixes. This should be possible, although it would of course be much better if we could pack all of these things together into only one installer when creating TBP 3.5. Of course you will be given credit where it is due!
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: wesp5 on July 12, 2016, 02:53:31 am
Okay, with the exception of Star Fury Pilot, are there any other campaigns which have been updated since the DVD which don't have the fixes in Zathras. Is there any other content I should be adding?

I would suggest to include the whole extras folder from my patch to provide some basic modding tools and OAL, maybe automatically install the latter. I would suggest to not include the DVD extras stuff as most of it is outdated or useless! As IPAndrews has appeared here, maybe the whole TBP 3.5 could be constructed as a big installer installing seperate modules, like TBP 3.4b as a base, then Zathras 2.8 as a patch, then FSO 3.7.0, then any campaigns and missions the player chooses. As for missing stuff, I think you should compare the DVD release with the missions here: http://babylon.hard-light.net/unofficial_downloads.php. Drums of War III has been released in the meantime and I don't know about the last Fortuen Hunter part. As with the Earth Minbari war, I would probably remove any "demo" in the names with no need to add "mini campaign" or something else. I mean, how long is a campaign to run anyhow? The names themselves should be enough!
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: The E on July 12, 2016, 02:54:28 am
You mean the ones where the game engine wasn't developed enough to do things properly so we had to compromise? Or where PCS used to nuke random bits of the POF on save so saving 100 odd fully working POFs was like stacking marbles in a corner (JMS)? Or where things broke almost immediately post release because Source Code Project devs back then couldn't even spell backward compatibility? Or where we omitted a LOD because even back most graphics cards were getting to the point where they were looking at our 800 polys and laughing? Yes definitely avoid those TBP Team mistakes while you're disrespecting them and taking their work without asking. Just to re-iterate none of you have any permission from me to use any of my work. Not that I am under any misconception that this will stop anyone. You can appeal to a sense of honour but you can't instill one.

You and I have very different memories and conceptions of what went down back then. For my part, I will just say that your insistence that TBP is finished and that noone should ever make fixes for it was and is very grating. When I am talking about not making IPAndrews-level mistakes, I am referring to the insistence that it is a better idea to ship a buggy product and discontinue support for it than it is to put in a bit of work to fix it.

Also understand something: Back when this all went down, I was speaking only as an engaged fan of TBP, who could not conceive of someone not even trying to work with the SCP to make their game better. I now have a much better understanding of the situation, and I still think you were completely in the wrong and overreacting.

Okay, just to make this clear. I don't know who "The E" is and while I do know that you were involved very heavy in getting TBP finished, this was all a long time before I even discovered that this great mod had finally been released! My goal and those of others here is just make a (probably) final version of TBP with all the Zathras fixes and missing campaigns included, because I believe this mod deserves to get more attention in the current space simulator hyping times :)!

Hi. I am The E. Amongst other things, I am the current leader of the SCP and one of the writers on a mod called Blue Planet. Happy to make your acquaintance.

Quote
Okay, how about this solution: The current TBP 3.4b will be kept like it is and will just be installed inside a greated installer, like the old DVD version, which will add FSO 3.7.0, Zathras 2.8, OAL, the missing campaigns and any mission fixes. This should be possible, although it would of course be much better if we could pack all of these things together into only one installer when creating TBP 3.5. Of course you will be given credit where it is due!

Again, and I am sorry if this sounds overly harsh, but releasing on 3.7.0 is a very bad idea. As pointed out, the errors that pop up in 3.7.4 are trivial to fix. Not spending the few hours it takes to do so is just weird.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: wesp5 on July 12, 2016, 05:43:47 am
For my part, I will just say that your insistence that TBP is finished and that noone should ever make fixes for it was and is very grating.

I completely agree with that! I am patching VTM: Bloodlines for over ten years now and whatever can be improved, should be improved. I can understand that at some time a project must be released and fixing needs to be paused, otherwise it will never get done, but after a working version is out, I see no problem with fixing it afterwards as long as issues remain...

Quote
Again, and I am sorry if this sounds overly harsh, but releasing on 3.7.0 is a very bad idea. As pointed out, the errors that pop up in 3.7.4 are trivial to fix. Not spending the few hours it takes to do so is just weird.

Okay, if these are so easy to fix, can you help us with that? I know little more than trial-and-error script fixing which I used to improve the Star Fury Pilot missions. I have no idea about pofs that wouldn't work or what they even are ;)!
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: The E on July 12, 2016, 05:51:15 am
Karajorma has already volunteered to do that.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: wesp5 on July 12, 2016, 06:22:56 am
Karajorma has already volunteered to do that.

Oh, I just thought he only volunteered to create the installer. If he can fix the 3.7.4 issues too, it would even be better :)!

P.S.: I just went to the main boards to check out other projects. Wouldn't it make more sense to merge the multiple Diaspora boards into one main board with child boards and add it to the full games sections now the hype is over? New people would much easier recognize it for what it is then...
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: AdmiralRalwood on July 12, 2016, 08:11:53 am
[snip]
...Somebody sounds offended by the very concept of Cathedral-style modding.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: MatthTheGeek on July 12, 2016, 11:58:05 am
Here's an idea? If you don't like my work, if you don't like our work, Don't use it. Go away. Go take someone else's work which meets your standards. Go make your own game! Learn Unreal or Unity. They're not difficult.
is totally not self-contradictory with
You mean the ones where the game engine wasn't developed enough to do things properly so we had to compromise? Or where PCS used to nuke random bits of the POF on save so saving 100 odd fully working POFs was like stacking marbles in a corner (JMS)?

Also
Alternatively if you're going to take modders' work as your own consider basic manners?
Fixing broken stuff isn't taking someone else's work at their own, it's subliming the work and making shine the way it always should have been. This is doing you a favour, and showing you how much people love your work and want to enjoy it to its fullest. This is a bit better than just basic manners in my book.

It's still your work. Noone's going to erase your name from the records or the credits. But it's what we call Cathedral modding, where everyone contribute his piece to the monument in order to build something greater. This is the definition of "Bringing modders together". This is what we stand for here.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: IPAndrews on July 12, 2016, 03:23:45 pm
Well yes The E. I liked your Blue Planet by the way. Great writing. We do indeed have different recollections of what transpired. You apparently recall 3.4 as me sticking a flag on a pile of **** and me telling everyone to run for the hills. I recall releasing a huge mod with a fag-packet-long list of omissions and concessions targeted at the build it shipped with. With an exhausted, dwindling team who either wanted to call it quits or had already. A pretty good show we could all be proud of. Which was never meant to work with future builds of SCP. And didn't! because as expected SCP took no interest in backward compatibility, moved the goalposts, broke stuff, then people call it a "bug" and go...

(http://echoba.se/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Invasion-Sutherland.jpg)

It's amazing how perspectives can differ.  Yours from your perspective as the one and only E. Mine from my perspective as project lead, modeler, converter, uv'er, tabler, campaign writer, mission designer, blah, blah, blah... But anyway let's just forget it shall we. It's clear no apology will be forthcoming from you. So carry on bad mouthing modders I guess. Presumably that will "Bring them together".

Have fun.

PS: I didn't know how to reduce the size of the image sorry. But it's such a great image it can't be big enough really.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: General Battuta on July 12, 2016, 03:38:33 pm
If anyone in this thread wants to talk about whatever happened a billion years ago with TBP, please ask first

1) what do I want to achieve with this conversation: what is the end goal

2) do I think anyone's opinion will be changed, really, by what I'm about to post

Kisses
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: IPAndrews on July 12, 2016, 04:21:52 pm
I agree General. I would be quite happy if Mr E did not make comments about me or my team. Since he does not appear to have anything respectful to say.

Hugs
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: General Battuta on July 12, 2016, 04:24:05 pm
Take it to PMs with him, hopefully he can clarify his perspective to you and help explain why the SCP has always worked so hard to ensure backwards compatibility.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: jr2 on July 12, 2016, 04:51:31 pm
Take it to PMs with him, hopefully he can clarify his perspective to you and help explain why the SCP has always worked so hard to ensure backwards compatibility.

I should butt in here and clarify: the SCP has always worked so hard to ensure backwards compatibility with the original FreeSpace 2 campaign, aka, the holy RETAIL.  Not 3rd-party mods, in fact, the SCP has clarified that they cannot be expected to maintain backwards compatibility with said 3rd party campaigns, as it would impede the progress of the SCP significantly.

Just to nitpick.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: AdmiralRalwood on July 12, 2016, 04:55:56 pm
Take it to PMs with him, hopefully he can clarify his perspective to you and help explain why the SCP has always worked so hard to ensure backwards compatibility.

I should butt in here and clarify: the SCP has always worked so hard to ensure backwards compatibility with the original FreeSpace 2 campaign, aka, the holy RETAIL.  Not 3rd-party mods, in fact, the SCP has clarified that they cannot be expected to maintain backwards compatibility with said 3rd party campaigns, as it would impede the progress of the SCP significantly.

Just to nitpick.
We do not guarantee backwards compatibility outside of retail, but we also try very hard to maintain it if at all possible; the continued existence of the $Loop SEXPs Then Arguments: (http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/Game_settings.tbl#.24Loop_SEXPs_Then_Arguments:) option is proof enough of that. Only if the feature was introduced since the most recent stable build (i.e. any features only present in nightly builds) do we not have qualms about breaking backwards compatibility with it.

Just to nitpick.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: IPAndrews on July 12, 2016, 05:14:38 pm
This was a long time ago Admiral. There would be quite sweeping changes on a regular basis which would nuke your whole mod. So TBP final was built to work with the executable it shipped with. Because we knew that wouldn't change. Things are much better these days. I don't want to disrespect anyone working on the game engine these days. It's an awesome piece of work and I'm very grateful for it :)
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: General Battuta on July 12, 2016, 05:33:16 pm
Take it to PMs with him, hopefully he can clarify his perspective to you and help explain why the SCP has always worked so hard to ensure backwards compatibility.

I should butt in here and clarify: the SCP has always worked so hard to ensure backwards compatibility with the original FreeSpace 2 campaign, aka, the holy RETAIL.  Not 3rd-party mods, in fact, the SCP has clarified that they cannot be expected to maintain backwards compatibility with said 3rd party campaigns, as it would impede the progress of the SCP significantly.

Just to nitpick.

You are butting in here to introduce falsehoods. Please don't. The SCP goes to some pretty great lengths to preserve backwards compat with non-retail content.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: jr2 on July 12, 2016, 11:25:08 pm
Take it to PMs with him, hopefully he can clarify his perspective to you and help explain why the SCP has always worked so hard to ensure backwards compatibility.

I should butt in here and clarify: the SCP has always worked so hard to ensure backwards compatibility with the original FreeSpace 2 campaign, aka, the holy RETAIL.  Not 3rd-party mods, in fact, the SCP has clarified that they cannot be expected to maintain backwards compatibility with said 3rd party campaigns, as it would impede the progress of the SCP significantly.

Just to nitpick.

You are butting in here to introduce falsehoods. Please don't. The SCP goes to some pretty great lengths to preserve backwards compat with non-retail content.

My apologies;  upon further recollection, it was the MediaVPs that were only bound to preserve retail backwards compatibility.

However, I would point out that we have an entire team (The FreeSpace Campaign Restoration Project) dedicated to making old campaigns work again with new versions of the engine.


Not that any of this matters really.  :shrug:  I really was just nitpicking.  :p
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: OverDhill on July 13, 2016, 11:21:20 am
Why would anyone object in bringing TBP up to the standards that FSO is now? I mentioned that it would be nice to see a new full installer that has all the updated campaigns and patches after seeing the response I had when I brought this project up in the Babylon 5 Facebook room.  I am sure whoever worked on this in the past will always get the credit for the fine work they did.

Would it not be great to see this project be the best it can be now? I hope this will happen with a spirit of cooperation from all parties.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: IPAndrews on July 13, 2016, 02:56:01 pm
Quote from: OverDhill
Why would anyone object in bringing TBP up to the standards that FSO is now?

That's a really well worded question! Because FSO is now - finally - in a good place. I won't comment any further on where it was before. But now there are Swifty's awesome deferred lighting builds. They're well worth targeting a new release at. I've seen a couple of extremely stable builds and the aesthetic difference is staggering. Even without new geometry. I came here with the intention of seeing if anyone was still interested in this thing. Only to find moderator "The E" slagging off me and by extension my team behind our backs. All good will was instantly burned to ash. And that's the answer to the question you asked. People like "The E".
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: General Battuta on July 13, 2016, 03:02:08 pm
The E is the leader of the FSO code team and therefore a big reason why these builds are so good.

I think he's very qualified to explain why TBP's technical issues needed patching, and why it's so good that happened.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: OverDhill on July 13, 2016, 04:11:00 pm
Well I am just a fan and was not around during all this history. I only got interest after  I retired.  For the sake of us fans how about everyone work together and bring TBP up to date.  If I had my wish it would also support multiplayer co-op. That would be so cool.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: IPAndrews on July 13, 2016, 04:14:20 pm
The E is the leader of the FSO code team and therefore a big reason why these builds are so good.

Swifty seems extremely talented.

I think he's very qualified to explain why TBP's technical issues needed patching, and why it's so good that happened.

There were no significant technical issues with TBP running on the build it was released with which it was intended to run on.  Nothing needed patching. It's as simple as that. Making TBP automagically work with all newer versions of FSO was never a goal. There was no mistake. Targeting a specific build was logical and sensible. We did that and released  a huge, stable, feature rich product.

Nobody asked "The E" to ride in on a white horse, take our stuff, and make it work with the latest FSO it was never intended to work with. While simultaneously whining about it being difficult. In all honesty I did not come here to say this. I've mentioned what I think of the newer FSO releases above. I would have liked to have been more generous in my praise at this point. Hopefully you understand what I'm hinting at. But I came here and found things said. War never changes. Sadly.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: IPAndrews on July 13, 2016, 04:16:39 pm
Well I am just a fan and was not around during all this history.

Oh god it really is! History is the right word... Nice to meet you anyway :). Happy to hear you had some fun with TBP.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: Phantom Hoover on July 13, 2016, 04:21:29 pm
The E is the leader of the FSO code team and therefore a big reason why these builds are so good.

Swifty seems extremely talented.

He definitely is! So is The E.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: General Battuta on July 13, 2016, 04:25:00 pm
There were no significant technical issues with TBP running on the build it was released with

TBP as released was a gorgeous, fun, innovative, and content-rich mod which had not been properly debugged. It was impossible to maintain and provide tech support for because it was so broken, even on the build it launched on.

Let me say that again. TBP could not be supported on 3.6.9. Start up a 3.6.9 debug build and it would scream and scream about issues with TBP. The game was not finished. Fortunately, the TBP team had done such a good job that it wasn't hard to finish.

A huge number of fans, team members, and coders came together to fix that and make sure TBP could go on beautifully and reach as many players as possible. In response, you tried to delete the entire project and prevent anyone from ever playing it again.

Fortunately, the HLP community was able to find a way to save all that hard work. Tons of people have worked on Zathras and new content for TBP! I don't know why you're signaling out The E: all he's said is the perfectly correct "it is a bad idea to delete your entire mod when the coders tell you it's impossible to maintain even on the build it was designed for."

You shouldn't be surprised that people regret your decision. You should be really grateful that so many awesome people have worked so hard to support a really awesome mod! TBP is still probably the biggest, best total conversion FSO has ever produced.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: General Battuta on July 13, 2016, 04:29:22 pm
I really want to make this clear. TBP as designed for 3.6.9 was full of bugs and bad assets which would and did cause the game to misbehave or crash. That wasn't due to a lazy team or bad modelers or anything like that! It was because the game engine did not have good error reporting.

All that the SCP did was say 'boy, we should fix this stuff!' And that's what happened. They didn't invent new errors, or break backwards compatibility, or design new versions of the engine that ruined old mods. They only made the game say "oh god, this broken thing is broken!" And then we, this awesome community, the TBP team, everyone: fixed it.

TBP is in great shape and is some of the most fun I've ever had playing FSO.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: IPAndrews on July 13, 2016, 04:42:28 pm
Alright General. You carry on whining about how TBP didn't work with builds of FSO it wasn't supposed to run on. And how it was difficult it was to make it run on builds it wasn't supposed to run on. And exaggerating about how TBP would reformat your hard disk if you looked at it even though next to nobody complained about stability in millions of downloads. Be careful not to trip over the fluffly bunnies and rainbow mushrooms while you're hop skipping through SCP pointless abuse justification fantasy land. Remember kids. Modders are EVIL!

"Bringing modders together" (tm)
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: General Battuta on July 13, 2016, 04:46:16 pm
The game was broken on 3.6.9. The build you wanted to release on. It worked fine most of the time, but it could hit memory corruption and bad ****. And because of the reef of debug errors, it was impossible to tell users why their games weren't working.

Again. TBP was broken on the build it WAS SUPPOSED TO RUN ON.

I just do not understand how you can be upset. It makes no sense.

You said "I want to release TBP Final for 3.6.9." You did that. You succeeded! No one can take that away, 3.6.9 is going nowhere! Your job was done!

Why would you get angry and try to delete the entire mod because people wanted to keep working on the game? Nothing was going to stop TBP Final from being TBP Final! Nobody could stop 3.6.9 from running TBP!

No one did anything whatsoever to hurt you! Nothing was taken away from you! Nothing was threatened! 3.4b could run fine on 3.6.9 and always would, exactly the way you wanted!

You're angry that a modding community made a mod to make your game better. You're so furious that people loved your game and wanted to make it better that you call it 'abuse'.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: AdmiralRalwood on July 13, 2016, 04:47:19 pm
Nobody asked "The E" to ride in on a white horse, take our stuff, and make it work with the latest FSO it was never intended to work with. While simultaneously whining about it being difficult.
:confused: Well, you're certainly right that nobody asked The E to do that... and also, it literally never happened?
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: General Battuta on July 13, 2016, 04:48:22 pm
Your game has been improved, for free, at no cost to yourself and no risk to the hard work you'd done.

And you're so mad about it you wanted to delete it so no one could ever play it again.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: IPAndrews on July 13, 2016, 04:49:56 pm
And did the shortcut to run the game run the debug build?
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: IPAndrews on July 13, 2016, 04:56:43 pm
And you're so mad about it you wanted to delete it so no one could ever play it again.

?

(http://s2.quickmeme.com/img/07/07d47b2227f592e9e53bbfe1fea7c0da1192205fb254416b66b1a80d0c25620f.jpg)
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: IPAndrews on July 13, 2016, 04:58:10 pm
:confused: Well, you're certainly right that nobody asked The E to do that... and also, it literally never happened?

He's got even less justification to whine then.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: AdmiralRalwood on July 13, 2016, 05:03:48 pm
:confused: Well, you're certainly right that nobody asked The E to do that... and also, it literally never happened?

He's got even less justification to whine then.
Yes, that was included in "literally never happened".

Also:
And did the shortcut to run the game run the debug build?
You not understanding the purpose of debug builds doesn't mean that TBP was bug-free on the release it was targeting.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: IPAndrews on July 13, 2016, 05:07:26 pm
I used your debug builds for months upon months to produce a stable release so in what way am I misunderstanding anything?
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: General Battuta on July 13, 2016, 05:09:41 pm
And did the shortcut to run the game run the debug build?

It ran the build with the tables that caused memory corruption, and then, when the game crashed, there was no way to tell the player what had gone wrong: because debug was drowned in animation errors.

And you're so mad about it you wanted to delete it so no one could ever play it again.

?

(http://s2.quickmeme.com/img/07/07d47b2227f592e9e53bbfe1fea7c0da1192205fb254416b66b1a80d0c25620f.jpg)

Quote
The behaviour of Hard Light Productions administrators in continually disrespecting of the decisions of myself as Project Leader of the final version of The Babylon Project, the inteitions of my team, and supporting theft of work, has forced me into the following decision.  I hereby withdraw my work on The Babylon Project from all versions. Past, present, future, team developed, fan developed. This is a complete withdrawl of permission. As such I expect downloads to be deleted from Hard Light Productions and other sites.

I am not interested in debating or reconsidering this decision. I have heard enough.

Again. No one was going to take away 3.4b Final except you. No one was going to stop 3.6.9 from running your game except you.

The only thing anyone wanted to do was make the game more stable. It wouldn't have touched TBP Final at all.

You were so furious about this that you became the only person threatening to destroy TBP 3.4b.

I used your debug builds for months upon months to produce a stable release so in what way am I misunderstanding anything?

3.4b final is full of errors when you launch it on 3.6.9. The tables have formatting problems that cause memory corruption. You didn't catch these problems. But it's okay! That's fine, all releases have bugs. If you were happy with 3.4b's stability on 3.6.9, all you had to do was walk away. No one could hurt or change what you'd done!
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: IPAndrews on July 13, 2016, 05:16:25 pm
And did the shortcut to run the game run the debug build?
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: General Battuta on July 13, 2016, 05:22:26 pm
And did the shortcut to run the game run the debug build?

Answered above. Pay attention.

You have yet to explain why you're angry at all. You released a final version of your game targeted at at 3.6.9.

Neither your game nor 3.6.9 were going anywhere.

What bothered you so much that you tried to delete your game, if no one else could prevent it from being exactly how you wanted?
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: IPAndrews on July 13, 2016, 06:10:50 pm
The answer is "No". The shortcut ran the the retail build which showed no errors and ran perfectly for as long as people wanted to run it in reality. There were no reported issues. The rest is fantasy on your part. Reality was a hugely successful final product.

Bottom line is I am extremely happy with what we released. I reject your criticism and that of your SCP buds as pedantic, unrealistic, and pig-headed. We aimed to produce X. We produced X. You wanted Y or Z? Your mistake not mine. And while I generally respect the right to criticise it's about the manner of it and this...

IPAndrews-level mistakes

... is not manners, it's pointlessly derogatory and unnecessary after all these years. Reprehensible, and frankly so is anyone who joins the wall of nodding dogs to protect him for it. This is atrocious behavior for someone who is supposed to be a moderator on a site "bringing modders together?" What a joke. Poe's Law definitely. And not a word of criticism from any of you! Of course! But that's fine. I am offended to the extent to which I have respect for your opinions. I am not offended at all.

Let me part with some comments on your SCP. Since you've been so kind as to share your enlightening thoughts on my work and that of my team. Congratulations on getting to where you are with FSO. Given your abilities I am genuinely impressed and surprised you got this far. You were very lucky to come across some talented coders late in the day. Now you've.. well they created... something half decent! As opposed toe the glorified museum piece we had for so long. Which surprisingly still managed to break all of our mods on a weekly basis with it's unfortunate combination of joke backwards compatibility (dirty word I know) and breaking changes. Working with FSO has been... challenging. No let me rephrase. ****. As have you.

I bid you au revoir.

Please talk amongst yourselves...
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: General Battuta on July 13, 2016, 06:17:24 pm
Let me be sure I've got this straight:

You released a great mod targeting 3.6.9.

You didn't spot the memory corruption errors causing crashes, or the wall of debug errors preventing users from figuring out why their games were crashing. That's okay! Your launch was very smooth by and large and these were small problems.

When your own team wanted to fix these errors with future development, you, for some reason, decided to destroy all the work you'd done on a game that was already finished and nobody was going to touch, and self-destruct your mod.

Now, seven (?) years later, you are so angry about someone calling this an IPAndrews-level mistake, even when he's correct, that you conclude...the very SCP coders and procedures you're so mad at have made the game a lot better.

The same excellent bugfixing and great SCP progress that you're now praising made you so angry that you wanted to delete all of The Babylon Project. For no appreciable reason.

Huh.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: General Battuta on July 13, 2016, 06:24:06 pm
Here's where we were a couple pages ago:

Quote
Well yes The E. I liked your Blue Planet by the way. Great writing. We do indeed have different recollections of what transpired. You apparently recall 3.4 as me sticking a flag on a pile of **** and me telling everyone to run for the hills. I recall releasing a huge mod with a fag-packet-long list of omissions and concessions targeted at the build it shipped with. With an exhausted, dwindling team who either wanted to call it quits or had already. A pretty good show we could all be proud of. Which was never meant to work with future builds of SCP. And didn't! because as expected SCP took no interest in backward compatibility, moved the goalposts, broke stuff, then people call it a "bug" and go...

You're right. The mod had a lot of omissions and concessions. You made the right call: you triaged what you could do, fixed it up, and shipped it for 3.6.9.

All you had to do was walk away. You had released TBP 3.4b for 3.6.9.

If someone else wanted to pick up where you left off and make TBP work with later, better builds of FSO, that was on them.

And then you made an IPAndrews level mistake. When people wanted to do exactly that — which would not in any way touch your existing work — you tried to delete your entire project.

When The_E says it's better to take a few hours to clean up bugs than to delete your whole project for no reason, yeah, I think he's clearly right.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: AdmiralRalwood on July 13, 2016, 07:02:26 pm
The answer is "No". The shortcut ran the the retail build which showed no errors and ran perfectly for as long as people wanted to run it in reality.
And yet earlier you said:
I used your debug builds for months upon months to produce a stable release
so the fact that the debug builds, the ones for the release you were targeting, show numerous problems means...?
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: jr2 on July 13, 2016, 07:19:00 pm
Err.. Modders are always encouraged to fix all errors reported by a debug build (if possible) before releasing, as, even if a retail build won't complain, it doesn't mean the error(s) aren't still there waiting to cause a headache further down the road.

If I've understood correctly, newer builds of the SCP produce more helpful (and possibly more) errors to make it easier to spot (and fix!) problems.

That 3.6.9 and / or TBP 3.4b weren't in a state that you could fix all of the errors doesn't change the above.



I believe what was being said that caused all of this animosity was basically: we are here to fix TBP; don't let old errors stay in the system like happened before (even though, from the other side of the coin, there were legitimate reasons for packing the mod up and calling it good enough at the time -- better to release at all than to never release due to burnout).

I would hope both sides could bury the hatchet for the sake of the project itself.  I mean, you can still think the other side is a complete asshat and still do that.  You don't have to concede your side of the story to work together (although apologizing for inflammatory phrasing / language go a very long way towards making that easier).
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: OverDhill on July 13, 2016, 07:44:58 pm
Wow I guess there is way more bad history than I could have imagined.  Look it is 2016 and Space Combat Sims are making a come back. So is there any chance we could let the history be just that and move forward together and create an updated TBP and make it shine as much as possible so a whole new generation might enjoy it?  I dare say that had Volition taken the same attitude that there work was as good as it should ever be then this FSO work would never exist. I have seen a lot of improvements just in the short time I have been playing around with FS2 and would hope people could come together in the spirit of cooperation to bring TBP up to FSO standards. If Volition sat back and let this community take FSO to the next level I don't see any reason that those that worked on TBP would not take pride to see TBP become even more than it is.

If not improved at least bundled with all the updates with an installer like FSO so that people don't have to be computer savvy to get it to run.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: General Battuta on July 13, 2016, 08:01:02 pm
It should be very easy to pack up TBP as a single installer - the way the DVD worked. There's only one issue that needs fixing for 3.7.4 if I remember right.

An online installer might be more tricky but I'm not an expert on those.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: karajorma on July 13, 2016, 11:59:10 pm
Okay, I guess I should wade into this mess and sort out what happened and where we go next.

What happened in the past

The main issue here was that when released TBP 3.4b had a significant number of bugs. The majority of them didn't affect the players (more often they were problems that caused issues for FREDders) but they would cause the occasional crash. At this point the majority of the TBP had left / burned out and had no interest in continuing to support the mod. As far as IP Andrews was concerned the game was complete. It worked (mostly) and it had been thoroughly bug tested. The remaining errors were beyond the abilities of the team to fix. So the team called 3.4b "final" and quit. The idea was that TBP 3.4b would be final and now it was up to fans to make missions and campaigns for it. In addition there was a big push at the time to get TBP multiplayer up and running and this was exposing a lot of issues cause multiplayer was badly broken (far worse than it is now).

Since TBP was finalised any new release might break existing content. With no TBP team to fix those issue, it would basically lead to TBP becoming more and more unplayable (That's the same sort of issue that made the SCP insist that FS2_Open can always run retail).

The big problem was that bugs from TBP would end up in Mantis and the SCP were expected to fix them. Unfortunately the second you run TBP (even on 3.6.9) you'll get a ton of warnings often about things that were easily fixable. That makes it very difficult for any coder to actually fix bugs because there was a good possibility that the bug wasn't in the code at all, and was simply bad data. This eventually lead to a big argument between the SCP and the TBP team.  The SCP wanted a new release of TBP with all the warnings fixed so that they could continue to support it. The remaining members of TBP didn't want to update TBP and then have to beta test the entire game again to be certain nothing had broken (either from the fixes to the data, or from moving to 3.6.10). 

As someone who is a member of both teams, I remember being thoroughly disgusted by the actions of some members on both sides of the argument. It definitely wasn't just IP Andrews being unreasonable.

Eventually IP Andrews refused to allow anyone to release a new version of TBP (Which to this day has been respected) and then refused to allow anyone to make a mod which fixed the errors (Which no one else agreed with). When the other members of TBP and the community disagreed with him on the latter point, IP Andrews demanded that we remove TBP from HLP (which we promptly ignored) and started calling everyone  thieves for not doing it.

So that gets us to the point we're at now. TBP still stands at 3.4b and requires the Zathras mod to work properly with any build from this decade


What happens now

While I understand the decision to freeze TBP at 3.4b and only allow mods to upgrade the game it should be remembered that the decision to do that was taken in 2007. The question is, "Is it sensible to install the game for new users on 3.6.9 or should we upgrade the default install to something more modern?" And to be frank, I really can't see any good reason to stick with 3.6.9. I don't think anyone is using it. Those who are, are having a worse time than they would on a more modern build.

What I intend to do is to unpack Zathras and use it to upgrade 3.4b. Along the way I'll probably need some help to fix any errors that still exist. Then I'll package everything up and we can release the whole thing as TBP 3.5. If there is interest in continuing development of TBP after that, I'd be very happy to help with that too.


People on here are still bad mouthing me, TBP and by extension my team and the work we spent countless days on.

Except that no one is insulting or the team. Despite your insistence that they are, no one blames TBP 3.4b for having bugs. The team did the best they could and no one is disrespecting the hard work involved to make 3.4b. The problem is that you and you alone decided to stand in the way of fixing those issue. If you didn't want to do the work involved, that's absolutely fine. But when you tell other people who are willing to do the work that they can't, then that is an issue. When you came back a few years ago, it was only to insult and belittle the work done on Zathras. You tried very hard to make sure that the only way people could play TBP now would be on 3.6.9 and then have to cheek to try to blame the SCP's poor backwards compatibility for the fact that stuff that was broken on 3.6.9 would still be broken on 3.7.4 8 years later. If you'd gotten your way either we'd have pulled TBP completely from HLP, or we'd have been forced to stop supporting it in any way (including Zathras).

So you shouldn't be surprised that your name has become synonymous with deliberately making poor decisions that end up crippling your mod in completely unnecessary way.


I'd be happy to call it all water under the bridge and move on. But that's not going to happen if you keep turning up every year or so to rip into people who are working hard to fix the issues with this mod that your decisions allowed to.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: The E on July 14, 2016, 01:57:17 am
Out of curiousity, I started up the debug build that shipped with the TBP DVD. Surprise, it didn't actually warn (as in, have a warning popup) during the entire initial load process. Based on that, you would be forgiven to think that TBP was a well-debugged, stable release.

The problem, however is this: As a debugging or verification tool, 3.6.9 sucks ass. There are so many pieces of information missing from the logs which we now assume to be there that properly diagnosing bugs is impossible. There are also entire categories of bugs, potentially fatal ones at that, that 3.6.9 does not catch at all. When 3.7.5 is used to read the same data, those bugs become immediately apparent: 3.7.5 does not even make it to the profile selection screen, because there is a string in weapons.tbl that is malformed in such a way as to pretty much guarantee memory corruption (And, upon detecting this, 3.7.5 does the correct thing and stops). At the very least, it will cause that weapon to not work as intended by whoever designed it. The end result of this is that TBP cannot be guaranteed to be stable on 3.6.9 (to the extent that such guarantees are possible with that build as a whole; 3.6.9, and the issues we had with it both as users and developers of the engine, were the start of a sustained commitment to stability and usability we adopted going forward).

The SCP shares a part of the blame for the state TBP was in at 3.4b, simply because the tools we gave modders to make their mods as well-behaved as possible were not very good at all. That sort of thing, simply put, was not a priority for the SCP in those days, and improvements generally only happened when an SCP developer encountered something while working on one mod or another. However, this in no way excuses or explains IPA's attitudes and decisions. There is, in my mind, nothing more damaging to the reputation of a developer if he or she refuses to take criticism (especially criticism of technical issues) seriously. No piece of software can be made stable by shouting loudly at the people encountering bugs.

Oh, and one more thing.

The answer is "No". The shortcut ran the the retail build which showed no errors and ran perfectly for as long as people wanted to run it in reality. There were no reported issues. The rest is fantasy on your part. Reality was a hugely successful final product.

"No reported issues" means nothing, in reality. Blue Planet had, at an estimate, several tens of thousands of downloads. We have never, ever gotten feedback from every single player. The feedback we did and do get mostly comes from this community. I do not know how many players read about our work on RockPaperShotgun or elsewhere, tried our game, and gave up on it as a buggy mess when they couldn't get it installed or one of the many bugs we had ****ed up their experience of our work. That is, simply put, a reality of games development: The feedback you get is not really representative of what the large majority of players think about your work, because only very few people will ever bother to make forum posts or bug reports or write reviews or whatever.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: wesp5 on July 14, 2016, 03:04:21 am
What I intend to do is to unpack Zathras and use it to upgrade 3.4b. Along the way I'll probably need some help to fix any errors that still exist. Then I'll package everything up and we can release the whole thing as TBP 3.5. If there is interest in continuing development of TBP after that, I'd be very happy to help with that too.

To get back on topic, this is exactly what I and most fans would like you to do! As IPAndrews himself said, the rest is history and we should move with the time to make TBP as good as possible. Of course games and mods can be released with hundreds of warnings, just check out your average FPS console when a level is loaded, but if they can be fixed, they should be fixed! Now how do we proceed from here? The E mentioned that the latest build is FSO 3.7.5, so we should move to that. I guess you are able to remove the issues causing the typical debug warnings, but I suspect we would need some beta testers to replay all the campaigns after that to check that they still work. I can do that for the Starfury Pilot missions, as I know them well, but I won't have time for much more. My suggestion would be to make an open beta like TBP 3.5b and announce it somewhere prominent to get new and old players to help us out. This should also raise the awarness!
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: The E on July 14, 2016, 03:17:34 am
The E mentioned that the latest build is FSO 3.7.5, so we should move to that.

No, you shouldn't. Let me explain. Builds come in two flavours, "stable" and "unstable". "stable" builds are the ones that we make big release posts for, like 3.7.4. Those should be considered the targets for mod developers to release on. They are, as far as we are able to determine, the most reliable builds. "unstable" ones, like 3.7.5, are development builds. We cannot and do not guarantee that they are as reliable as the stable ones. They are builds where we introduce new features or experiment with them, and as a result, they're moving targets. We are posting new 3.7.5 builds almost daily, each one adding features or bugfixes.

What that means for mod developers is this: If you wish to provide players with the best possible experience, you should use unstable builds to check your tables and mission files for errors, but you should release your game on the latest stable release. That way, you get the benefit of whatever progress we made in verifying data as well as the benefit of having a stable target to determine what features you can use.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: wesp5 on July 14, 2016, 04:23:55 am
Let me explain. Builds come in two flavours, "stable" and "unstable". "stable" builds are the ones that we make big release posts for, like 3.7.4.

Ah, okay. So how far is 3.7.5 from a stable release then? Because collecting and fixing all the campaigns might yet take a while anyway ;)!
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: The E on July 14, 2016, 04:28:02 am
There's a very long list of things we want to do before we're going to even think about making the next stable release. Optimistically, I would estimate that the next stable release (which will be 3.8) is about 6 months away.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: karajorma on July 14, 2016, 04:40:41 am
I have no idea if I'd be finished before then. Things are moving but very slowly. The biggest problem with targeting an older build is if you encounter a showstopper bug you can no longer use that build, you either backport the fix (which can get very cumbersome if there are a few showstoppers) or you just target the next official build and hope that it comes out around the time you're ready to release.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: The E on July 14, 2016, 04:45:05 am
I don't think there are any showstoppers in 3.7.4 that would impact TBP in any way, but you have a good point there. BTW, if you need help putting this together, I am definitely willing to help out.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: karajorma on July 14, 2016, 06:10:26 am
Cheers. I might need help with any model errors I encounter. My skills with PCS only run so deep.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: OverDhill on July 17, 2016, 08:59:10 am
Quote from: OverDhill
Why would anyone object in bringing TBP up to the standards that FSO is now?

That's a really well worded question! Because FSO is now - finally - in a good place. I won't comment any further on where it was before. But now there are Swifty's awesome deferred lighting builds. They're well worth targeting a new release at. I've seen a couple of extremely stable builds and the aesthetic difference is staggering. Even without new geometry.


So would TBP be able to take advantage of Swifty's deferred lighting? What other graphic improvements might TBP get from using 3.7.4? I am a graphics junkie and try and get older games looking their best for my simpit.

(https://c2.staticflickr.com/8/7498/26867873482_96e9c79175_c.jpg)



Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: The E on July 17, 2016, 09:03:06 am
So would TBP be able to take advantage of Swifty's deferred lighting? What other graphic improvements might TBP get from using 3.7.4? I am a graphics junkie and try and get older games looking there best for my simpit.

Deferred Lighting and shadows basically come for free when using the new engine (in terms of effort required to set them up, not in terms of performance, obviously). With 3.7.5 builds, TBP would also benefit from the PBR shaders and HDR effects introduced recently, again without any sort of work on the assets beyond that required to make those assets work correctly on the new engine version.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: wesp5 on July 19, 2016, 04:14:39 am
Deferred Lighting and shadows basically come for free when using the new engine (in terms of effort required to set them up, not in terms of performance, obviously). With 3.7.5 builds, TBP would also benefit from the PBR shaders and HDR effects introduced recently, again without any sort of work on the assets beyond that required to make those assets work correctly on the new engine version.

Wow! Then we really should target 3.7.5 once the asset issues and missing campaigns are sorted out. Also OverDhill, what a great Starfury cockpit! Self build?
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: OverDhill on July 19, 2016, 05:16:14 am
Yes I recently updated it to get ready for 6DOF Sims like Star Citizen and Descent Underground by adding a new custom built controller for the left hand. It is universal and the second monitor can display extracted data like gauges and MFD's if available (Helios and UDPspeed for example)
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: karajorma on July 19, 2016, 05:54:40 am
Wow! Then we really should target 3.7.5 once the asset issues and missing campaigns are sorted out.

Well we'd have to target 3.7.6 not 3.7.5 if we wanted TBP to have those features out of the box. That's not impossible given how slowly I'm making progress but targeting 3.7.4 might mean getting things out the door faster.

We'll see how things go once we're getting things fixed.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: The E on July 19, 2016, 06:27:03 am
And the thing is that 3.7.4 compatibility basically assures that TBP is compatible with 3.7.5 and future releases (unless we find some previously unknown bug that 3.7.4 was unable to detect).
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: chief1983 on July 20, 2016, 11:08:59 pm
As we have merged in SDL2 now, the next release is now planned to be 3.8.0, so none of this 3.7.6 nonsense ok?  :)

I've played a little TBP+Zathras tonight, noticed some bugs on 3.7.0 that may or may not still be issues, mostly campaign stuff but some asset stuff.  Is there a Mantis?  I'll at least document them here for reference:

Campaign:  Raider Wars

First mission:
The last briefing is cut off.  The voice acting does not cover the entire presented text.  Not sure if the text was modified after the VA work, or what, but the display time needs to be increased so a person with reasonable reading speed can finish reading what isn't spoken.

Second mission:
After a few tries to get all the goals accomplished, I did so well that I disabled the carrier that is supposed to jump out before you can disable it.  A protect or whatever on it and its engine subsystem should prevent me from stopping it.  At least, when I did blow it up, it allowed the mission to end as all hostiles were eliminated, even though the debriefing still said it escaped.

Also, on the second mission, the breaching pods behave very oddly.  One keeps ramming into the Hood's turrets and seemingly getting stuck, and the other, on my third play through when I had things clicking nicely, didn't even manage to dock with the freighter even though it had approached it.  Like it bounced off and had to go for another pass or something.

Lastly, an asset issue (possibly).  When blowing up the carrier, its 3d shockwave did not have working transparency.  The area behind it was washed out in solid black, and for a good ways leading out in front of the visible parts of the shockwave.  This issue might be a 3.7.0 thing that's already fixed, not sure.  Can't run on newer versions without some of the fixes people have been working on to get the game in a running state.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: Col. Fishguts on July 27, 2016, 03:27:45 pm
Whoa, there hasn't been that much activity in the TBP subfourm in years.

also: Hi IPA, long time no see!
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: OverDhill on August 08, 2016, 07:50:39 pm
Any progress being made? Babylon 5 room on Facebook is pretty active and many expressed interest in this game.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: karajorma on August 09, 2016, 01:59:07 am
I've been having an issue running FRED recently but I was planning on doing something about this over this coming week.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: wesp5 on September 06, 2016, 05:41:55 am
Any update on the state of TBP 3.5?
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: karajorma on September 06, 2016, 06:26:55 am
I'm still waiting on SVN to really get started on this.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: wesp5 on September 07, 2016, 03:07:00 am
I'm still waiting on SVN to really get started on this.

Is this necessary as long as you are the only one working on the main code? Also where will it come from or who would provide it? What did the Zathras team use?
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: The E on September 07, 2016, 03:10:43 am
Having an SVN is something I and many others consider absolutely essential to making mods. The TBP svn will be provided by rev_posix and Zacam, who are already hosting svns for many major projects (like Blue Planet, Diaspora, BTA, the MediaVPs....)
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: karajorma on September 07, 2016, 04:24:27 am
Is this necessary as long as you are the only one working on the main code? Also where will it come from or who would provide it? What did the Zathras team use?

The reason to have SVN is so that I'm not the only person working on it.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: -Norbert- on September 10, 2016, 04:59:21 pm
Any chance a moderator can cut all the insults and explanations of what went wrong in the past out and move them to their own thread?

I just wanted to read up if any progress happened, not read a smaller scale repeat of the soap opera from years ago.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: wesp5 on October 10, 2016, 10:14:05 am
The reason to have SVN is so that I'm not the only person working on it.

So another month has gone by. Has any progress been made? Is a system like this really necessary? Maybe there are only a few issues with the new builds that can be fixed by yourself in a short amount of time...
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: chief1983 on October 10, 2016, 10:20:42 am
I was at least under the impression he'd already identified more than a few issues that needed addressing.  And having some kind of version control is a necessity for any real group progress to be possible these days.  That said, I don't know why that would take this long to get set up on the place the other TCs are using these days, unless they're not accepting new projects at the moment or too backed up with other tasks.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: karajorma on October 10, 2016, 10:50:30 am
The big problem is that I have a very slow connection and have been rather busy this month. Things seem to be calming down though and I finally have a stable (if slow) connection that would allow me to upload stuff overnight.

I'm going to get as many issues as I can sorted this week and then upload. But believe me, SVN is definitely not the bottleneck here.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: wesp5 on October 11, 2016, 03:32:12 am
I'm going to get as many issues as I can sorted this week and then upload.

Fantastic! And you already have something to upload? Will this be the complete new version 3.5 or some excerpts for testing?
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: karajorma on October 11, 2016, 05:24:50 am
It won't be TBP 3.5.

It will be the unpacked files with as many errors corrected as I can deal with in the time I have. Once that is up, then other people can start helping.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: Vidmaster on November 06, 2016, 01:48:20 am
Quick question from me lurking around...       is this the same SVN that FUBAR and myself where using to work on Zathras or unrelated to that?
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: karajorma on November 06, 2016, 06:51:31 pm
Unrelated. You guys had an SVN repo? Can you still access it?
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: IPAndrews on November 13, 2016, 04:11:38 pm
Well we'd have to target 3.7.6 not 3.7.5

Bearing in mind if you do target a specific build - sensible enough - you will have to endure self superior tit wanks lecturing you in five years time that you didn't target the specific build released that week. Before they start talking about targeting specific builds. Come to think of it. It's somewhat circular. It's like Groundhog Day. Only with more bare faced hypocrisy.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: General Battuta on November 13, 2016, 04:33:04 pm
Well we'd have to target 3.7.6 not 3.7.5

Bearing in mind if you do target a specific build - sensible enough - you will have to endure self superior tit wanks lecturing you in five years time that you didn't target the specific build released that week. Before they start talking about targeting specific builds. Come to think of it. It's somewhat circular. It's like Groundhog Day. Only with more bare faced hypocrisy.

"I got so mad over other people fixing my bugs with 0 harm to any of my work that I spent a decade freaking out about it" is unfortunately a bit long for a custom title
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: wesp5 on December 07, 2016, 07:24:16 am
Okay, so another month has gone by. Any updates?
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: OverDhill on December 25, 2016, 10:13:43 am
Just checking in for any progress reports.

Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: karajorma on December 25, 2016, 10:20:02 pm
Made a small amount of progress but not a huge amount. Hopefully I'll have more time next month.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: Slasher on February 07, 2017, 12:19:53 am
Unrelated. You guys had an SVN repo? Can you still access it?

Did anyone ever get back to you about this? FUBAR's SVN is still up.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: karajorma on February 07, 2017, 02:31:58 am
No one ever did on that score. Can you send me the details?
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: Slasher on February 08, 2017, 03:11:37 pm
I sent you and FUBAR a PM. Since I believe FUBAR set the SVN up specifically for this kind of work, I don't think there will be a problem.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: OverDhill on February 21, 2017, 03:49:16 pm
Just checking to see if any progress has been made for TBP 3.5 working in 3.7.5?  I have been holding off playing if as to take advantage of any improvements.

Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: karajorma on February 23, 2017, 09:23:42 pm
A little but not a huge amount. I've been concentrating on the whole PR drive for HLP as a whole this month rather than much modding. I'm going to see if I can get it into a workable state by this time next month though.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: wesp5 on February 28, 2017, 08:19:46 am
PR drive for HLP

So what is that then?
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: karajorma on February 28, 2017, 07:09:22 pm
http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=93134.0

If you've got any ideas how or where to push TBP, post them.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: chief1983 on February 28, 2017, 09:21:41 pm
For SVN, I would talk to rev_posix and/or Zacam, I think they might still be setting that up for HLP mods that need it for dev.  For distribution, FSFiles (http://sectorgame.com/fsfiles/) and FSMods (http://www.freespacemods.net/) should both still be usable.  Not sure if they would support hotlinking for installation via a web installer though.  Is that what you were asking?
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: karajorma on March 01, 2017, 01:21:58 am
I meant more about how to advertise we exist to B5 fans.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: chief1983 on March 01, 2017, 05:49:24 am
Ah, that kind of push.  Where do they often congregate?  Could use reviews of the DVD collection on amazon maybe, reddit, imgur...
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: wesp5 on March 01, 2017, 06:21:08 am
I meant more about how to advertise we exist to B5 fans.

There is an active Babylon 5 Facebook group, but I think the best way to reach new players is to actually release new Babylon 5 stuff! So if you got some things fixed for TPB 3.5, just go ahead and release a beta that could be announced on Blues News or in the Facebook group or elsewhere. Don't mind if the release isn't finished, it's all about showing people that there is still work going on!
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: karajorma on March 01, 2017, 06:40:58 am
Releasing a beta with more bugs than the current release would be a very bad way to get new fans.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: OverDhill on March 01, 2017, 09:16:00 am
I meant more about how to advertise we exist to B5 fans.

There was a lot of interest in the Facebook Babylon 5 room when I mentioned it. It just needs to be easy to install for a lot of those people.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: wesp5 on March 02, 2017, 07:43:16 am
Releasing a beta with more bugs than the current release would be a very bad way to get new fans.

Why would there be more bugs? I thought most of 3.5 was just about compiling all the files together.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: wesp5 on March 02, 2017, 07:45:37 am
There was a lot of interest in the Facebook Babylon 5 room when I mentioned it. It just needs to be easy to install for a lot of those people.

Exactly, and I thought this was all what TPB 3.5 was about! No more installing TBP 3.4b, then Zathras, then the builds, then my patch, then missing campaigns...
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: karajorma on March 02, 2017, 08:27:32 am
Why would there be more bugs? I thought most of 3.5 was just about compiling all the files together.

And you think that's going to happen magically without introducing problems? Especially as you seem to be suggesting we release it to the general public without even bothering to test it?
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: OverDhill on March 02, 2017, 08:53:12 am
I was under the impression that it would also be made to work with the current FSO builds. I just went through the process of installing a fresh copy of B5 and it is way too difficult currently for most new fans that might be drawn to play it. At least make it as easy as Diaspora to install.


My wish list would be that it would be given some love and look as nice as the current FSO does and have its own installer or be part of the current one.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: karajorma on March 02, 2017, 05:48:49 pm
That's the eventual idea. But releasing beta builds to the general public is a bad idea. If you want to do that, get them to download the releases that already exist. At least there we already know what the issues might be and how to solve them.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: OverDhill on March 02, 2017, 07:40:03 pm
I certainly am not advocating sending beta out to the general public. People have waited this long so whats a little more time to play test an upgraded version which I am sure they would rather have.

After all The Babylon 5 Project is without doubt the best B5 game ever done. And from the reaction I saw I doubt many B5 fans even knew about it.

You guys would know better than any what possible improvements that would be seen by migrating to the nightly builds. I would think maybe things like the nebula might be possible to upgrade.  Just throwing ideas off the top of my head.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: karajorma on March 02, 2017, 11:45:44 pm
Well I don't plan on releasing until Knossos is finished anyway. It would be rather silly to release the game and then have to do a new release to fit in with that. It also has the advantages of making it more likely that B5 fans stick around to play the other games on this engine.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: wesp5 on March 03, 2017, 07:25:53 am
And you think that's going to happen magically without introducing problems?

Yes, if we would only use the builds and files we know are working :). But what is this about waiting for Knossos to finish? Is this a new build or something?
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: chief1983 on March 03, 2017, 08:35:20 am
New launcher/installer platform.  Hopefully will be much less error-prone and more user-friendly than any before.  And natively capable of managing any number of total conversions all from within itself.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: OverDhill on May 21, 2017, 09:20:04 am
Just checking if there has been any progress with this?
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: wesp5 on May 24, 2017, 06:40:01 am
So how long will it take for Knossos to be finished? Because already over a year has gone by since the idea to make a new TBP release and nothing at all has happened! Maybe IPAndrews might have been right after all that you sometimes have to cut feature creep or stop waiting for others and just have to get the damn thing out of the door ;)...
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: karajorma on May 24, 2017, 06:59:12 am
Well if someone else want to get the ball rolling that would make it easier for me. 

My biggest problem is proving to be getting everything into SVN so that I can start getting changes made. I have access to the old SVN account that was used in-house but getting stuff from there to the HLP on is proving to be a complete PITA.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: OverDhill on May 24, 2017, 09:40:45 am
Personally I would not wait for Knossos. I prefer the wXLauncher over what I had seen in Knossos the last time I checked. Certainly not anything to wait for. Hope things go better for you trying to get going.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: karajorma on May 24, 2017, 10:44:27 am
Couldn't disagree more. I might not wait for Knossos to be ready but Knossos is what I've been saying the freespace installler needs to do for at least 7 or 8 years.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: jr2 on May 24, 2017, 10:57:31 am
My biggest problem is proving to be getting everything into SVN so that I can start getting changes made. I have access to the old SVN account that was used in-house but getting stuff from there to the HLP on is proving to be a complete PITA.

Is that something you can explain how to do in a message and point me at the work?  I might not understand what I'm doing, but if there's clear instructions, I can batch (with or without an actual batch to help me do it; I can has do the robot very well, with high-to-perfect accuracy).
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: chief1983 on May 24, 2017, 11:02:53 am
Was just gonna say, I have 100mbit Charter with no bandwidth limit, I'm sure downloading an SVN repository and uploading to a new SVN host is within its abilities.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: OverDhill on August 13, 2017, 10:18:08 pm
Yet another reason to get B5 running with the latest nightly builds. There is a SweetFX that now supports OpenGL.  I have tested it with IL-2 1946 BAT as well as Freespace 2 Open and it helps a lot.

Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: PIe on August 17, 2017, 03:25:34 pm
What kind of bugs are being fixed here?  Are they table errors, mission/FRED errors, model errors, something else?  Apologies if this has been covered before, but I couldn't find many specifics.  Depending on what is being fixed, I might be able to help.
Has the SVN ever been set up?  I can probably unpack the ISO + Zathras, upload it and then whatever changes have been made can be integrated.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: wesp5 on August 28, 2017, 05:12:58 pm
Sorry, but I have the impression that nothing has been fixed at all yet, because people are waiting for a new launcher or some management system like SVN. At that speed TBP 3.5 is not going to happen soon if at all...
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: OverDhill on August 28, 2017, 07:00:09 pm
wxLauncher works fine. I was hoping to stir some interest in the Babylon 5 room I am in but it needs to have a easy installer and preferably be able to run under 3.8 now that it is released. But it seems to be stalled for months now.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: wesp5 on August 29, 2017, 02:00:12 am
wxLauncher works fine. I was hoping to stir some interest in the Babylon 5 room I am in but it needs to have a easy installer and preferably be able to run under 3.8 now that it is released.

I found the 3.8 feature list and it sounds impressive! Still I get lots of warnings or errors when starting the game, some of them looking in weapons.tbl for [+bitmap] and finding some other $variables instead. Otherwise the mod seems to be working, but I can't seem to find the wxLauncher ini file, which I selected to be created...
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: karajorma on August 29, 2017, 10:57:34 pm
Well for a start, we've got all the new FREDding toys and error fixes that come with any new release of FSO. Those really should be enough of a reason for making sure everything runs on 3.8.

What kind of bugs are being fixed here?  Are they table errors, mission/FRED errors, model errors, something else?  Apologies if this has been covered before, but I couldn't find many specifics.  Depending on what is being fixed, I might be able to help.
Has the SVN ever been set up?  I can probably unpack the ISO + Zathras, upload it and then whatever changes have been made can be integrated.

Sorry, I didn't see this until just now. The basic idea is to fix all the table errors and anything else that can be fixed and then package the game in such a way that it can easily be distributed to people without the current mess. To that end I've been working the last few days on making sure that all the TBP campaigns are nicely packaged as mods or work correctly if just added to the main data folder. Once that is done, I'll get everything into SVN so that we can see about fixing any errors the campaigns complain about.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: wesp5 on August 30, 2017, 02:50:31 am
The basic idea is to fix all the table errors...

Have you already moved to build 3.8 and fixed the missing bitmap errors in the weapons table that I just reported here? Also speaking of 3.8, there seems to be a new shiny reflection effect compared to 3.7 which makes a lot of the ships look like they are made out of cheap plastic! This can be removed in the launcher by disabling specular and I suggest you do it as the default.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: karajorma on August 30, 2017, 08:08:08 pm
I'm not getting any errors in FRED at the moment. Obviously the next issue is to go through all the ships and see if any of them have problems that need fixing.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: wesp5 on August 31, 2017, 10:22:38 am
I'm not getting any errors in FRED at the moment. Obviously the next issue is to go through all the ships and see if any of them have problems that need fixing.

I did not test FRED but the main game and with 3.8 I get many warnings about table errors that I did not get with 3.7! These need to be fixed otherwise the game won't even start without the player pressing "debug" on these warnings several times...
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: karajorma on August 31, 2017, 10:27:59 am
Well once I've got everything nicely into SVN we can start sorting those out.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: wesp5 on August 31, 2017, 03:46:55 pm
I know little about a SVN. What do you put there, isn't it all the errors? Did you start updating TBP by loading each mission into FRED and looking for errors and not by running the game itself? Is this easier because you get more error details? Would the table errors I report appear in FRED too?
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: PIe on August 31, 2017, 08:02:07 pm
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/10377637/what-is-svn-and-how-to-use-it-with-project
It's a version control system.  Essentially, it's a way of storing code or other projects, such that many different people can work on the same project simultaneously, and easily grab any changes made by the others.  Also, if anyone makes a mistake, that error can be rolled back.
I can't speak for what karajorma is doing, but from my experience, any table or mission errors that show up when running the game also show up in FRED.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: karajorma on September 01, 2017, 03:04:18 am
Okay, I've finally got everything in SVN and working but there appears to be a problem with the Wep_Nothing.pof

Code: [Select]
Assert: "n_points > 0"
File: modelcollide.cpp
Line: 66

ntdll.dll! ZwWaitForSingleObject + 20 bytes
KERNELBASE.dll! WaitForSingleObjectEx + 159 bytes
fs2_open_3_8_1_x64_AVX-DEBUG.exe! SCP_DumpStack + 367 bytes
fs2_open_3_8_1_x64_AVX-DEBUG.exe! dump_stacktrace + 68 bytes
fs2_open_3_8_1_x64_AVX-DEBUG.exe! os::dialogs::AssertMessage + 879 bytes
fs2_open_3_8_1_x64_AVX-DEBUG.exe! model_collide_allocate_point_list + 63 bytes
fs2_open_3_8_1_x64_AVX-DEBUG.exe! model_collide_parse_bsp_defpoints + 98 bytes
fs2_open_3_8_1_x64_AVX-DEBUG.exe! model_collide_parse_bsp + 185 bytes
fs2_open_3_8_1_x64_AVX-DEBUG.exe! model_load + 3868 bytes
fs2_open_3_8_1_x64_AVX-DEBUG.exe! weapons_page_in + 954 bytes
fs2_open_3_8_1_x64_AVX-DEBUG.exe! level_page_in + 88 bytes
fs2_open_3_8_1_x64_AVX-DEBUG.exe! freespace_mission_load_stuff + 240 bytes
fs2_open_3_8_1_x64_AVX-DEBUG.exe! game_post_level_init + 206 bytes
fs2_open_3_8_1_x64_AVX-DEBUG.exe! game_start_mission + 387 bytes
fs2_open_3_8_1_x64_AVX-DEBUG.exe! game_enter_state + 597 bytes
fs2_open_3_8_1_x64_AVX-DEBUG.exe! gameseq_set_state + 365 bytes
fs2_open_3_8_1_x64_AVX-DEBUG.exe! game_process_event + 318 bytes
fs2_open_3_8_1_x64_AVX-DEBUG.exe! gameseq_process_events + 163 bytes
fs2_open_3_8_1_x64_AVX-DEBUG.exe! game_main + 644 bytes
fs2_open_3_8_1_x64_AVX-DEBUG.exe! actual_main + 162 bytes
fs2_open_3_8_1_x64_AVX-DEBUG.exe! SDL_main + 47 bytes
fs2_open_3_8_1_x64_AVX-DEBUG.exe! main_utf8 + 32 bytes
fs2_open_3_8_1_x64_AVX-DEBUG.exe! WinMain + 178 bytes
fs2_open_3_8_1_x64_AVX-DEBUG.exe! invoke_main + 45 bytes
fs2_open_3_8_1_x64_AVX-DEBUG.exe! __scrt_common_main_seh + 295 bytes
fs2_open_3_8_1_x64_AVX-DEBUG.exe! __scrt_common_main + 14 bytes
[...]
[ This info is in the clipboard so you can paste it somewhere now ]


Use Debug to break into Debugger, Exit will close the application.

ntdll.dll! ZwWaitForSingleObject + 20 bytes
KERNELBASE.dll! WaitForSingleObjectEx + 159 bytes
fs2_open_3_8_1_x64_AVX-DEBUG.exe! SCP_DumpStack + 367 bytes
fs2_open_3_8_1_x64_AVX-DEBUG.exe! dump_stacktrace + 68 bytes
fs2_open_3_8_1_x64_AVX-DEBUG.exe! os::dialogs::Error + 332 bytes
fs2_open_3_8_1_x64_AVX-DEBUG.exe! os::dialogs::AssertMessage + 1105 bytes
fs2_open_3_8_1_x64_AVX-DEBUG.exe! model_collide_allocate_point_list + 63 bytes
fs2_open_3_8_1_x64_AVX-DEBUG.exe! model_collide_parse_bsp_defpoints + 98 bytes
fs2_open_3_8_1_x64_AVX-DEBUG.exe! model_collide_parse_bsp + 185 bytes
fs2_open_3_8_1_x64_AVX-DEBUG.exe! model_load + 3868 bytes
fs2_open_3_8_1_x64_AVX-DEBUG.exe! weapons_page_in + 954 bytes
fs2_open_3_8_1_x64_AVX-DEBUG.exe! level_page_in + 88 bytes
fs2_open_3_8_1_x64_AVX-DEBUG.exe! freespace_mission_load_stuff + 240 bytes
fs2_open_3_8_1_x64_AVX-DEBUG.exe! game_post_level_init + 206 bytes
fs2_open_3_8_1_x64_AVX-DEBUG.exe! game_start_mission + 387 bytes
fs2_open_3_8_1_x64_AVX-DEBUG.exe! game_enter_state + 597 bytes
fs2_open_3_8_1_x64_AVX-DEBUG.exe! gameseq_set_state + 365 bytes
fs2_open_3_8_1_x64_AVX-DEBUG.exe! game_process_event + 318 bytes
fs2_open_3_8_1_x64_AVX-DEBUG.exe! gameseq_process_events + 163 bytes
fs2_open_3_8_1_x64_AVX-DEBUG.exe! game_main + 644 bytes
fs2_open_3_8_1_x64_AVX-DEBUG.exe! actual_main + 162 bytes
fs2_open_3_8_1_x64_AVX-DEBUG.exe! SDL_main + 47 bytes
fs2_open_3_8_1_x64_AVX-DEBUG.exe! main_utf8 + 32 bytes
fs2_open_3_8_1_x64_AVX-DEBUG.exe! WinMain + 178 bytes
fs2_open_3_8_1_x64_AVX-DEBUG.exe! invoke_main + 45 bytes
fs2_open_3_8_1_x64_AVX-DEBUG.exe! __scrt_common_main_seh + 295 bytes
fs2_open_3_8_1_x64_AVX-DEBUG.exe! __scrt_common_main + 14 bytes
fs2_open_3_8_1_x64_AVX-DEBUG.exe! WinMainCRTStartup + 9 bytes
KERNEL32.DLL! BaseThreadInitThunk + 20 bytes
ntdll.dll! RtlUserThreadStart + 33 bytes

As far as I can tell, the problem is that the .pof doesn't actually have anything in it. The pof is actually a geometryless object which is meant to be used when the game insists ships have secondary weapons. Looks like this particular hack no longer works and is making the game error out.

I'm also getting some errors with the 3D sounds having more than one channel but you can click through those (although they should be fixed of course).



Anyway, apart from those two problems, and with a lot of thanks to FUBAR, things do seem to work well enough that I can start getting everyone else involved. So if anyone else wants to help me, just ask on here and I'll give you SVN access. I'll need an email address though so if you want to use a different one from the one you registered with you'll have to tell me.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: chief1983 on September 01, 2017, 08:16:29 am
I would love to be able to help.  Been waiting patiently for this be on an SVN server :)
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: karajorma on September 01, 2017, 09:09:30 am
Okay, tell me if you got the invite.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: chief1983 on September 01, 2017, 09:15:00 am
I did.  Account successfully created.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: PIe on September 01, 2017, 10:02:42 am
I'd also like to contribute.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: karajorma on September 01, 2017, 10:13:02 am
Okay chief, you should have access now. The address of the repo is http://tbp.penguinness.org:7701/svn/tbp/

PIe, I'll add you as soon as you've created an account.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: PIe on September 01, 2017, 10:30:43 am
Done.  Thanks.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: karajorma on September 01, 2017, 11:04:14 am
Okay, you have access now.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: wesp5 on September 01, 2017, 01:18:53 pm
Can you add me too? I'm still busy with the Bloodlines patch right now, but I like to see how work is going and whether I can beta test or suggest something.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: karajorma on September 01, 2017, 07:08:44 pm
Invite sent.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: PIe on September 02, 2017, 12:12:46 am
What's the protocol for making changes, ie will we be using branches?
Also, will we use TBP's existing Mantis?
http://www.hard-light.net/mantis/set_project.php?project_id=9
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: karajorma on September 02, 2017, 07:29:11 am
I think using Mantis is a great idea but historically it's been very difficult to get more than 2-3 people to use it. As for making changes, at the moment let's stick to "See a bug, fix it" for now. If people are willing to use Mantis, we can add "Assign it to yourself" on top of that.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: wesp5 on September 02, 2017, 10:24:14 am
Invite sent.

Hm, I get administration access after login but nothing about TBP...
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: PIe on September 02, 2017, 04:10:37 pm
I guess I'll report bugs I can't fix myself here, until we get Mantis going.
In Raider Wars, the logo cutscene that leads into Midnight on the Firing Line throws the following error warning:
Code: [Select]
Warning: Could not find cutscene 'RW_Logo.ogg' in listing; cannot mark it viewable...
File: cutscenes.cpp
Line: 152

ntdll.dll! ZwWaitForSingleObject + 20 bytes
KERNELBASE.dll! WaitForSingleObjectEx + 159 bytes
fs2_open_3_8_0_x64_SSE2-FASTDBG.exe! <no symbol>
fs2_open_3_8_0_x64_SSE2-FASTDBG.exe! <no symbol>
fs2_open_3_8_0_x64_SSE2-FASTDBG.exe! <no symbol>
fs2_open_3_8_0_x64_SSE2-FASTDBG.exe! <no symbol>
fs2_open_3_8_0_x64_SSE2-FASTDBG.exe! <no symbol>
fs2_open_3_8_0_x64_SSE2-FASTDBG.exe! <no symbol>
fs2_open_3_8_0_x64_SSE2-FASTDBG.exe! <no symbol>
fs2_open_3_8_0_x64_SSE2-FASTDBG.exe! <no symbol>
fs2_open_3_8_0_x64_SSE2-FASTDBG.exe! <no symbol>
fs2_open_3_8_0_x64_SSE2-FASTDBG.exe! <no symbol>
fs2_open_3_8_0_x64_SSE2-FASTDBG.exe! <no symbol>
fs2_open_3_8_0_x64_SSE2-FASTDBG.exe! <no symbol>
fs2_open_3_8_0_x64_SSE2-FASTDBG.exe! <no symbol>
fs2_open_3_8_0_x64_SSE2-FASTDBG.exe! <no symbol>
fs2_open_3_8_0_x64_SSE2-FASTDBG.exe! <no symbol>
fs2_open_3_8_0_x64_SSE2-FASTDBG.exe! <no symbol>
fs2_open_3_8_0_x64_SSE2-FASTDBG.exe! <no symbol>
fs2_open_3_8_0_x64_SSE2-FASTDBG.exe! <no symbol>
fs2_open_3_8_0_x64_SSE2-FASTDBG.exe! <no symbol>
KERNEL32.DLL! BaseThreadInitThunk + 20 bytes
ntdll.dll! RtlUserThreadStart + 33 bytes
The cutscene does play though.
Debug log at https://pastebin.com/dbRqqVLk
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: karajorma on September 02, 2017, 11:36:44 pm
It crashes out before that for me with the error about none.pof. Anybody got any ideas how to fix that one for now?
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: PIe on September 03, 2017, 12:06:23 am
It's not really a fix, but I just copied and renamed another weapon pof to replace the faulty one.  According to weapons.tbl, it's just there so that multiplayer doesn't complain, so I assume you can use any weapon file.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: PIe on September 03, 2017, 09:48:08 pm
The same cutscene error showed up at the last "mission", which is just the credits movie.
Code: [Select]
Warning: Could not find cutscene 'RW_Credits.ogg' in listing; cannot mark it viewable...
File: cutscenes.cpp
Line: 152

ntdll.dll! ZwWaitForSingleObject + 20 bytes
KERNELBASE.dll! WaitForSingleObjectEx + 159 bytes
fs2_open_3_8_0_x64_SSE2-FASTDBG.exe! <no symbol>
fs2_open_3_8_0_x64_SSE2-FASTDBG.exe! <no symbol>
fs2_open_3_8_0_x64_SSE2-FASTDBG.exe! <no symbol>
fs2_open_3_8_0_x64_SSE2-FASTDBG.exe! <no symbol>
fs2_open_3_8_0_x64_SSE2-FASTDBG.exe! <no symbol>
fs2_open_3_8_0_x64_SSE2-FASTDBG.exe! <no symbol>
fs2_open_3_8_0_x64_SSE2-FASTDBG.exe! <no symbol>
fs2_open_3_8_0_x64_SSE2-FASTDBG.exe! <no symbol>
fs2_open_3_8_0_x64_SSE2-FASTDBG.exe! <no symbol>
fs2_open_3_8_0_x64_SSE2-FASTDBG.exe! <no symbol>
fs2_open_3_8_0_x64_SSE2-FASTDBG.exe! <no symbol>
fs2_open_3_8_0_x64_SSE2-FASTDBG.exe! <no symbol>
fs2_open_3_8_0_x64_SSE2-FASTDBG.exe! <no symbol>
fs2_open_3_8_0_x64_SSE2-FASTDBG.exe! <no symbol>
fs2_open_3_8_0_x64_SSE2-FASTDBG.exe! <no symbol>
fs2_open_3_8_0_x64_SSE2-FASTDBG.exe! <no symbol>
fs2_open_3_8_0_x64_SSE2-FASTDBG.exe! <no symbol>
KERNEL32.DLL! BaseThreadInitThunk + 20 bytes
ntdll.dll! RtlUserThreadStart + 33 bytes
Also, in M16 Loose Ends, I had to replay the mission and got this at the ship selection screen on the second time through:
Code: [Select]
Warning: Null vec3d in vec3d normalize.
Trace out of vecmat.cpp and find offending code.

File: vecmat.cpp
Line: 434

ntdll.dll! ZwWaitForSingleObject + 20 bytes
KERNELBASE.dll! WaitForSingleObjectEx + 159 bytes
fs2_open_3_8_0_x64_SSE2-FASTDBG.exe! <no symbol>
fs2_open_3_8_0_x64_SSE2-FASTDBG.exe! <no symbol>
fs2_open_3_8_0_x64_SSE2-FASTDBG.exe! <no symbol>
fs2_open_3_8_0_x64_SSE2-FASTDBG.exe! <no symbol>
fs2_open_3_8_0_x64_SSE2-FASTDBG.exe! <no symbol>
fs2_open_3_8_0_x64_SSE2-FASTDBG.exe! <no symbol>
fs2_open_3_8_0_x64_SSE2-FASTDBG.exe! <no symbol>
fs2_open_3_8_0_x64_SSE2-FASTDBG.exe! <no symbol>
fs2_open_3_8_0_x64_SSE2-FASTDBG.exe! <no symbol>
fs2_open_3_8_0_x64_SSE2-FASTDBG.exe! <no symbol>
fs2_open_3_8_0_x64_SSE2-FASTDBG.exe! <no symbol>
fs2_open_3_8_0_x64_SSE2-FASTDBG.exe! <no symbol>
fs2_open_3_8_0_x64_SSE2-FASTDBG.exe! <no symbol>
fs2_open_3_8_0_x64_SSE2-FASTDBG.exe! <no symbol>
fs2_open_3_8_0_x64_SSE2-FASTDBG.exe! <no symbol>
fs2_open_3_8_0_x64_SSE2-FASTDBG.exe! <no symbol>
fs2_open_3_8_0_x64_SSE2-FASTDBG.exe! <no symbol>
fs2_open_3_8_0_x64_SSE2-FASTDBG.exe! <no symbol>
KERNEL32.DLL! BaseThreadInitThunk + 20 bytes
ntdll.dll! RtlUserThreadStart + 33 bytes
Debug log for both at https://pastebin.com/nZKuYWqW

I forgot to mention that the explosions that look like concentric rings the shockwave effect often has a black, opaque square, such that whenever one of these explosions is triggered, anything behind it is obscured by the square.
Other than that, Raider Wars is error/warning/crash free, although there are spelling errors and some missions maybe should be tweaked.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: wesp5 on September 04, 2017, 03:32:00 am
I forgot to mention that the explosions that look like concentric rings the shockwave effect often has a black, opaque square, such that whenever one of these explosions is triggered, anything behind it is obscured by the square.

I know the solution to that: You need to enable 3D shockwaves in the launcher and therefore this should be enabled by default for the full release of 3.5!
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: karajorma on September 04, 2017, 05:03:25 am
It's not really a fix, but I just copied and renamed another weapon pof to replace the faulty one.  According to weapons.tbl, it's just there so that multiplayer doesn't complain, so I assume you can use any weapon file.

Yeah, I'm not too happy about doing something like that. We really should fix it properly if we're going to do it. Wouldn't using the wrong .pof file result in the game jiusshowing the wrong missiles in multiplayer? Can't we use a pof that does have geometry but is textured to be invisible?
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: PIe on September 04, 2017, 10:30:44 am
Yeah, I'm not too happy about doing something like that. We really should fix it properly if we're going to do it. Wouldn't using the wrong .pof file result in the game jiusshowing the wrong missiles in multiplayer? Can't we use a pof that does have geometry but is textured to be invisible?
Yes.  I can't model one bit, so I just did that as a temporary fix to get to stuff that I can actually solve.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: chief1983 on September 05, 2017, 10:09:15 pm
If we want to use Mantis to track fixes, then we need to get in the habit of everything that is committed needs an associated mantis ticket, and it should always be referenced in the commit message.  It does help sort of document the changes, anything worth committed is worth writing a quick ticket explaining why it's being changed, and gives a definite place for discussion on that particular change.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: karajorma on September 06, 2017, 01:11:34 am
Well it looks like it's only the 4 of us working on this so unless anyone has an objection to Mantis, I say we use it.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: chief1983 on September 06, 2017, 09:55:00 am
Works for me.  There are currently 32 unresolved issues in the TBP project.  They should probably audited, it's not a very high number to look through.  But also, we should add a new release version to the project so issues found and needing fixed for this 3.5 release can be tracked separately from existing issues or things we want to fix at some point but aren't critical.  I don't have admin over the TBP project, not sure who does or who could grant it to someone.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: karajorma on September 06, 2017, 06:40:01 pm
I have admin over the project (or can give it to myself as a HLP admin). I'll take a look in a couple of hours.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: chief1983 on September 06, 2017, 08:32:55 pm
Is any Zathras-specific content incorporated into the SVN repository?
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: karajorma on September 07, 2017, 03:24:42 am
All of Zathras 2.9 should be included.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: PIe on September 07, 2017, 06:39:39 pm
Should I wait to file bugs?  I don't want to clutter up the Mantis if someone's trying to audit old ones.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: karajorma on September 07, 2017, 09:11:30 pm
Add the new ones and set them to be fixed for 3.5. That way they shouldn't get in the way of any audit.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: PIe on September 07, 2017, 10:38:50 pm
I don't see any fixed in 3.5 option.  All I have is Product Version, which only has various Zathras versions and 3.4b.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: chief1983 on September 07, 2017, 10:49:13 pm
Product version only shows released versions.  Target version is what should show 3.5 even if it isn't marked as released yet.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: PIe on September 07, 2017, 10:54:18 pm
I figured that, but if I'm reading Karajorma correctly, I should set the target version to 3.5.  The problem is, I don't have a target version selector on the bug reporter.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: chief1983 on September 07, 2017, 10:56:09 pm
Is there a button or something to change between simple and advanced/complex bug report mode?
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: PIe on September 07, 2017, 11:02:26 pm
Not that I can see.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: karajorma on September 07, 2017, 11:45:03 pm
I added you to TBP as a developer. Tell me if you still don't see it as an option cause I definitely do see an option for TBP 3.5
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: PIe on September 07, 2017, 11:52:38 pm
I have it now.  Thanks.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: PIe on November 06, 2017, 09:22:33 pm
A few questions.
Do we want to include the Tales of EAS Janus campaign?  The link on http://babylon.hard-light.net/links.php is dead but I have a local copy.
Is the point of this project just to fix bugs or will we eventually rebalance missions as well?
Lastly I've noticed the glide mode differs from Diaspora's, in that you can accelerate with the afterburner while glide is on.  Is this intentional or a limitation from when it was implemented?  If it was a limitation, should it be changed?
Also, the website has a lot of dead links and needs updating.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: Vidmaster on November 09, 2017, 01:47:43 pm
Regarding Glide: It should be changed.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: karajorma on November 09, 2017, 11:47:05 pm
I'd like to include EAS Janos if we can. I don't have a problem with rebalancing it as long as we stay true to the original plot line.

As for the glide difference, I'm not entirely sure what caused the difference but I'm not certain it's a bug. I think it was intentional at the time. Why do you think it should be changed Vidmaster?
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: Vidmaster on November 12, 2017, 08:33:14 am
I recall it was an engine limitation. A diaspora-style glide would be A) true to the show and B) what was intended, at least from my perspective.
On the other hand, I was not around when these decisions were made.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: LaineyBugsDaddy on November 15, 2017, 02:14:57 pm
If we're talking about Starfury maneuvering, they should work on strictly Newtonian physics based on the show where to turn about, they had to apply forward thrust on one side of the craft, aft thrust on the other side, and counter it so they didn't just spin. They wouldn't technically have a top speed other than "too much delta vee to be able to come to rest relative to original frame of reference with remaining engine power." Afterburner in a Newtonian flight model would just add more speed on current heading or it would apply thrust on a different vector. Or are you saying that currently, afterburner just accelerates you on your current vector regardless of which direction the craft faces?
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: PIe on November 15, 2017, 03:09:19 pm
I was wrong.  In both Diaspora and TBP, the afterburner accelerates you in the direction you are facing, even if you are gliding.  I'm not sure why I thought the afterburner had no effect while gliding in Diaspora.  The difference is that in Diaspora, when the afterburner is exhausted, your gliding speed decreases to the regular top speed whereas in TBP, your gliding speed stays at the afterburner top speed.
The question still remains which behavior we want.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: AdmiralRalwood on November 15, 2017, 04:57:22 pm
I was wrong.  In both Diaspora and TBP, the afterburner accelerates you in the direction you are facing, even if you are gliding.  I'm not sure why I thought the afterburner had no effect while gliding in Diaspora.  The difference is that in Diaspora, when the afterburner is exhausted, your gliding speed decreases to the regular top speed whereas in TBP, your gliding speed stays at the afterburner top speed.
The question still remains which behavior we want.
In that case, the slow decay is the new feature that wasn't available back in the TBP days so clearly it should be used here.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: karajorma on November 15, 2017, 08:56:05 pm
It's newer, but that doesn't mean it's correct. In a few missions that extra speed was damn useful. That one in Raider Wars where you have to avoid the enemy for instance. To be honest I've never really understood why people want the afterburner speed to decay away in the first place. It makes something that doesn't make much sense (a top speed in space) make even less sense.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: LaineyBugsDaddy on November 16, 2017, 01:44:10 am
Worse still is the fact that in FS when you throttle back, you slow down to relative rest a LOT faster than you would lose speed even in atmosphere in FS. It's almost like in the FS universe, the once theorized ether is a thing, and ships actually have some feature that creates drag or friction with the ether, even more than an atmosphere provides to an airplane. At least in the B5-verse, the ex-tee craft that do this have the excuse of that's how a gravitic drive works. But in FS, everything looks to be using standard action/reaction thrusters. Anyway, to tie this back to the discussion at hand, speed imparted by an extra thrust from afterburner has no business decaying when in glide mode. It's even more silly than throttling down bringing your ship to relative rest when you use a standard action/reaction drive instead of gravitics.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: karajorma on November 16, 2017, 07:30:56 am
Well I'm not really worried about the physics cause that's already nonsense either way. So since this can't be about realism, I'm just trying to get a handle on a gameplay reason why this is a good idea.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: jr2 on November 16, 2017, 11:25:21 am
It's the subspace drives.  Whenever they're powered up, they create an interface with subspace that affects the craft's performance in realspace.  However, it also allows craft to use subspace like atmosphere when turning (rather than flipping around and applying thrust opposite the desired direction of travel, they can bank using the drag their subspace drive creates).

...Or some technobabble like that.  Throw in a few techy pieces like "flux-transmorgrification high-bypass resolution inhibiting reactive capacitors" and there you go.  :wakka:
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: AdmiralRalwood on November 16, 2017, 03:50:35 pm
Well I'm not really worried about the physics cause that's already nonsense either way. So since this can't be about realism, I'm just trying to get a handle on a gameplay reason why this is a good idea.
Because flying at afterburner speeds 100% of the time without consuming fuel is poor game balance.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: karajorma on November 16, 2017, 09:23:25 pm
You fly in one direction and can't alter your heading without expending afterburner fuel. So there is a trade off. It's not something you can constantly do in combat so I don't see anything game-breaking about it.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: LaineyBugsDaddy on November 18, 2017, 03:02:03 am
Agreed. Everyone always talks about the supposed advantage, but nobody cares to remember the trade-off.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: AdmiralRalwood on November 18, 2017, 04:32:59 am
Because it's not a trade-off; you can either fly at afterburner speeds indefinitely, or you can fly at afterburner speeds for a limited time. One of those is strictly better than the other.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: Novachen on November 18, 2017, 05:25:29 am
Well, especially in B5 this actually seems to be more true to the original show.

In one of the first episodes in Season 1 Ivanova escapes a Squadron of Raiders in exactly this manner.


After the introduction of the White Star i actually had never the impression that B5 uses Newtonian Physics anymore. If this would be a case, some of the battles in Season 4 and some of White Star's maneuver seems to be hard to imagine. Or the ships in B5 are slow as their Freespace Counterparts.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: The E on November 18, 2017, 06:10:02 am
B5 made a very specific choice to have only Earth ships follow Newtonian physics. Everyone else uses drive mechanisms that aren't based on gas exhaust, and thus uses different physics.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: wesp5 on November 18, 2017, 10:04:46 am
B5 made a very specific choice to have only Earth ships follow Newtonian physics.

I think this was also valid for the Narn and other younger spacefaring races. The White Star was a Vorlon/Minbari hybrid spaceship and had gravitational engines. In fact I disliked that it sometimes showed kind of nozzle flames on his outer wings which made no sense regarding the tech is was based upon!
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: LaineyBugsDaddy on November 23, 2017, 08:09:45 pm
Thing is, Narn tech is basically captured/reverse engineered Centauri tech. So there's no reason they wouldn't have gravitic drives when the Centauri do.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: Trivial Psychic on November 23, 2017, 10:01:34 pm
As I understand it, the Centauri posses artificial gravity and partial gravitic drive, enough to assist in endurance and acceleration, but not on the level of the Minbari.  The Narn may have captured Centauri tech, but all literature I've encountered (depending on how cannon it is) have indicated that the Narn don't have gravity drive or artificial gravity yet, but their physiology isn't as prone to bone and muscle atrophy as Humans, so they don't need artificial gravity.  In the few times we've seen the interior of Narn warships, we haven't seen any indication of people walking around, and everyone has seat straps on.

As for the White Stars having gravity and thruster engines, think of the difference on space probes which have chemical or ion engines.  One is better at short term speed boosts, but uses its fuel fast.  The other has a lower thrust per second capability, but it is far more efficient in the long term.  The thruster engines on the White Star provide acceleration boosts that the gravity engines alone cannot produce, so the ship uses both to provide the best speed and acceleration.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: OverDhill on November 23, 2017, 10:06:40 pm
So glad to see the work being done for this. Thanks to all involved
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: wesp5 on November 24, 2017, 02:19:24 am
In the few times we've seen the interior of Narn warships, we haven't seen any indication of people walking around, and everyone has seat straps on.

I think JMS confirmed that Narn have no artificial gravity in one of his comments. The really sad thing is that the EA Omerga destroyers even show the same beam openings in the front as the Narn cruisers but due to a misunderstanding their huge power beams were rendered coming out of some small side guns...

Quote
The thruster engines on the White Star provide acceleration boosts that the gravity engines alone cannot produce, so the ship uses both to provide the best speed and acceleration.

I don't believe this as both Minbari and Vorlon fighers move fine and quick with graviational engines only. I also dislike the exposed bridge of the White Star and only half hologramic view, both which are not visible in other Minbari or Vorlon ships. These are very probably all concessions to pimping it optically a bit up...
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: wesp5 on December 18, 2017, 12:14:53 pm
So almost a year has gone by since the start of the thread and nothing has been released. Are you still waiting for something or are you silently working behind the scenes? I had to fix two of the Vorlon campaign missions in my Star Fury Patch recently to make them work with fs2 3.6.9 if people installed the old version, so it would be really cool to have a complete new version with the latest fs2 release active! Also could we somehow include the unused "Into the fire" game music into TBP 3.5? I included a lot of unused music from the original Bloodlines composer Rik Schaffer into my Unofficial Patch because he not only allowed me to do so, but was glad his work was not wasted. Maybe Christopher Franke thinks similar...
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: OverDhill on December 18, 2017, 12:40:07 pm
It would have been nice to see more progress. I stirred up a lot of interest in the B5 room and would have liked to bring in some new players.  But such is life with priorities of the real world.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: chief1983 on December 18, 2017, 01:08:01 pm
Well I am also hoping for some progress, this would be a great one to get into Knossos and really test how it handles TC support, especially with all the optional campaigns (unless it all just gets bundled into one giant TC package, which would probably be fine too).
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: PIe on December 18, 2017, 03:51:56 pm
I've been working on polishing up missions when I have time.
I'd like to get the core TBP files on Knossos and include Raider Wars, since that's the best of the bundled campaigns.  After that, we could release the other ones as they are refreshed.  I don't know what Karajorma wants to do though.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: karajorma on December 18, 2017, 05:37:52 pm
That sounds like a plan to me. We can add the other campaigns later as part of a Knossos update. Thanks to the way Knossos works there's no real need to make a big, one time update.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: OverDhill on January 05, 2018, 11:38:51 pm
I've been working on polishing up missions when I have time.
I'd like to get the core TBP files on Knossos and include Raider Wars, since that's the best of the bundled campaigns.  After that, we could release the other ones as they are refreshed.  I don't know what Karajorma wants to do though.

Sounds awesome
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: OverDhill on January 13, 2018, 09:33:50 pm
Not to sound too impatient but I was wondering how close this update is to getting uploaded to the Krossos launcher?
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: OverDhill on February 05, 2018, 09:48:29 am
The Facebook Babylon 5 room is very active lately. A lot seem eager to play this the last time I mentioned it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYloWBP79ro
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: karajorma on February 06, 2018, 03:50:36 am
I'm currently playing through Raider Wars. If you want to help playtest I can always give you SVN access.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: OverDhill on June 07, 2018, 02:48:15 pm
PM sent.   

What version of FSO is working with TBP currently in SVN?
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: PIe on June 07, 2018, 05:34:32 pm
What version of FSO is working with TBP currently in SVN?
3.8.0 or later.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: OverDhill on June 07, 2018, 05:46:19 pm
Thats great. I PM'd for a SVN password to check it out
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: karajorma on June 09, 2018, 05:14:45 am
And I'd set it up except that it seems my password isn't working either. I guess I'll have to PM for a password too! :p


EDIT: Okay, emails have been sent to email address used for HLP registrations those who requested access. Once you've registered tell me and I'll grant those accounts access.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: OverDhill on June 10, 2018, 02:17:29 pm
I need help in getting this setup to play test The Babylon Project.  I have SVN registered and created the R:/games folder. All the files have downloaded under R:/games/tbp folder.  How do I run the game now?
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: OverDhill on June 11, 2018, 02:22:14 pm
Ok I figured this out. I extracted the current nightly build into the tpb folder along with the trackir dll's and now Raider Wars will run without errors.  Now to find time to play around now that it is summer.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: 0rph3u5 on June 11, 2018, 02:41:40 pm
EDIT: Okay, emails have been sent to email address used for HLP registrations those who requested access. Once you've registered tell me and I'll grant those accounts access.

Oh, that's where you send it .... *opens that e-mail-adress, gets drowned in flood of unopened Notifications and Newsletters*

Thanks.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: karajorma on June 11, 2018, 11:49:34 pm
Hehe. I know the feeling. You should have access now.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: OverDhill on June 12, 2018, 09:34:04 pm
Anyone else trying this out that use a joystick? I was not able to get mine working and it works in FSO as well as the older Babylon Project.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: OverDhill on June 17, 2018, 04:03:18 am
I ran a debug session for a working FSO profile where the joystick works fine and then a debug for the TBP test.



[attachment stolen by Russian hackers]
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: OverDhill on June 21, 2018, 04:48:00 pm
Anyone have any ideas as to why this doesn't work?
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: m!m on June 21, 2018, 05:40:49 pm
It's probably caused by different SDL versions for the two executables you are using. You could try copying SDL2.dll from your FSO install to the TBP install and see if that changes anything.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: OverDhill on June 22, 2018, 01:23:24 am
That worked!! Not sure why the SDL that came with the nightly build didn't work.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: 0rph3u5 on June 28, 2018, 11:31:48 am
*embarassed shuffle* I seem to have misplaced the repository URL... Would some be so kind as to PM it me please?
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: PIe on June 28, 2018, 05:43:06 pm
Done.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: Iain Baker on July 16, 2018, 09:25:21 pm
So, is this project a 'Go' then? If so it would make many people very happy  :nod:
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: OverDhill on July 17, 2018, 04:53:31 am
I was granted access to the code and have played through the first mission of Raider Wars.  I think they are looking for more people to help test all the missions so it can be packaged and released to Knossos. It is running on the latest build of FSO and looks pretty nice. Not as good as FSO with the updated graphics but better with FSO 3.8.x and using Reshade. 

I will get back to it in the fall as we travel a lot now being retired and having daughters in two different states in opposite directions.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: karajorma on July 17, 2018, 06:08:54 am
It's definitely on-going. In fact, I spent quite a bit of time last week getting the files into a state where I can think about uploading them to Knossos. I just need to test I didn't screw anything up when I did it and then I'll upload to Knossos.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: wesp5 on July 17, 2018, 07:53:28 am
In fact, I spent quite a bit of time last week getting the files into a state where I can think about uploading them to Knossos.

What is this Knossos? I thought it was just a launcher, is it used to download and install mods as well? Where do we get it?
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: niffiwan on July 17, 2018, 09:45:09 am
Have a look at this thread: https://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=94068.0
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: wesp5 on July 17, 2018, 01:36:16 pm
Have a look at this thread: https://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=94068.0

Wow, that looks like a very impressive thing for the FSO mod community, but is it the right launcher for a standalone game like The Babylon Project? At least it should be possible to at first only show TBP to not confuse new users with the multitude of other FSO mods...
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: karajorma on July 17, 2018, 05:11:35 pm
It's pretty easy to link directly to TBP so that Knossos will download TBP.

On top of that, when Fate of the Galaxy or Diaspora release, it would be stupid to not be able to grab a few extra users just by having a TBP link in Knossos.

Finally, Knossos is the direction the rest of the SCP is heading in. If we're not going to use Knossos we might as well give up. Any TBP release without Knossos would be hopelessly out of date within a few months.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: wesp5 on July 17, 2018, 08:17:58 pm
If we're not going to use Knossos we might as well give up.

That's not what I meant. I meant if it is possible to have Knossos come up with only TBP at first and maybe another page to link to all the other mods...
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: PIe on July 17, 2018, 10:24:08 pm
Each mod/TC uploaded to Knossos has a webpage with links to download the mod using the Knossos desktop client (see Diaspora (https://fsnebula.org/mod/Diaspora_Release_Version) as an example).  Clicking that big "Download with Knossos" button opens a page for the mod directly in the locally installed Knossos app.  If you want to give someone a link to download TBP, you should give them TBP's fsnebula.org link whenever it becomes publicly available on Knossos.
However, if you just open up the Knossos app normally (i.e. from a Start Menu shortcut), TBP will be listed among all the other mods that you have installed and are available.
So if what you want is for the user to only see TBP whenever Knossos is run, that's not possible currently (and probably ever, though you'd have to talk with ngld about that).
On a different topic, what's the policy for using TBP assets in other mods?
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: OverDhill on August 03, 2018, 10:18:32 am
I noticed a huge update for TBP via SVN. What has been changed? I am still traveling a lot so not had much time to sit and play.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: PIe on August 03, 2018, 05:19:14 pm
The directory structure has been changed to work with Knossos.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: OverDhill on August 03, 2018, 06:05:29 pm
I see that. So how do we get it into Knossos to keep play testing?
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: PIe on August 03, 2018, 06:14:14 pm
You can either ask Karajorma for access to the beta on Knossos or sync with the SVN repo and move that into your Knossos data directory.  If you're just testing, the easiest is probably downloading via Knossos.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: wesp5 on August 03, 2018, 06:29:37 pm
If you're just testing, the easiest is probably downloading via Knossos.

I would like to have access to that too, if it is more easy than the SVN stuff which I never figured out ;). I could at least check the Star Fury Pilot missions and the two mini campaigns, that I patched in the origin of this thread...
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: karajorma on August 03, 2018, 08:57:22 pm
Download Knossos and register (if you haven't already) and then tell me your username.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: wesp5 on August 03, 2018, 09:58:08 pm
Download Knossos and register (if you haven't already) and then tell me your username.

Hm, I just registered and am now waiting for the conformation email. How long does that take? My username will be wesp5 of course :)...
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: ngld on August 03, 2018, 10:58:36 pm
The mail usually arrives within seconds or minutes (depends on how long your provider takes to process the mail). That is, if you provide a valid email....

Quote
<[email protected]>: host mx-eu.mail.am0.yahoodns.net[188.125.73.87] said: 554 delivery error: dd This user doesn't have a yahoo.de account
I've deleted the account so feel free to register again with the correct email address.


Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: OverDhill on August 04, 2018, 03:11:06 am
I had the same thing happen. No confirmation email received. I double checked the email I used.

Update... it seems it does not like hotmail accounts. I used my gmail one and it worked.

I am registered as jwilson56

Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: wesp5 on August 04, 2018, 07:36:41 am
I had the same thing happen. No confirmation email received. I double checked the email I used.

I mistyped once but after that I made sure it was correct. Still no confirmation on Yahoo!

Quote
Update... it seems it does not like hotmail accounts. I used my gmail one and it worked.

In case this is true I tried my googlemail account. Still waiting for confirmation there...
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: ngld on August 04, 2018, 07:45:29 am
Once you try to register an account, that name is taken. Any further registrations for that same name will be ignored. In any case, the server reported that it successfully delivered the mail to yahoo 14 minutes ago. Make sure to check your spam folder. If the mail still doesn't show up, it's Yahoo's fault.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: karajorma on August 04, 2018, 08:06:42 am
Okay, added you both.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: wesp5 on August 04, 2018, 08:41:19 am
Make sure to check your spam folder.

That was it :)! I found the email in the spam folder, which the new Yahoo interface hides which is why I didn't think of it...
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: wesp5 on August 05, 2018, 11:55:18 am
Is it okay if I post any errors from testing the new release here? I'll start with stuff from my patch which worked fine under TBP 3.4b with FSO 3.7.0!

Global changes:
I added "repair" to several "rearm" messages in strings.tbl, because the command is used for both. I recommend to include that in 3.5! It's attached.

Global issues:
It seems as if all sun, planet, nebula and other background items have been renamed which leaves an empty sky. I can fix this in my patch, but this
will probably happen in all old TBP missions, so was this really necessary? All campaigns must be changed more or less at least for this big change!
P.S.: It also seemed that the planet Narn is missing, like there still is a SB_Narn_01, but not Stars_Planet_Narn01-03 which were available in 3.4b.

Global warnings:
Sound 'Ship_Jump_3rd.wav' has more than one channel but is used as a 3D sound! 3D sounds may only have one channel. Can you fix this?

Local warnings:
Two missing spaceship classes ("Escort Aurora" and "Sheridan's Aurora") which I fixed in the mission files as this is probably a missions problem.

A Distant Star/In the Beginning/Battle of the Line:
I get a mission load up warning about 2 missing weapon classes and continue, but all weapons in the Weaponry Pool are in the TBP 3.5 table too.
Fast debug gives this "Warning: Could not find a usable muzzle glow bitmap (vorlon_glow) for weapon 'VE Lightning Cannon'!" Can you fix this?

A view from a gallery:
Warning: Could not find a usable bitmap (Drakh_neutron) for weapon 'DH Scatter'!
Warning: Could not find a usable glow bitmap (trailwep_glow) for weapon 'DH Scatter'!


[attachment stolen by Russian hackers]
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: PIe on August 06, 2018, 07:46:04 pm
Global issues:
It seems as if all sun, planet, nebula and other background items have been renamed which leaves an empty sky. I can fix this in my patch, but this
will probably happen in all old TBP missions, so was this really necessary? All campaigns must be changed more or less at least for this big change!
All missions already have the new background bitmap filenames in the SVN, so it's not a problem.
As for changing this in your missions, Notepad++ find and replace in files works really well.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: wesp5 on August 06, 2018, 09:32:34 pm
All missions already have the new background bitmap filenames in the SVN, so it's not a problem.

By all missions you don't only mean the included two campaigns but all other missions too, yes?

Quote
As for changing this in your missions, Notepad++ find and replace in files works really well.

I already have done that for my patch, I just wanted to make you aware that this is global :)...
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: PIe on August 06, 2018, 09:53:39 pm
By all missions you don't only mean the included two campaigns but all other missions too, yes?
Yep.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: karajorma on August 07, 2018, 06:32:12 am
I'm not seeing any difference between SVN missions and the ones I submitted to Knossos.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: wesp5 on August 07, 2018, 07:31:24 am
I'm not seeing any difference between SVN missions and the ones I submitted to Knossos.

I only see the Raider Wars on Knossos, so I wondered about all the others out there. Will
they all be included in TBP 3.5? Like if I make sure the Star Fury Pilot missions work fine
and also the Shadows and Vorlons mini campaigns that I fixed in my patch, my patch can
become redundant as everything will be available from Knossos in the correct version?
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: karajorma on August 07, 2018, 07:41:43 pm
I think the best thing to do is to get Raider Wars working, release and then get the others working for the next release.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: wesp5 on August 07, 2018, 08:30:28 pm
I think the best thing to do is to get Raider Wars working, release and then get the others working for the next release.

I agree. Until then I'll probably have all the Star Fury Pilot missions fixed and checked! I think they could work fine in the base game, as they are standalone missions available only in the mission simulator and thus good for beginners or fans of the show that only want to replay certain battles from specific episodes! I'll also check and fix the Shadows and Vorlon mini campaigns as I love the First Ones ships :)...

Speaking of mini campaigns, in TBP 3.4b included was the Earth Minbari demo campaign. I would recommend to rename this to Earth Minbari mini campaign as it isn't really a demo anymore as there never will be a final version! Unless we do it ourselves ;). There are two cool missions from that time in the Star Fury Pilot pack, "In the Beginning" and "The Battle of the line", basically the first and last missions of that war. Is anyone of you a good enough editor to merge these two with the original missions and thus kind of finish the Earth Minbari war campaign?
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: karajorma on August 07, 2018, 08:44:47 pm
You mean just adding them to the campaign without making any other changes? That's a five minute job at worst.

If any changes need to be made to the missions themselves, that's a whole different kettle of fish.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: wesp5 on August 07, 2018, 09:33:35 pm
You mean just adding them to the campaign without making any other changes? That's a five minute job at worst.

Really? They have none of the planning stages all the other missions have.

Quote
If any changes need to be made to the missions themselves, that's a whole different kettle of fish.

I'll fix the missions themselves for the Star Fury Pilot pack, don't worry :)...
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: karajorma on August 08, 2018, 06:46:02 pm
You mean just adding them to the campaign without making any other changes? That's a five minute job at worst.

Really? They have none of the planning stages all the other missions have.

Well adding those would count as a change to the mission itself.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: OverDhill on August 08, 2018, 07:37:37 pm
Well I posted a screenshot from The Raider Wars on the Babylon 5 Facebook group and within mere minutes there was 55 likes and several comments asking questions about it. I posted some links to this forum as well as for Knossos. There are over 33,000 members in that group and like I have stated before there is a LOT of interest in this MOD.

Update 279 likes and almost a hundred comments
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: karajorma on August 09, 2018, 08:33:51 am
Do you have a link? I'm always interested to read comments from outside the community.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: ngld on August 09, 2018, 08:34:31 am
@OverDhill: Small correction regarding your FB post: You won't need to buy FS2 to play TBP since it's a TC. The same is true for Diaspora and FotG.
@karajorma: https://www.facebook.com/groups/578108902293988/permalink/1626491150789086/
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: wesp5 on August 09, 2018, 09:02:15 am
You mean just adding them to the campaign without making any other changes? That's a five minute job at worst.

Really? They have none of the planning stages all the other missions have.

Well adding those would count as a change to the mission itself.

I have not enough knowledge to do something like this. I fixed issues with missing ships or similar stuff that can be found out when using debug mode, but if we would want to do something like this, someone else would need to do it :)!
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: karajorma on August 09, 2018, 09:32:49 am
I can do briefing stages pretty easily. The question is whether adding command briefings, etc is going beyond what we'd feel comfortable doing to someone else's campaign without their permission.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: wesp5 on August 09, 2018, 11:20:02 am
The question is whether adding command briefings, etc is going beyond what we'd feel comfortable doing to someone else's campaign without their permission.

Indeed. I'm pretty sure that Shaun Williams has no problems with this as he allowed me to update the Star Fury Pilot missions in the first place, but I don't even know who did the original Earth Minbari war campaign and how they could be reached! It's still intended to include the current version though as it was in TBP 3.4b, no?
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: OverDhill on August 09, 2018, 12:53:53 pm
Are there any members here that worked on TBP back then? If so do you remember a Robert Arthur who I bumped into in the B5 Facebook room.  He says he made the original B5 station model, vorlon dreadnought & transports back in 2005 - 2007.  He also said " Career and life items made it hard to really dive into since then... However, I might lend a hand here and there if I can get time" and "Well.... I have more time now that I am retired from the military... I do contract work.... So I might be able to revive a good amount of work... I would use the originals as just another LOD, no reason to waste good work." and " I dont have access to Hard-Light.... My DoD Contract has me deployed on USNS boats and USN networks has Hard-Light blocked because it is a game site..... so I will communicate mostly here (or perhaps we should do a FB page of our own if we are going to revisit The B5 Project....".

So I am not sure if you guys are interested in maybe improving the media used for TBP. If so maybe you can contact Robert.  He sent me this private message "I am talking with originals of The B5 Project... I am already playing with some of my old models for grins... However, his is our baby so from the few I talked to they seem interested in tinkering and updating and perhaps adding new missions.... Perhaps the fan base could offer up mission stories for us to consider and bring to life... thoughts?"

What are your thoughts as I was not part of the project and although I programmed a bit my career was a Labview real time data acquisition and control programmer that designed test system for a Ford test lab so my knowledge about any of this is limited. I do not want to speak out of place.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: PIe on August 09, 2018, 06:20:18 pm
I've noticed a couple problems with the B5 model and the Starliner Asimov model.  See https://mantis.hard-light.net/view.php?id=1084 and https://mantis.hard-light.net/view.php?id=1087.
The hyperspace nebula doesn't appear on recent nightlies.
If Discord isn't blocked for Robert, that's probably the best place to hang out, and there's even a #tbp channel.  https://discord.gg/YNVP3WR
Edit:  I figured out the issue with the hyperspace nebula.  TBP 3.4 had both a DDS and a PCX texture file for it, but TBP 3.5 used only the DDS.  Switching to the PCX file restored its appearance.  One thing I did notice though is that with either file, the nebula didn't show up at all after the 3/6 nightly.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: chief1983 on August 13, 2018, 04:39:29 pm
Is there any way to get a DDS that looks like the PCX?  It would probably perform better in game.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: wesp5 on August 16, 2018, 07:08:30 pm
Hi, before I continue testing the missions of my patch, can someone from the developer team please acknowledge these issues that I found?

Global changes:
I added "repair" to several "rearm" messages in strings.tbl, because the command is used for both. I recommend to include that in 3.5!

Global issues:
It also seems that the planet Narn is missing, like there still is a SB_Narn_01, but not Stars_Planet_Narn01-03 which were available in 3.4b.

Global warnings:
Sound 'Ship_Jump_3rd.wav' has more than one channel but is used as a 3D sound! 3D sounds may only have one channel. Can you fix this?

Local warnings:
Fast debug gives this "Warning: Could not find a usable muzzle glow bitmap (vorlon_glow) for weapon 'VE Lightning Cannon'!" Can you fix this?
Warning: Could not find a usable bitmap (Drakh_neutron) for weapon 'DH Scatter'!
Warning: Could not find a usable glow bitmap (trailwep_glow) for weapon 'DH Scatter'!
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: wesp5 on August 18, 2018, 05:52:31 pm
Today I tested two more missions of the pack which played fine, except for the warnings I already mentioned here. But I noticed something else: compared to TBP 3.4b all the models look overbright and not lighted correctly, in fact much worse than before! If you can explain to me how to take a screenshot from inside the game I could post some pictures here for comparison. All graphics options in the launcher and the game itself are the same, is there something else in Knossos that I could adjust?
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: PIe on August 18, 2018, 11:02:55 pm
The screenshot key is Print Screen and the screenshots are stored in %appdata%\HardLightProductions\FreeSpaceOpen\screenshots.
The difference may (though I don't know for sure) be due to rendering changes in FSO >=3.8.0 vs <=3.7.4
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: wesp5 on August 19, 2018, 12:23:18 pm
The screenshot key is Print Screen and the screenshots are stored in %appdata%\HardLightProductions\FreeSpaceOpen\screenshots.
The difference may (though I don't know for sure) be due to rendering changes in FSO >=3.8.0 vs <=3.7.4

Thanks for the info, this makes reporting issues so much easier :). But if the quality change is indeed due to 3.8.0 vs  3.7.0, the latter should be kept!
You must admit, that the old version looks much better, so unless the mission itself has a light parameter set that isn't valid anymore this sucks bad...

[attachment stolen by Russian hackers]
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: wesp5 on August 19, 2018, 12:35:53 pm
While checking out the In the beginning mission I found two more global problems and maybe a model one, see the attached screenshots:

Global problems:

- Sprites connected to subsystems are not removed when the subsystem is destroyed, e. g. EA Hyperion Cruiser.
- When docking you can see through the hull of the shuttle, I recommend to just have it dock at a greater distance.

Model problem:

- Should't the EA Nova have the EA logo on the side instead of this texture?

[attachment stolen by Russian hackers]
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: Skullar on August 19, 2018, 01:42:52 pm
In my memories TBP was not THAT ugly....
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: karajorma on August 19, 2018, 02:30:34 pm
But if the quality change is indeed due to 3.8.0 vs  3.7.0, the latter should be kept!

Regardless of what causes the problem, going back to 3.7.0 is absolutely not going to happen. The idea of releasing with an already obsolete version of FS2 is so moronic I can't understand why anyone would seriously consider it. The whole point of a 3.5 release of TBP is to give users a simple, easy to install and use version of TBP that can be kept compatible with future FSO releases. Going with an older version of FSO because we can't be arsed to figure out what is causing problems and instead just want to take the easy way out is a waste of time for all concerned. We might as well just leave things as they are in that case.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: PIe on August 19, 2018, 02:41:55 pm
Being able to see the front of the support ship from the cockpit as it rearms you is possibly just because the docking point is far back on the model so its front end hangs out over the front of your ship.  I don't think it's a clipping issue.
Regarding the 3.7.0 vs 3.8.0 appearance differences (if that is indeed why it looks worse):  try fiddling with your command-line options until you find something you like.  I doubt TBP necessarily looks bad on 3.8.x; it just requires different lighting settings to look good.  The F3 lab is helpful for this.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: karajorma on August 19, 2018, 03:33:22 pm
I tried using Knossos on my second PC and seem to be having a problem finding TBP. Which tab is it on?
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: chief1983 on August 19, 2018, 03:35:35 pm
after logging in on the knossos setting menu, refresh the Explore tab and you should see it (under B not T).
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: wesp5 on August 19, 2018, 04:23:39 pm
Going with an older version of FSO because we can't be arsed to figure out what is causing problems and instead just want to take the easy way out is a waste of time for all concerned.

I agree, so we need to figure out why the Knossos version looks so bad! Maybe there is something specific in the old missions that causes it? How about $Ambient light level: 7895160? I think it looks better with a 10x lower value of that, but I still have the impression the lighting is more uniform with 3.8, see below. I made sure the command line parameters are the same and already experimented a lot with them with no improvements. But then the star background contains less stars and the sun has a different color too! I took the backgrounds with the most similar names when I adjusted those missions. So where are the backgrounds coming from? I thought they had just been renamed, but it seems they are different!

As for the repair shuttle, can we move the docking point a little bit higher so you can't look inside the hull anymore?

[attachment stolen by Russian hackers]
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: Skullar on August 19, 2018, 04:32:35 pm
Knossos didnt show TBP , I uninstalled, reinstalled, and took some time to find the LOGIN in the nebula section of DEVELOPMENT ( ??? ! )
Logged in after resetting password to ... exactly what it was before.... and .....
after refreshing TBP appeared in the tabs.

Nice GUI, but I take it this thing is still far from perfect :)


Also....

after coming back from Elite dangerous, everything is so ugly lowpoly!  :(





Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: Iain Baker on August 19, 2018, 05:19:02 pm
I just looked at Knossos and I couldn't see it either. Am I doing something wrong? PS - very much looking forward to seeing this :-)
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: chief1983 on August 19, 2018, 06:08:38 pm
You usually log in once during the install process.  And logging in is currently only useful for developers, hence its location.

Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: ngld on August 19, 2018, 06:22:58 pm
@Skullar: Uh... I'm curious how you managed to get the login screen in the dev tab because it shouldn't be there (and I've never seen it there either).
It's under settings (the cog icon at the top-right). The nebula login is part of the settings so... it made sense to put it there. Also, as chief pointed out, during the setup on first run, you also have an opportunity to login.

Not sure what happened with your password since it worked fine for me in the past. It seems to have worked for others as well since you're the only one who used the password reset in the past week (although 4 people created accounts). I guess it's fine as long as it works in the end.

@Iain Baker: Are you logged in? If you are, the Nebula section on your settings screen should display your username. If you're logged in and the TBP devs have added you as a tester, TBP should show up as "The Babylon Project" on your Explore tab. Make sure to look in the B section or use the search if you can't find it.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: PIe on August 19, 2018, 06:49:39 pm
Have you tried turning off post processing?  I attached a few screenshots with and without and no post processing looks a lot better.
A few things on the mod:
Adding "check hull" to turrets is probably a good idea; when  testing another campaign, I'm pretty sure the Nova fired through itself a few times.
Including the Achen Schooling Flight training campaign might be a good idea, as it shouldn't be too hard to make sure it's working and training missions are good for new players.  If we're not going to have it though, the default campaign in game_settings.tbl should be changed.
There's an Earth-Minbari War So Far entry in species.tbl that, considering RW is well after that, properly belongs in the EMW campaign.
Some RW feedback based on the missions I've played so far:
It needs proofreading.
Alt-J to end a mission results in the "warp drive broken message".  IIRC, the other warp breaking SEXP doesn't do this.
If Venzen is destroyed in The Wheel Turns, the mission continues even though you can't continue in the campaign.  It's a bonus goal, but since failing it fails the mission, it shouldn't be.  If we're going to make a primary or secondary goal, ending the mission right when it's failed would be nice but I'm not sure how to do this given the existing voice acting.
In Smash 'n Grab, the mission ends before the warpout activates.
In Profit and Loss, the Protect Survivors directive is misleading for what you're actually trying to do.  It fails when any refugee wing dies, but all you have to do to pass the mission is protect either wing.
In Hell and Back, the Scylla is called the EA Scylla, vs. the EAS Scylla in other missions.  To end the mission, you have to Alt-J twice, once to trigger the Hermes jump and once to trigger your own.  However, the need for the second keypress is never indicated, unlike in Smash 'n Grab.
In Slipping the Noose, the directive count for disabling the GOD sat is weird.  I'm not entirely sure why it says 2 but you need to disarm it entirely and it has more than two turrets.

[attachment stolen by Russian hackers]
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: wesp5 on August 19, 2018, 07:43:52 pm
Have you tried turning off post processing?  I attached a few screenshots with and without and no post processing looks a lot better.

Indeed, that fixed my missions! But isn't this weird? Normally postprocessing improves the image, can it be the command line is wired wrong, like no post processing actually means with post processing? Also I noticed I can increase the star count in the missions itself which I will do x 10 to get to the look of the TBP 3.4 versions...
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: starlord on August 19, 2018, 08:52:22 pm
Didn't madaboutgames also create another TBP minicampaign? Not sure if my memory is faltering but it featured a horror premise based on the movie event horizon of all things. At least I recall it being presented this way on the website.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: wesp5 on August 19, 2018, 09:08:06 pm
Didn't madaboutgames also create another TBP minicampaign?

Yes, it's called "Infestation" and he also did a big campaign called "The Earth Brakiri War". You can find infos on the site linked below, but it seems that the actual download links are dead. I have saved the B5 Star Fury Missions pack inside my patch, but I never had time to look at the others. Are they available elsewhere?

http://www.heatemup.co.uk/download.html
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: PIe on August 19, 2018, 09:12:02 pm
They're on the SVN and will be released later.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: karajorma on August 20, 2018, 06:11:33 am
I'm still not seeing TBP on my development tab of my second PC. It's there on the PC that added the mod of course. I'm logged in to Nebula.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: Skullar on August 20, 2018, 07:04:01 am
My fault.... confused something.

TBP is in the MODS tab with PLAY and DETAILS options.
It in the EXLORE tab with MODIFY and DETAILS options.
Its is in the DEV tab with lots of options like fred.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: ngld on August 20, 2018, 07:50:32 am
@karajorma: Did you install it? The dev tab only shows installed mods. Also make sure that the dev mode checkbox in the installation dialog is activated. It might take a few seconds to appear.

@Skullar: Some of those options are also on the home tab. Click the little arrow that appears when you hover over the mod. That opens a menu with a few options, running debug builds and FRED should be there as well.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: wesp5 on August 20, 2018, 08:04:23 am
I'm still not seeing TBP on my development tab of my second PC.

I had a similar problem right now when installing it on another PC. I needed to refresh the list to make TBP appear! Why is that necessary? Also I think it would be easier if the mods were sorted exactly with their name and not leaving "The" out of it...
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: karajorma on August 20, 2018, 05:55:08 pm
Yeah, I eventually got it to work after a few refreshes and restarts. Not sure exactly why I needed to but as long as it doesn't affect the public release it's not a huge issue.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: wesp5 on August 21, 2018, 12:45:40 pm
I finished my testing of Mag's Star Fury Pilot missions and adjusted everything so they work fine with TBP 3.5 now :)!

Global issues left:
-Sprites not disappearing with destroyed subsystems
-Repair shuttle hull clipping when docked with player

Global fixes done:
-Added Repair/Rearm to control description in strings.tbl
-Made Ship_Jump_3rd.wav mono to remove a warning

I attached the fixed files and would really like to have feedback that they will end up or already are in the next beta!

[attachment stolen by Russian hackers]
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: Woolie Wool on August 22, 2018, 09:13:57 pm
nvm, was on the wrong page

E:

Download Knossos and register (if you haven't already) and then tell me your username.
I'm interested in trying this, and my username on Knossos/Nebula is Woolie Wool.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: wesp5 on August 22, 2018, 09:40:14 pm
Something else about TBP 3.5: I was just starting to test the Vorlon mini campaign when I noticed that the Centauri Primus cruiser fires the same old red beams like Narn and EA ships, when "The Lost Tales" clearly shows that they fire yellow! I already changed that in my patch, but looking inside the current weapons.tbl reveals that there already is a yellow beam with the remark: "Centauri Battlelaser, rarely used - For those who belive it's supposed to be yellow" Well, I certainly are one who believes this, so how can I change the beams inside a mission without changing this table? If this is possible I would use the same way to restore the unused Vorlon beam with side-flashes for their cruiser and planet destroyer. If it is not possible I would argue to include both into the main mod and I could edit the tables!
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: Woolie Wool on August 22, 2018, 09:41:29 pm
Double click on a ship in FRED and then click Weapons to change its loadout.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: wesp5 on August 22, 2018, 09:49:22 pm
Double click on a ship in FRED and then click Weapons to change its loadout.

Thanks, that works :)! I still would like to have both included into the main mod. Any reasons why this should not be done? I'm pretty sure we only ever see the Centauri ships fire yellow beams and projectiles and they should have more powerfull weapons than Narn and EA. Also we often see the cool Vorlon beams in the show and as they are already included in the mod, I think they should be visible on all ships where they fit which I think are only cruiser and planetkiller anyway.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: Woolie Wool on August 22, 2018, 10:00:13 pm
You're asking the wrong person as I have never worked on TBP, nor have I watched The Lost Tales.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: wesp5 on August 23, 2018, 07:07:01 am
You're asking the wrong person as I have never worked on TBP, nor have I watched The Lost Tales.

I was not asking you as such, but everyone partaking in this thread, some of which are the makers behind the 3.5 update :)!

P.S.: I just fixed another "color" issue just by changing the mission file. But this could be another thing to consider for the core mod:

- The Drakh scatter gun fires yellow/orange projectiles that are completely at odds with the blue beams they use normally!
  Is there any visible proof in the show that these projectiles existed? Otherwise I would change them to something blue...
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: wesp5 on August 25, 2018, 02:40:00 pm
I continued updating the Vorlon mini campaign for TBP 3.5 when I noticed something else:

- It seems that all the small capcomm movies are missing from 3.5 at the moment! Strange enough they can be found in the models/Backup files but I can't even extract them from there as I don't know in which format the final file is.

Also why isn't anybody answering to my questions and suggestions here? Is there another better place for bug reports and suggestions or are all of you on holiday or just too busy to write something?
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: OverDhill on August 25, 2018, 02:51:30 pm
I was told about the Discord room for TBP.  It seems active at times

https://discordapp.com/channels/223511295431933953/471333306630144031

Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: wesp5 on August 26, 2018, 10:13:15 am
I've made another small fix that should be included in the core of TB 3.5: I removed the white line at the left of the loading screen :)!

[attachment stolen by Russian hackers]
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: karajorma on August 27, 2018, 09:15:38 am
I am actually on holiday. Will be back late tomorrow so I'll only be useful the day after.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: wesp5 on August 27, 2018, 09:58:13 am
I am actually on holiday. Will be back late tomorrow so I'll only be useful the day after.

Ah, I had hoped for something like that ;)! I will be on holiday myself this week, but I will have access to the web and probably a way to install Knossos and TBP 3.5 too. To sum up my recent postings here, when you are back you might want to download and include these files, which I uploaded, in the core mod:

- fixed strings.tbl
- fixed Ship_Jump_3rd.wav
- fixed PreLoad.tga and 2_PreLoad.tga

Besides those I think we might want to discuss some of the weapon colors although I have them fixed for now inside the mission files, and most important, we have to get all the little transmission movies back which are in the model/backup files in TBP 3.4 and which I can't find in the current version of TBP 3.5 at all...
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: karajorma on August 27, 2018, 07:29:03 pm
Why don't you sort out SVN and point it at the Knossos folder? Then you can upload yourself.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: wesp5 on August 28, 2018, 11:01:51 am
Why don't you sort out SVN and point it at the Knossos folder? Then you can upload yourself.

Really? I thought SVN was a kind of bug report thing like Mantis and only team members can do the actual fixes or uploads...
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: PIe on August 28, 2018, 11:31:37 am
Really? I thought SVN was a kind of bug report thing like Mantis
No.  SVN is a version control system that both backs up the mod to prevent loss of work due to hard drive crashes etc. and allows for quickly undoing a bad change that somehow broke the mod.  For a better explanation, just use your search engine of choice, where you can find a much better explanation than I can give.
only team members can do the actual fixes or uploads...
That is correct.  For obvious reasons, you don't want random members of the public to be able to upload random files to the repository, so you need access before you can change anything.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: wesp5 on August 28, 2018, 12:39:12 pm
For obvious reasons, you don't want random members of the public to be able to upload random files to the repository, so you need access before you can change anything.

So this would mean I kind of would be an official developer? In that case please send me the password and I will try to get it running to add my fixed files...

P.S.: I just tried to install Knossos on the PC of my father here, but failed because it isn't OpenGL 2.0 compatible. The emulator Knossos suggests didn't help either so it would be really cool, karajorma or PIe, if you could download the four small files I uploaded here and add them to the 3.5 core on the SVN for now. Thanks!
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: PIe on August 28, 2018, 09:25:48 pm
I pushed Col. Fishgut's HTL ship models (https://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=71120.0) which were also included in Zathras.
if you could download the four small files I uploaded here and add them to the 3.5 core on the SVN for now. Thanks!
Done.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: wesp5 on August 29, 2018, 02:59:32 am
Quote
if you could download the four small files I uploaded here and add them to the 3.5 core on the SVN for now. Thanks!
Done.

Cool, thanks! Any ideas on where the small ani movies are in TBP 3.5 and how they are called? Or if they are not included yet, how to extract them out of the models/backup* files of TBP 3.4b?
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: karajorma on August 29, 2018, 06:35:29 am
I don't see any reason why you shouldn't be considered part of the upgrade team wesp5. Hell, this whole thread started from one of your topics. :p

The basic idea is that we make changes in SVN because we can easily see what changed and when (SVN stores the new version and the old one. So it's harder to accidentally wipe out a file and then have no idea where we got it from). Once we have a certain amount of changes in SVN, we'll upload those changes to Knossos so that all the testers get an update.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: wesp5 on August 29, 2018, 08:38:27 am
I don't see any reason why you shouldn't be considered part of the upgrade team wesp5. Hell, this whole thread started from one of your topics. :p

Great! Yeah, I was quite persistent ;). People waste a lot of money on things like Star Citizen with wonderful mods like TBP going on rather unnoticed. Once I'm back home I'll try to figure the SVN thing out. Do you know anything about the missing ani movies? They are used a lot in Mag's B5 Star Fury Pilot missions...
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: karajorma on August 29, 2018, 12:36:02 pm
If they're not necessary for Raider Wars, they're probably not there yet because of that.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: wesp5 on August 29, 2018, 01:53:59 pm
If they're not necessary for Raider Wars, they're probably not there yet because of that.

I'm pretty sure they should be needed in Raider Wars too, because they include the usual Star Fury pilot videos that are played all over in missions whenever your wingmen say something.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: PIe on August 29, 2018, 06:21:34 pm
Headanis are in the hud folder and from a quick look, the only two pilot anis used are Head_Pilot_EA_1 and Head_Pilot_EA_2, both of which are included.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: wesp5 on August 30, 2018, 04:43:25 am
Headanis are in the hud folder and from a quick look, the only two pilot anis used are Head_Pilot_EA_1 and Head_Pilot_EA_2, both of which are included.

Okay, then I will either need to extract the missing ones for the SFP missions from TBP 3.4b or see if they have just been renamed like the backgrounds...
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: OverDhill on August 30, 2018, 04:34:53 pm
The Facebook Babylon room is heating up with excitement for this game.  There is over 33,000 members and hundreds have expressed interest in playing it.  Keep up the good work guys.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: wesp5 on September 02, 2018, 09:25:50 am
I found the renamed mini movies and updated the Star Fury Pilot and First Ones missions to use the new names :).
I also found one little name typo, karajorma or PIe, can you please fix this in the TPB 3.5 core data/hud subfolder?

"Head_Cap_Draz_2.ani" should be renamed to "Head_Cap_Drazi_2.ani"
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: PIe on September 03, 2018, 02:45:48 pm
I pushed the HTL Venom, the nameplates for the HTL Omega and moved the problematic 2D shockwaves into the SVN's Temp_Folder so the appropriate 3D shockwaves will always be used whether or not the flag is on.  However, the texture replacement for the Hermes causes its nameplate to be duplicated, so that needs to be fixed.
"Head_Cap_Draz_2.ani" should be renamed to "Head_Cap_Drazi_2.ani"
Done.
Finally, thanks to m!m, hyperspace now works on the most recently nightly.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: wesp5 on September 03, 2018, 03:57:58 pm
Done.
Finally, thanks to m!m, hyperspace now works on the most recently nightly.

Cool! Although hyperspace works fine with the version included in the current TBP 3.5. BTW, when will this be updated, or how can I see if it has been updated?
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: PIe on September 07, 2018, 09:54:30 pm
I added the Achen Schooling Flight training campaign and fixed an issue with a missing impact explosion effect.
I also replaced the DDS Neb_Back_Black file so that hyperspace now looks as it should.  If anyone can figure out how to convert the PCX into a better format, please post the result.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: wesp5 on September 10, 2018, 07:37:28 am
I'm through for the time with Mag's Starfury Pilot Missions and the two First Ones campaigns, everything works fine under TBP 3.5 now :)! So if someone could point me to a source for Investation, I could take a look at that too. I already know the kind of mistakes Mag made often ;). Also will all of them be included in the final TBP 3.5 or will they be needed to download seperately?
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: karajorma on September 10, 2018, 09:52:59 am
The first release won't include anything beyond Raider Wars (and Achen Flight School)  in order to keep things simple. Then we'll start adding more releases. Once everything is upgraded you should be able to download everything without the need for mods.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: wesp5 on September 10, 2018, 02:05:14 pm
The first release won't include anything beyond Raider Wars (and Achen Flight School)  in order to keep things simple. Then we'll start adding more releases. Once everything is upgraded you should be able to download everything without the need for mods.

Cool! I might update my patch for the first release though to have others find what I might have overlooked. Will Knossos be aware when TBP is updated and inform me about it? Any news about the Infestation campaign? Can you upload it somewhere for me to fix?
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: karajorma on September 10, 2018, 02:53:45 pm
I can do it but I'm rather lacking in time until later this week. PIe also has upload access so if he wants to update and sort out the issues that might cause with SVN, he's welcome to do it.

Knossos will tell you if there is an update.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: wesp5 on September 10, 2018, 04:14:42 pm
PIe also has upload access so if he wants to update and sort out the issues that might cause with SVN, he's welcome to do it.

I still don't have SVN access, but to fix Infestation somebody would only need to upload the original installer somewhere for me.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: OverDhill on September 10, 2018, 09:24:01 pm
Does this have what you are looking for. It contains Infestation

Included Campaigns and Mission Sets:

B5 Star Fury Pilot Missions (by madaboutgames)
Earth Alliance Training (by madaboutgames)
Infestation (by madaboutgames)
Survivor (by madaboutgames)
Tale of the EAS Janus (by Lady Rose)
Drums of War - Part 1 (by 0rph3u5)
Drums of War - Part 2 (by 0rph3u5)
The Black Hand - Episode 1 (by 0rph3u5)

http://www.freespacemods.net/download_82.html
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: wesp5 on September 10, 2018, 09:55:29 pm
Does this have what you are looking for. It contains Infestation

Yeah, many thanks! I'll take a look at all of Mag's missions, ok?
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: wesp5 on September 13, 2018, 09:09:28 pm
Okay, I have started to fix Mag's Io Training Missions. After that I will take a look at Infestation and Survivor. I'm just telling this here so no two people will do the same work twice ;)!
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: OverDhill on September 15, 2018, 02:01:37 am
Is your work in the format used currently in Knossos?
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: wesp5 on September 15, 2018, 07:30:03 am
Is your work in the format used currently in Knossos?

Yes and no. I have already fixed Mag's Star Fury Pilot missions and the two First Ones mini campaigns so they work flawlessly under Knossos :)!
With the others I have just started and will first remove the bugs under the old TBP and then convert them to Knossos as this is easier for me...
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: karajorma on September 15, 2018, 09:14:54 am
You really should get SVN access sorted out so that you can get those missions into SVN. Otherwise, it just increases the chances that someone will make a mistake and release the old versions. What exactly is your problem with SVN anyway?
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: wesp5 on September 15, 2018, 02:58:57 pm
What exactly is your problem with SVN anyway?

I guess the main problem is that nobody ever gave me access ;). Don't I need a password and an exact link to the project or similar?
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: karajorma on September 16, 2018, 05:01:20 am
Send me a PM with your email address and I'll send you an invite.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: OverDhill on September 21, 2018, 02:08:52 am
wesp5 it would be interesting to see your work in the SVN to check it out.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: karajorma on September 21, 2018, 03:09:37 am
I'm still waiting for a PM.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: wesp5 on September 21, 2018, 07:55:12 am
I'm still waiting for a PM.

Huh? I send it long ago and was waiting on your email! I'll try again...
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: karajorma on September 21, 2018, 11:16:20 am
Sent.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: wesp5 on September 21, 2018, 12:38:33 pm
Sent.

It worked this time. Maybe my script blocker was the problem again...
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: OverDhill on October 09, 2018, 10:43:12 am
It seems things have stalled on this upgrade.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: wesp5 on October 09, 2018, 04:22:36 pm
It seems things have stalled on this upgrade.

I'm busy with Bloodlines right now and also was told to wait with any external missions and campaigns until Raider Wars has finished testing.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: Iain Baker on October 09, 2018, 04:35:41 pm
It seems things have stalled on this upgrade.

I'm busy with Bloodlines right now and also was told to wait with any external missions and campaigns until Raider Wars has finished testing.

Bloody love Bloodlines! Thank you so much for getting it working. Just my luck that two of my favourite franchise, Bloodlines and S.T.A.L.K.E.R. were broken bug-fests at launch. Modders - fixing stuff for free that paid devs left broken.

I wrote a short article on unofficial patches a while back, citing VTM:B as a prime example of why they are needed  :) https://www.nomadsreviews.co.uk/blog/i-love-mondays-3-unofficial-patches-for-broken-video-games
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: karajorma on October 10, 2018, 03:28:27 am
It seems things have stalled on this upgrade.

I'm busy with Bloodlines right now and also was told to wait with any external missions and campaigns until Raider Wars has finished testing.

I never told you to wait. I simply said don't upload the missions to the data folder we're using for Raider Wars.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: wesp5 on October 10, 2018, 05:39:25 am
I simply said don't upload the missions to the data folder we're using for Raider Wars.

But as far as I know you can't play out of the tmp folder and I assumed you wanted to finish Raider Wars first. After all in the end all missions have to be in the data folder and all other content has to be in the other folders too! Or could it be made that when not using VPs anymore, each campaign could get a subfolder to keep some order?
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: karajorma on October 10, 2018, 06:27:30 am
You can put the missions in the main folder to test them, just don't commit them.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: wesp5 on October 10, 2018, 08:06:31 am
You can put the missions in the main folder to test them, just don't commit them.

Yeah, but what about all the other files in the VPs? The missions are all ready to run anyway, I fixed up the Starfury Missions, the Vorlon campaign, the Shadow campaign and Mag's traning missions. The problem is how to commit them and when?
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: karajorma on October 10, 2018, 08:45:55 am
You can do whatever you want with your own local copy. Just don't commit until we've got Raider Wars working. If you're not going to do any further work on those missions, just commit to the temp folder and we can move them later.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: wesp5 on October 10, 2018, 02:15:34 pm
If you're not going to do any further work on those missions, just commit to the temp folder and we can move them later.

Okay, but there already is a lot of stuff in there. How will you know what belongs to what? Especially if I extract all the VPs?
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: chief1983 on October 10, 2018, 02:28:42 pm
Looking at the files contained within an individual commit would be the first thing I would use for that information.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: wesp5 on October 11, 2018, 02:25:20 am
Looking at the files contained within an individual commit would be the first thing I would use for that information.

But what happens if something is overwritten? As I see it, until now local files were packed into the VP archives, so even if MAG changed a file that is used in Raider Wars, it wouldn't have mattered. I we extract all VPs into the same folder, there is the risk that something breaks, so can we use subfolder for mission packs or campaigns?
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: chief1983 on October 11, 2018, 06:32:27 am
You also can't overwrite things permanently with SVN, if it somehow happened you could check out an older revision to get it back.  It's perhaps not the most ideal solution for this kind of temporary mission storage but it seems preferred to losing your work altogether.  If you would you could put your work into named folders inside the temp folder maybe, one for each vp you had.  Would keep everything separate then.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: karajorma on October 11, 2018, 09:23:40 am
I would advise against that. If MAG changed a file that Raider Wars uses we're much less likely to spot it if it's in some subfolder that only gets added in a future release.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: wesp5 on October 11, 2018, 11:49:03 am
If you would you could put your work into named folders inside the temp folder maybe, one for each vp you had.

I think this would be a good solution. You can then after Raider Wars is finished move the files one by one to the main folder and notice if there are any that are overwritten and check these out!
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: PIe on October 11, 2018, 11:51:06 am
If MAG changed any RW missions (which might not even be the case), we probably want to look at the changes and see if they should be included before we release.  Assuming any changes are relatively minor, no sense in releasing an inferior campaign that will be improved later.
Edit:  we should be able to settle this pretty quickly.  I'm not sure what changed files we're talking about here but whoever has them should look through and see if Raider Wars in in there.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: wesp5 on October 11, 2018, 03:36:07 pm
If MAG changed any RW missions (which might not even be the case), we probably want to look at the changes and see if they should be included before we release.

I don't think that MAG changed Raider Wars missions, but I noticed that presidentEMW.ogg is in the main data folder and he included this as well, so there might be files being overwritten...
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: wesp5 on October 12, 2018, 03:56:54 pm
Okay, I have created four new folders with all my stuff in the TBP 3.5.1 Temp_Folder and commit them right now. You can take a look whenever you like and integrate them into the main mod! I fixed them all up so that they should run without errors...
Title: Re: TBP Graphics Distortions
Post by: wesp5 on February 25, 2019, 08:01:08 am
Speaking of old versions, how far is the Knossos 3.5 release? Is it good to go to open beta or open access?
Title: Re: Re: TBP Graphics Distortions
Post by: Iain Baker on February 25, 2019, 09:11:06 am
Speaking of old versions, how far is the Knossos 3.5 release? Is it good to go to open beta or open access?

Ooh, I have been looking forward to this :-)
Title: Re: Re: TBP Graphics Distortions
Post by: karajorma on February 25, 2019, 09:47:49 pm
Speaking of old versions, how far is the Knossos 3.5 release? Is it good to go to open beta or open access?

Rather than continually asking when it will be done, ask what have you done recently to help.
Title: Re: Re: TBP Graphics Distortions
Post by: wesp5 on February 26, 2019, 02:27:53 am
Speaking of old versions, how far is the Knossos 3.5 release? Is it good to go to open beta or open access?

Rather than continually asking when it will be done, ask what have you done recently to help.

I fixed three campaigns and a lot of single missions and never got feedback what happened with them! If you don't have the time to even do the two main campaigns, maybe make it open beta and have other people do it. Or release my stuff as a base so that TBP 3.5 at least is visible to everyone on Knossos...
Title: Re: Re: TBP Graphics Distortions
Post by: karajorma on February 26, 2019, 11:16:19 pm
It is an open beta. Other people can do it. Hell I even gave you SVN access so that you could help commit stuff and fix problems with the main campaign.

The problem I'm having is exactly the one you had, no feedback.
Title: Re: Re: TBP Graphics Distortions
Post by: wesp5 on February 27, 2019, 02:13:39 am
It is an open beta. Other people can do it. Hell I even gave you SVN access so that you could help commit stuff and fix problems with the main campaign.

I have no time for the main campaign right now and I thought it was a beta open only to people that ask for access.

Quote
The problem I'm having is exactly the one you had, no feedback.

That's why I would recommend to put everything out there we already have. Raise interest. Get new people into it...
Title: Re: Re: TBP Graphics Distortions
Post by: karajorma on February 27, 2019, 10:29:52 am
I have no time for the main campaign right now

And I've had a similar lack of free time recently. Hell, I haven't played anything on my computer this month. But I don't see how releasing a limited, bugged version of a game that already has been released will help matters. It just means spending what little time I do have on support requests instead of actually fixing things.
Title: Re: Re: TBP Graphics Distortions
Post by: wesp5 on February 27, 2019, 02:16:54 pm
But I don't see how releasing a limited, bugged version of a game that already has been released will help matters.

I have fixed and tested Mag's Io Training Wing campaign, which is a great tutorial, his Star Fury Pilot missions, which are the best single missions out there, and the cool First Ones mini campaigns for Vorlons and Shadows. If we could release 3.5 right now with these working, people might rediscover the game and ask for more and we might find candidates to test the big campaigns! Unless there are still general issues to fix, in which case I can't help. I'm still unlucky with the SVN too, when I click on update it lists some stuff and then "Completed At revision: 39"! Does this mean I'm up to date? I still have missions in a data subfolder and a tbp_core subfolder. Which one is correct? Shouldn't the data folder be removed? Shouldn't tbp_core be renamed to core_data or something similar like all the others?
Title: Re: Re: TBP Graphics Distortions
Post by: karajorma on February 28, 2019, 02:01:39 am
You're up to date.

If you're saying that you can run TBP and the campaigns you've mentioned in debug without receiving any errors then I agree that going over to those missions for an initial Knossos release might be a good idea. If you can't do that, then I don't see how switching is worth it. We'd still have the exact same problem that we have with Raider Wars and the additional danger of missing assets caused by switching over. Raider Wars does work as far as I know, it's just that I've been too busy of late to go through the missions and make certain that there are no debug errors.

So the question is, does everything work in debug in the campaigns you've mentioned?
Title: Re: Re: TBP Graphics Distortions
Post by: wesp5 on February 28, 2019, 05:32:09 am
So the question is, does everything work in debug in the campaigns you've mentioned?

As far as I remember yes. I had to change a lot of background images but that was about it...
Title: Re: Re: TBP Graphics Distortions
Post by: karajorma on March 01, 2019, 04:22:10 am
Why would you need to change background images? Everything should already be in the TBP core files.
Title: Re: Re: TBP Graphics Distortions
Post by: wesp5 on March 01, 2019, 05:20:49 am
Why would you need to change background images? Everything should already be in the TBP core files.

I had to rename them, not actually change them. This is what I meant! Most background planets and nebula have new names in the Knossos version...
Title: Re: Re: TBP Graphics Distortions
Post by: PIe on March 01, 2019, 10:45:43 am
I'm not a fan of releasing without a real campaign, and I'm going to back this up by actually testing at least one mission of RW today.
Title: Re: Re: TBP Graphics Distortions
Post by: wesp5 on March 01, 2019, 03:29:09 pm
I just tested the Achen flying school with fast debug and it works fine! There is only the question if we shouldn't move that to the single missions slot as it isn't really a campaign and people might get confused when it ends after one mission already...
Title: Re: Re: TBP Graphics Distortions
Post by: wesp5 on March 02, 2019, 11:20:35 am
Update: I started testing the Raider Wars campaign and immediately ran into a problem, as RW_Logo.ogg was not found in listing when starting the campaign according to the debug window although it was displayed just fine after continueing! I also noticed some folder structure problems: It seems the data subfolder is the active one and the tbp_core folder can be removed! Also I had another data folder inside the main data folder that could be removed as well! Furthermore I would recommend to rename the date folder to core_data to keep it consistent with the others.

Besides that the mission went fine and I had no other issues :)!
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: PIe on March 02, 2019, 11:55:24 am
Update: I started testing the Raider Wars campaign and immediately ran into a problem, as RW_Logo.ogg was not found in listing when starting the campaign according to the debug window although it was displayed just fine after continueing!
That's a minor problem with FSO, not TBP.
I also noticed some folder structure problems: It seems the data subfolder is the active one and the tbp_core folder can be removed! Also I had another data folder inside the main data folder that could be removed as well! Furthermore I would recommend to rename the date folder to core_data to keep it consistent with the others.
I'll explain in an edit later but it has to be structured like that for Knossos.
Title: Re: Re: TBP Graphics Distortions
Post by: PIe on March 02, 2019, 11:55:35 am
While I'm not a mod, I'd rather we continue on the original thread and wesp5, whenever you want to talk about this project, could you not hijack any new B5 thread?
See https://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=92118.msg1881543#msg1881543
Title: Re: Re: TBP Graphics Distortions
Post by: wesp5 on March 02, 2019, 12:11:10 pm
You are right, I'll continue in the other thread...
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: wesp5 on March 02, 2019, 12:13:05 pm
That's a minor problem with FSO, not TBP.

Okay, so we can do nothing about that "not found in listing" message?

I'll explain in an edit later but it has to be structured like that for Knossos.

I'm curious. So we need duplicated folders for Knossos or only the "data" folder name? Also I continued testing Raider Wars, mission 2 had no problems, but with 3 I got the following report: Warning: For ship "EA Cargo Pod 1" detail level mismatch. Table has 1, POF has 3. File ship.cpp.
That's beyond of what I can fix, but the mission itself played fine nevertheless :)!
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: PIe on March 02, 2019, 01:16:15 pm
Okay, so we can do nothing about that "not found in listing" message?
Yes and fortunately it's not a problem.
I'm curious. So we need duplicated folders for Knossos or only the "data" folder name?
[/quote]
With Knossos, files go in packages and each package contains the traditional data folder.  In this case, data and tbp_core are names of two of the packages.  The freddocs need to be in a packaged named data for FRED to link to them properly.  See https://docs.google.com/document/d/1oHq1YRc1eXbCgW-NqqKo1-6N_myfZzoBdwZuP16XImA/edit?pli=1# for a full explanation of packages.
Also I continued testing Raider Wars, mission 2 had no problems, but with 3 I got the following report: Warning: For ship "EA Cargo Pod 1" detail level mismatch. Table has 1, POF has 3. File ship.cpp.
That's definitely fixable.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: wesp5 on March 02, 2019, 02:04:26 pm
With Knossos, files go in packages and each package contains the traditional data folder.  In this case, data and tbp_core are names of two of the packages.

Okay, so we need the data folder. But tbp_core only contains duplicates and the game works fine when it is removed. So do we really need this or can any content we do need be moved into the data folder too?
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: PIe on March 02, 2019, 02:17:14 pm
I don't know what the local state of your SVN is but the mission and table files in tbp_core aren't duplicates.  If you're wondering why Temp_Folder also contains missions, it's because those won't be released initially.  Technically we could combine packages but there's no reason to.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: wesp5 on March 02, 2019, 02:33:49 pm
I don't know what the local state of your SVN is but the mission and table files in tbp_core aren't duplicates.

Really? Because to get rid of the missing movie error I changed both campaign files and only the data one worked. Do we really need tbp_core?

Quote
If you're wondering why Temp_Folder also contains missions, it's because those won't be released initially.

I know that, all my stuff is in there ;).
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: PIe on March 02, 2019, 02:46:58 pm
Can you post a screenshot?  As you can seen in the attachment, the data package on the SVN (the definitive source) only has freddocs and movies.


[attachment eaten by a Shivan]
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: wesp5 on March 02, 2019, 06:13:38 pm
As you can seen in the attachment, the data package on the SVN (the definitive source) only has freddocs and movies.

It was like this on my system too, but as there were duplicates in the data folder itself, I just removed the data/data folder. Also I think the tbp_core folder has duplicates of the missions and tables data folder...
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: karajorma on March 02, 2019, 11:06:48 pm
You shouldn't have anything in data/data except for freddocs and movies. Do NOT just delete data/data or you'll end up with a completely different structure from the rest of us. For a start you won't have any movies.

EDIT: I just merged in all the off-topic from the other thread.

Also, update from SVN and see if that listing error has gone. I think it was just a capitalisation error.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: wesp5 on March 03, 2019, 02:44:14 am
You shouldn't have anything in data/data except for freddocs and movies. Do NOT just delete data/data or you'll end up with a completely different structure from the rest of us. For a start you won't have any movies.

This isn't true. I have movies and freddocs folders in data itself and they work fine! So one set of these is not needed and should be deleted otherwise it will confuse people. I would suggest the data/date one. Just try yourself by moving it elsewhere! The same goes for tbp_core. Missions and tables in there seem to be the same as in the main data folder! So if I find an issue to fix in Raider Wars, which files are the correct ones? The others should be removed...

Quote
Also, update from SVN and see if that listing error has gone. I think it was just a capitalisation error.

I can't test this right now as I would need to restart the campaign. Is the POF error fixed as well?
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: karajorma on March 03, 2019, 07:46:27 am
As I said you shouldn't have anything in data except for another folder called data which itself is empty except for freddocs and movies. You definitely shouldn't have another set of tables. I don't know why the hell you do, I certainly don't. My tables are in the tbp_core folder. My game certainly won't work if I delete that folder.

Basically, your directory structure is ****ed up somehow. And instead of asking how to fix it, you keep suggesting we all move to a ****ed up directory structure too.

I'm attaching a picture of what the folders should look like. If yours doesn't look like that can you do what PIe suggested and post your own screenshot.

[attachment eaten by a Shivan]
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: karajorma on March 03, 2019, 08:21:19 am
The freddocs need to be in a packaged named data for FRED to link to them properly.

Do the freddocs actually work for you? I seem to remember that they did work at one point but whenever I try them from FRED I just get an error at the moment. I'd see where they were for FS2 but they don't actually appear to be present.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: wesp5 on March 03, 2019, 09:41:22 am
Basically, your directory structure is ****ed up somehow.

Damn, you are right, see attached screenshot! I have many subfolders in data, all with a question mark too. Never did anything there myself though, so how could SVN mess this up? Shouldn't it remove folders that are not in the repo? Can I remove them now? Can I remove anything with a question mark, because in the main folder I have many question mark folders too or does this only mean they are not distributed with the TBP repo...

[attachment eaten by a Shivan]
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: wesp5 on March 03, 2019, 10:14:58 am
P.S.: I get the following warning in mission 6 "Nobody Expects": Null vec3d in ved3d normalize. Trace out of vecmat.cpp and find offending code. File: vecmat.pp. Line: 434
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: PIe on March 03, 2019, 11:17:51 am
Do the freddocs actually work for you? I seem to remember that they did work at one point but whenever I try them from FRED I just get an error at the moment. I'd see where they were for FS2 but they don't actually appear to be present.
I don't think they work if the mod is in dev mode but for normal users they should be extracted to the correct folder as long as they're not packed into a VP.
Also, my computer just died so I can't playtest now and possibly for a few more weeks.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: wesp5 on March 03, 2019, 02:16:01 pm
Also, my computer just died so I can't playtest now and possibly for a few more weeks.

No problem, I'm already amost through the Raider Wars campaign and found no more issues than the two I posted here. There were some typos and mismatches in the subtitles though which I will fix. My main problem now is that I can't finish the 13th mission "Hide and Seek / Run and Hide" because I don't find the exit area. So how do I target a Nav Beacon?
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: chief1983 on March 03, 2019, 04:28:16 pm
Null vec3d errors happen from time to time but to fix them it is very helpful if there are steps to reproduce it somewhat reliably, so a coder can trace out and find the cause.  Any chance you can make it happen ever time, and describe what to do to get to it?  Or do you remember what was going on when it happened?
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: wesp5 on March 03, 2019, 05:10:51 pm
Any chance you can make it happen ever time, and describe what to do to get to it?  Or do you remember what was going on when it happened?

Now that you say it, I'm pretty sure I only got this once in the middle of a mission and not every time. The EA pod error though was consistent!
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: karajorma on March 03, 2019, 05:22:25 pm
Damn, you are right, see attached screenshot! I have many subfolders in data, all with a question mark too. Never did anything there myself though, so how could SVN mess this up? Shouldn't it remove folders that are not in the repo? Can I remove them now? Can I remove anything with a question mark, because in the main folder I have many question mark folders too or does this only mean they are not distributed with the TBP repo...

I've got no idea how you ended up with a structure so messed up. I'm pretty sure that isn't an SVN error because most of those folders were never in Data at any point in SVN's history. Either way, deleting the question marked folders is a good idea.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: PIe on March 03, 2019, 07:58:42 pm
My computer is back so I can resume testing.
@wesp5, for future reference, since you're playing with a debug build, could you upload the log (https://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php/topic,56279.msg1180359.html#msg1180359) whenever you hit a warning or error?  It can sometimes really help with fixing errors.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: wesp5 on March 04, 2019, 02:31:33 am
I've got no idea how you ended up with a structure so messed up.

If I remember correctly I had some issues installing SVN, maybe that what they are from.

Quote
Either way, deleting the question marked folders is a good idea.

Done! Interesting enough the game always uses the most top folders which is why I assumed the others were not needed.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: wesp5 on March 04, 2019, 10:56:22 am
Update: If I remove the subfolders with question marks in the data folder the game crashes with error messages like mouse cursor or fonts missing! Luckily I only moved them to the temp_folder. But where should these go? Can someone post a screenshot of their whole Knossos, or at least TBP directory structure here?

Also as we are on a new page now, I can't continue testing the Raider Wars campaign because in the 13th mission "Hide and Seek / Run and Hide" I don't find the exit area. So how do I target a Nav Beacon?
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: PIe on March 04, 2019, 12:58:10 pm
I'll post a screenshot if necessary when I'm back at my computer but discarding all local changes should fix your directories.
Is M13 the one where you scan the raider base?  If so, you're not supposed to target the beacon.  If memory serves, just fly to it and eventually you should be able to jump out or a rescue ship might jump in.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: wesp5 on March 04, 2019, 01:47:25 pm
I'll post a screenshot if necessary when I'm back at my computer but discarding all local changes should fix your directories.

How do I do that? As I wrote, just deleting the folders doesn't work, so they probably should be elsewhere...

Quote
Is M13 the one where you scan the raider base?  If so, you're not supposed to target the beacon.

The problem is I can't find it and I had hoped that targeting it would show where it is.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: PIe on March 04, 2019, 06:35:40 pm
No, they shouldn't exist at all.  The SVN structure currently works, so whatever is going wrong is specific to your installation.  I've attached what it should look like.
To revert all local changes, right click in the root TBP folder and in the Tortoise SVN submenu, select Revert.  Select all files and then right click and hit Revert.  Also hit the Delete unversioned items button.
If, after you do this, you still can't run the game, don't try to restore anything.  There are better ways of fixing it than intentionally breaking your SVN directories.

[attachment eaten by a Shivan]
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: wesp5 on March 05, 2019, 06:43:05 am
The SVN structure currently works, so whatever is going wrong is specific to your installation.  I've attached what it should look like.

I have removed everything so that my setup looks exactly like this and TBP crashes right at the start because it can't find the cursor bitmap. Maybe my top folder is messed up too? I have exclamation marks on both the TBP and the TBP 3.5.1 subfolders and a lot of question marks on all the top level folders except of .tfn, to be exact on the bin, certifi, data, Include, lib2to3, PyQt5 and temp folders.

P.S.: For now I will continue with my setup as otherwise I would have to restart the whole campaign! Also I added a hotkey to the nav beacon and the base in the mission that I had problems with and commited it just now.

P.P.S.: I finished the campaign with no other issues! I did add some hotkeys for Erin's ship and the Medusa carrier in the last mission though, and again fixed many minor subtitles inaccuracies. Everything has been commited!

So we only have the movie warning and the "Warning: For ship "EA Cargo Pod 1" detail level mismatch. Table has 1, POF has 3. File ship.cpp." issue to fix, if we assume the "Null vec3d in ved3d normalize. Trace out of vecmat.cpp and find offending code. File: vecmat.pp. Line: 434" issue is random, then TBP could be released on Knossos with "Raider Wars" as main campaign! I would suggest to also include the "Io Traning Wing" as main tutorial and the two First Ones mini campaigns. The Starfury Pilot missions and the Achen Flying School should be distributed as single missions. After that I will probably reinstall Knossos and everything to get rid of my folder chaos...
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: PIe on March 05, 2019, 11:46:55 am
That sounds like you installed TBP to the Knossos app directory, which, for future reference, you should definitely not do.  The FSO and the FS data files should be completely separate from where the Knossos app is installed.  Right now, your installation is so bad the easiest way of fixing it might be completely removing and reinstalling everything like you said.
Achen should be left as a campaign since it's currently the default campaign, which is desirable for people who are first playing Freespace.  We can change the default training campaign to Io but I don't see a good reason to make Achen into a techroom mission only.
Personally, I'd rather not start including more campaigns in the initial release, since that's just more for us to test.  Pretty much all major projects have multiple testers, so before we release I'd like to run through it myself (I'm playing a mission a day and I have a bunch of free time coming up, so I can step it up soon).
I'll fix the detail level warning today.
Also I seem to remember a warning about missing weapons in the atmospheric mission that I'm not sure has been fixed, so I'll look into that when I get there.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: wesp5 on March 05, 2019, 11:59:05 am
That sounds like you installed TBP to the Knossos app directory, which, for future reference, you should definitely not do.

Really? I'm pretty sure I installed it into Knossos as I thought this was the main folder for all FSO games and mods.

Quote
Achen should be left as a campaign since it's currently the default campaign, which is desirable for people who are first playing Freespace.  We can change the default training campaign to Io but I don't see a good reason to make Achen into a techroom mission only.

Please test Io, in my eyes it's the much more complete training campaign and it is indeed a campaign. Achen is just one single mission!

Quote
Personally, I'd rather not start including more campaigns in the initial release, since that's just more for us to test.

No problem. I have tested and fixed them, they are in the temp folder and you can move them to main whenever you like!

Quote
I'll fix the detail level warning today.

Great!

Quote
Also I seem to remember a warning about missing weapons in the atmospheric mission that I'm not sure has been fixed, so I'll look into that when I get there.

I can't remember anything there. But speaking of which, that was the hardest mission in the whole campaign! First my squad didn't react to my ordering them to attack the station until the Zephyrs were gone which didn't even appear at the start. Can you check if this is intended? Second and more global, the station had no problems shooting through it's own walls and towers which made hiding impossible and looked rather unrealistic! Can this be fixed?
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: chief1983 on March 05, 2019, 01:29:07 pm
Knossos itself is just an app, just like Steam.  You should not touch its own program folder.  It has a game data directory, that it manages.  It should be different and outside of the Knossos program folder.  It should not be in Program Files, etc, where the Knossos app is likely installed.  Knossos does most of the managing of that game data folder, but you can set up a mod inside of that folder.  I believe that should be started within Knossos by creating a new mod there (under the Development tab), and then putting the TBP SVN checkout contents inside of that newly created mod, which would be under the Knossos Game Data/TBP/ folder.  I _think_ that's how it's intended to work anyway.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: wesp5 on March 05, 2019, 02:10:40 pm
Knossos itself is just an app, just like Steam.  You should not touch its own program folder.  It has a game data directory, that it manages.  It should be different and outside of the Knossos program folder.

This is kind of stupid then, especially compared with Steam, which installs all games inside the Steam folder! I expected Knossos to do the same...
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: chief1983 on March 05, 2019, 02:41:42 pm
What do you mean?  Steam can definitely have a data folder outside of its own program folder.  https://www.pcworld.com/article/3194504/how-to-change-where-steam-installs-your-pc-games.html

Also, while Steam is quite old by game market standards (being the first one I can remember), Knossos was made with cross-platform support in mind.  Other platforms such as MacOS can't install games into a bundled .app so you end up needing to specify a location such as your user folder, etc for games.  Honestly I figured the fact that Knossos asks where you want to put your games would hint that the Knossos folder itself is _not_ a sensible location or it would have been the default.

GOG Galaxy also has a mechanism for specifying this.  https://support.gog.com/hc/en-us/articles/212806885-How-do-I-change-where-my-games-should-be-installed-and-where-I-want-to-download-files-
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: wesp5 on March 05, 2019, 04:21:51 pm
Honestly I figured the fact that Knossos asks where you want to put your games would hint that the Knossos folder itself is _not_ a sensible location or it would have been the default.

It gave no warning and I don't want my HD cluttered with surplus folders. So I assumed that all Knossos games could very well be installed inside the Knossos folder! Which indeed they can, as TBP works fine from within. Only the SVN setup obviously expects the game folder to be elsewhere...
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: chief1983 on March 05, 2019, 04:32:16 pm
I'm not quite sure it's as simple as that yet.  If you do have the TBP SVN data folder alongside the TBP beta folder downloaded by Knossos I still believe it would work, as well as any other mod would.  So just to clarify: the TBP folder under Knossos is the home for all TBP-based mods, and should only contain other folders representing versions of mods installed under the TBP total conversion.  If you have the TBP beta installed it would be under the TBP folder named TBP-3.5.1, for instance.  So the SVN version should probably be alongside that folder, named something like TBP_svn or something?  Or is it at the same level as the root TBP folder inside Knossos?
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: wesp5 on March 06, 2019, 02:17:13 am
If you have the TBP beta installed it would be under the TBP folder named TBP-3.5.1, for instance.

This is the case, althought I always wondered why this is another subfolder. Shouldn't the final version be just inside the TBP folder?

Quote
So the SVN version should probably be alongside that folder, named something like TBP_svn or something?

No, I figured it would make most sense if I actually updated any beta files that I fixed. So the SVN works out of the beta folder itself. Maybe that is the problem...
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: chief1983 on March 06, 2019, 06:41:28 am
Honestly I am not sure about the workflow there.  But the reason for the multiple TBP folders is in case it needs multiple versions installed to satisfy mod deps.  I've already seen it have 3.5.0 and 3.5.1 installed alongside one another.

If you are just working on pushing things into svn I'd keep them (svn and beta folders) completely separate.  If you are the one pushing new versions of the beta to Knossos, I am not sure what kind of workflow you'd want.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: ngld on March 06, 2019, 10:08:46 am
This is the case, althought I always wondered why this is another subfolder. Shouldn't the final version be just inside the TBP folder?
The core_effects, core_interface, etc. folders are for the various packages. Just like the MediaVPs (MV_Root, MV_Music, MV_Advanced, etc.). Knossos needs those folders to know which files to put in which archive when uploading later on. The end-user won't have those folders after installing TBP and instead will have a single folder with a data subfolder and/or VPs.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: karajorma on March 07, 2019, 03:40:28 am
Exactly. In the final version these will end up just being VPs. That's the main reason you also have data/data. The end user will just have a folder called data instead.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: wesp5 on March 07, 2019, 04:12:58 am
Exactly. In the final version these will end up just being VPs. That's the main reason you also have data/data. The end user will just have a folder called data instead.

Okay, then I'll keep it like it is for now because testing and updating SVN works fine and hope that the first real release will clean up my folder structure :)!
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: PIe on March 17, 2019, 10:41:37 pm
I finished testing Raider Wars and found a few minor issues that I'll fix.
Ones that I want feedback on before changing are:
In M15, 16 and 17, Alpha wing has an illegal Panther secondary.  We can replace these either with another missile (probably the Venom) or give the Badger and Aurora access to it.
Also in M15, the player self destructs if he goes more that 7500m from the base, which happened to me because I was chasing enemy fighters.  We can either enlarge the distance or just remove the check altogether (probably the better option, since I don't see a good reason to have it).
One warning I haven't see reported is "Animation 'sb_hyperspace.eff' has images that have a different number of mipmaps (currently at frame 14).Performance could be improved by giving all frames the same number of mipmaps." (https://fsnebula.org/log/5c8c9a19cb0d33530ac8bab3).  It doesn't seem to affect anything significantly though.
I'll test IO training in the next few days.
Edit:  the first mission is somewhat buggy and unlike ASF, it assumes you know all the keybinds already.  Plus the voice-acting isn't as good.  We could fix it up but personally I wouldn't let it hold up a release.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: wesp5 on March 18, 2019, 03:12:42 am
In M15, 16 and 17, Alpha wing has an illegal Panther secondary.  We can replace these either with another missile (probably the Venom) or give the Badger and Aurora access to it.

Is there any official info on this or are these makeup missiles for TBP? In the latter case I would say just give them access.

Quote
Also in M15, the player self destructs if he goes more that 7500m from the base, which happened to me because I was chasing enemy fighters.  We can either enlarge the distance or just remove the check altogether (probably the better option, since I don't see a good reason to have it).

I would agree to remove the check.

Quote
I'll test IO training in the next few days.
Edit:  the first mission is somewhat buggy and unlike ASF, it assumes you know all the keybinds already.  Plus the voice-acting isn't as good.  We could fix it up but personally I wouldn't let it hold up a release.

No problem. I only included that because it was from MAG and I already fixed his single missions...
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: karajorma on March 18, 2019, 10:26:32 am
With the illegal missiles, do they actually appear on your ship when the mission starts? I'd guess that they get removed and replaced by a default anyway, right?
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: PIe on March 18, 2019, 10:28:59 am
With the illegal missiles, do they actually appear on your ship when the mission starts? I'd guess that they get removed and replaced by a default anyway, right?
Yep you get the Venom instead.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: karajorma on March 18, 2019, 07:11:10 pm
So that means one of a few things is happening.

1) The warning about the illegal missile is new and no one noticed that the Panther was enabled since it was automatically replaced.
2) The warning did occur but no one cared since it was replaced.
3) The tables have been altered at some point to make the Panther not enabled on that particular ship and no one noticed that there were missions that had it.

1 or 2 seem most likely but I think I have a copy of TBP v2 somewhere so I can double check it's not 3.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: PIe on March 18, 2019, 07:20:15 pm
1 or 2 seem most likely but I think I have a copy of TBP v2 somewhere so I can double check it's not 3.
I have one as well and it's not.
Also what do you think about replacing the font to look like this?

[attachment eaten by a Shivan]
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: karajorma on March 20, 2019, 08:31:19 am
I like it. But I tend to leave art decisions to people who know something about art.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: wesp5 on March 20, 2019, 02:11:21 pm
I like it. But I tend to leave art decisions to people who know something about art.

I think it's okay as well, but why should it be changed? Wouldn't this remove the original TBP font?
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: PIe on March 20, 2019, 03:27:02 pm
Well yes, but it's replacing it with the show font.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: wesp5 on March 20, 2019, 04:16:12 pm
Well yes, but it's replacing it with the show font.

If we are allowed to do that, go ahead :)!
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: PIe on March 30, 2019, 10:54:09 pm
I fixed it and also pushed the new font.  If we don't want it, it should be easy to revert.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: OverDhill on May 17, 2019, 08:32:13 pm
Any updates on this project?
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: karajorma on May 21, 2019, 02:07:02 am
We're hoping for an initial release pretty soon.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: wesp5 on August 26, 2019, 07:26:28 am
Okay, three months have passed, so we probably need a new definition of "soon" ;). Or do you need some help somewhere?
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: OverDhill on September 01, 2019, 01:29:28 pm
Well  9/30/19 is Freespace 2’s twentieth birthday so it would be nice to see one of the best total conversions released then.  I could post it in the B5 rooms I frequent and I am sure it will be received well.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: karajorma on September 01, 2019, 07:44:38 pm
I'll make an effort to get it out before then. I'm pretty sure we can do it.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: OverDhill on September 01, 2019, 10:06:41 pm
I am going to try and have the VoiceAttack profile done for TBP by then as well.   BTW I am using AMY for the TTS voice.

https://harposoftware.com/en/english-uk/139-amy-british-english-voice.html
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: Nightmare on September 02, 2019, 05:00:52 am
Well  9/30/19 is Freespace 2’s twentieth birthday so it would be nice to see one of the best total conversions released then.  I could post it in the B5 rooms I frequent and I am sure it will be received well.

Any FS promotion abroad is welcome~ :)
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: OverDhill on September 04, 2019, 07:01:41 pm
Here is the VoiceAttack command list I have so far. Some commands are present that are used in FSO but since I am working towards that end I have them included for now until I split them out. 

The profile has a pretty extensive database about TBP much like the HCS Voice Packs do.

Will polish the VAP file and upload soon.

[attachment eaten by a Shivan]
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: hip63 on September 06, 2019, 09:48:24 am
Hello peeps! It's been a while.  :pimp:

So a new version in production eh?

I'd be happy to help with a new installer when it's ready.

hip63 :p

P.S. - If any of you happen to play Empire: Total War, you might want to check the latest project I helped with:
https://www.moddb.com/mods/the-american-revolution
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: OverDhill on September 19, 2019, 09:28:40 am
Any progress?
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: RivenNightwing on September 26, 2019, 01:13:23 am
Dumb question... as someone who just jumped into this thread yesterday hoping to find a downloadable Babylon 5 product... I am just wondering if this is the thread where it will be eventually released as a finished product?  And... I can't stop myself from asking, but... do we have a likely time frame for this to happen? 

And... This also needs to be said:  To all the modders who give their time to make something like this a reality for those of us who only play... THANK YOU! 

And thank you for putting up with all us "kids" in the back seat asking.... "Are we there yet?!"

 ;)
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: Nightmare on September 26, 2019, 03:51:27 am
IIRC it was stated that it only takes a bit more testing and polishing on Discord.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: OverDhill on September 26, 2019, 09:46:00 am
The project was originally a stand alone but a few guys have taken the challenge to move it over to run under Knossos and fix all the bugs. So when it is done it will show up in Knossos much like Wing Commander Saga and others have along with the dozens of use campaigns.

https://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=94068.0
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: Nightmare on September 26, 2019, 10:05:16 am
Huh, it's not standalone anymore?
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: chief1983 on September 26, 2019, 10:08:50 am
It is standalone in that you can install it without needing retail FS2.  Knossos is just the distribution system and is free.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: Nightmare on September 26, 2019, 10:17:03 am
Yeah, was just wondering. Pushing TBP abroad with Knossos would probably be more difficult than with the old exe.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: OverDhill on September 26, 2019, 12:29:13 pm
Freespace 2 is FREE on GOG at the moment. Hurry as it ends soon

https://www.gog.com/game/freespace_2
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: karajorma on September 27, 2019, 11:02:57 pm
Sorry. I hadn't noticed your question earlier OverDhill. I've managed to make quite a bit of progress over the last few days.

@RivenNightwing Bear in mind you still can download TBP. This project is just about making it easier to do so.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: karajorma on September 28, 2019, 09:36:33 am
Actually, I think we're ready to release. Only problem is that on my current connection it will take forever to actually upload. If anyone else on the team wants to handle the upload, they can release it as TBP 3.6 right now. (I suggest using the SCP idea of even numbers for releases and odd for beta).

If no one else can do it, I should have better internet access later this week.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: chief1983 on September 28, 2019, 10:05:07 am
Should point out the SCP is switching to a "year-month" style so may want to consider that?
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: wesp5 on September 28, 2019, 10:53:38 am
Actually, I think we're ready to release.

Great!

Quote
(I suggest using the SCP idea of even numbers for releases and odd for beta).

Shouldn't it stay 3.5 then, because once more people are playing it, certainly issues will come up?
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: karajorma on September 28, 2019, 11:01:34 am
True, but we can always move it up to 3.6.1 for those fixes. I was thinking more about when we try checking if the other campaigns work for 3.7.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: PIe on September 28, 2019, 11:58:50 am
I have finished uploading it.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: Nightmare on September 28, 2019, 12:15:59 pm
I have finished uploading it.

All aboard hype train!
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: OverDhill on September 28, 2019, 05:24:58 pm
It might be a good idea to start a new thread and we can point interested parties to it.  I already announced it in a B5 forum.   We should see some new people coming in.


BTW a huge thank you to all that worked on this project.

Hopefully the other campaigns will soon follow
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: Nightmare on September 28, 2019, 05:37:14 pm
BTW, the great TBP update is available on Knossos for a couple hours now, maybe somebody write a release post and highlight?
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: starbug on September 29, 2019, 05:07:40 am
downloading now
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: starbug on September 29, 2019, 06:21:17 am
okay so have played it for a wee while, awh brings back some fond memories. no gameplay issues as of yet. the only thing i have noticed is that on the high poly freighter's the textures aren't displaying correctly. its as if the model is using the wrong texture of the UV is different to the texture. Forgot how much fun this game is. Would be nice to see some of the models get an 2019 update but i know that takes time.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: wesp5 on September 29, 2019, 03:28:34 pm
Congratulations on the release! I did a quick test with one of the Star Fury Pilot missions and everything looks fine so far. How do you plan to add more missions and campaigns? Will they be added to the main game or ba available seperately like in my Unofficial Patch as before? If the latter is true, it might be a good idea to make additional campaigns and mission packs run out of subfolders in the data folder, so they can easier be installed and removed. Or should everything go into vp archives?
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: karajorma on September 29, 2019, 07:22:14 pm
Added to the main game unless they include their own table files. We can put out a separate VP file for the mission packs.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: wesp5 on September 30, 2019, 02:10:23 am
Added to the main game unless they include their own table files. We can put out a separate VP file for the mission packs.

Okay. I'll check if those I worked on have own table files and will try to convert them to vp archives...
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: 0rph3u5 on September 30, 2019, 02:15:57 am
@wesp5:

Since its now on Knossos, it is pretty easy to just add them as new mod with FSO & TBP dependency. Knossos also takes care of the .vp packing upon upload if you select that option.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: wesp5 on September 30, 2019, 02:27:52 am
Since its now on Knossos, it is pretty easy to just add them as new mod with FSO & TBP dependency. Knossos also takes care of the .vp packing upon upload if you select that option.

Cool! But I think we should decide now then to either move everything inside the main game or use this Knossos feature to keep the campaigns seperate. Also I just mailed Blues News and asked to announce the release!
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: karajorma on September 30, 2019, 06:26:15 am
I wouldn't release them as separate mods unless Knossos gets the filter function working sometime soon. They'll just get lost in the mix that way.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: wesp5 on September 30, 2019, 06:34:33 am
I get a schockwave error in the Achen Flight School if 3D shockwaves are enabled: Unable to open neither 3D nor 2D default shockwaves!! File: shockwave.cpp, Line 531. After debugging it the missions starts...
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: karajorma on September 30, 2019, 06:43:08 am
You should have everything TBP in a folder called TBP. I have no idea why you'd have files anywhere else. Are you sure Knossos put those files there?
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: wesp5 on September 30, 2019, 06:52:12 am
You should have everything TBP in a folder called TBP. I have no idea why you'd have files anywhere else. Are you sure Knossos put those files there?

I figured that out and removed the error report. I had a bad vp in the main directory which caused the issues, the file structure itself was fine! So how can I build correct vp files from my campaigns or should I upload them for you to do it?
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: karajorma on September 30, 2019, 10:29:23 am
If you've done things correctly Knossos will build the VP itself. Just commit the files in SVN and I can sort them out if need be.

I'm going to be away for a week starting tomorrow though and I don't know if I'll be able to get my travel PC to download Knossos and TBP easily.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: wesp5 on September 30, 2019, 11:49:14 am
If you've done things correctly Knossos will build the VP itself. Just commit the files in SVN and I can sort them out if need be.

I think I commited them a long time ago already in SVN, but now that 3.6.0 is out, need I switch SVN to work with that?
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: karajorma on September 30, 2019, 07:22:34 pm
Nothing in that extra folder is going to appear in our Knossos releases. If they're already in SVN we just need to have a quick run through to see if they work and then bump the release version.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: Nightmare on September 30, 2019, 07:25:02 pm
So Knossos-TBP is supposed to be shipped without the FRED documentation and the movies? I'm wondering because they weren't in the other files, so they'd be missing.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: wesp5 on October 01, 2019, 02:09:17 am
So Knossos-TBP is supposed to be shipped without the FRED documentation and the movies?

No. On my system they are in the TBP-3.6.0/data/ folder and work just fine!
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: wesp5 on October 01, 2019, 02:11:09 am
If they're already in SVN we just need to have a quick run through to see if they work and then bump the release version.

This seems like a plan! I tested them with 3.5.1 and I will release them externally in my patch today so maybe we can get some outside feedback as well...
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: Nightmare on October 01, 2019, 05:01:36 am
So Knossos-TBP is supposed to be shipped without the FRED documentation and the movies?

No. On my system they are in the TBP-3.6.0/data/ folder and work just fine!

Good to hear. :) I just thought I better report it as it seemed kinda unusual.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: PIe on October 01, 2019, 07:58:13 am
This seems like a plan! I tested them with 3.5.1 and I will release them externally in my patch today so maybe we can get some outside feedback as well...
What do you mean release them in your patch?  Your old way of releasing content very likely doesn't work anymore.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: wesp5 on October 01, 2019, 09:16:18 am
This seems like a plan! I tested them with 3.5.1 and I will release them externally in my patch today so maybe we can get some outside feedback as well...
What do you mean release them in your patch?  Your old way of releasing content very likely doesn't work anymore.

I tested it and it still works. I just added another option so people can decide whether they want to use it with classic TBP 3.4b or the Knossos version :)!
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: PIe on October 01, 2019, 11:35:32 am
I'm not trying to insult you but based on what you've posted, I'm not sure you really understand how Knossos works.  There's nothing wrong with that; it is very different from how FSO used to be distributed.
First of all, we don't want people installing TBP 3.4b.  It's really difficult to get working and there's no reason to use it over the version now available on Knossos.  That was the whole point of this rerelease.
Second, we don't want people messing with TBP as installed from Knossos.  Knossos makes your patch obsolete and someone installing your patch probably would find it harder to play your content.  The best thing to do is to add your fixes to the SVN and let Karajorma or I integrate it into the Knossos release.
In short, all distribution of TBP content should be done through Knossos.
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: wesp5 on October 01, 2019, 04:30:11 pm
I'm not trying to insult you but based on what you've posted, I'm not sure you really understand how Knossos works.

Regardless of how Knossos works, everything you place into the data subfolder will end up in the game as usual. I agree that it may be best to add my stuff to the base game, but as long as it took to get the Raider Wars campaign working, I thought I might as well do it myself right now in the old way! A few days ago I already got a request via PM on how to get my missions and campaigns working in Knossos...

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First of all, we don't want people installing TBP 3.4b.

Then we should start with updating all pages that still link to TBP 3.4b! In fact the Blues News guy wanted to know if TBP 3.6.0 was legit as no official TBP webpage mentions it. I changed that for the ModDB, but at the moment the Knossos version is only known to people who are already TBP specialists.

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The best thing to do is to add your fixes to the SVN and let Karajorma or I integrate it into the Knossos release.

All my fixed missions and campaigns should already be in a temp folder of the 3.5.1 SVN so you are free to do so :)!
Title: Re: TBP 3.5 Work in Progress (Split from Star Fury Pilot Unofficial Patch 2.0 released!)
Post by: OverDhill on October 01, 2019, 11:05:39 pm
I uninstalled TBP on my main system then re-installed it (I had been using some of the files from the beta testing before). So with a clean install I now get a shockwave error in the Raider Campaign if 3D shockwaves are enabled: Unable to open neither 3D nor 2D default shockwaves!!

Not sure that is normal. For now I turned them off in the settings.