Hard Light Productions Forums

Hosted Projects - Standalone => Solaris => Topic started by: Darius on October 08, 2021, 08:48:05 pm

Title: RELEASE: Solaris - Black Sun (A FreeSpace Open Total Conversion)
Post by: Darius on October 08, 2021, 08:48:05 pm
(https://i.imgur.com/Ebayqbs.png)
(https://fsnebula.org/static/kn_download.png) (https://fsnebula.org/mod/Solaris)

Recommended Build: 21.4.0 Stable



Two weeks have passed since the events at Morik. Stuart Ross, disillusioned by his experiences as a Federation exchange pilot, is contacted by an old friend from his backwater Navy posting to take up a mercenary job in the fringes of colonised space. This seems like a perfect change of pace - until Ross realises that you can't always run from your past.

Set in an original universe where the discovery of hyperspace has led to a Golden Age of human colonisation and technology, Solaris takes place during a time of great changes. However, this is also an age of extremes - the Great War left several planets ecologically devastated, including the cradle of humanity, Earth. Like the Cold War of the 20th Century, humanity is faced with terrifying new doomsday technologies that have the potential to bring about Armageddon.

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

Features:




(https://i.imgur.com/39aQCOe.jpg)

Gameplay tips:


(https://i.imgur.com/BA94CWK.jpg)

This project would not be possible without the generous contributions of the Hard-Light community.
Solaris makes use of assets donated by a multitude of artists and contributors over the years, as well as utilising in-engine features from the Source Code Project.

Solaris is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/deed.en_GB)
This means that you can use anything you want from Solaris (models, missions, backgrounds) in any way you wish, as long as you don't try to sell it.
Title: Re: RELEASE: Solaris - Black Sun (A FreeSpace Open Total Conversion)
Post by: Dilmah G on October 09, 2021, 01:17:17 am
Congrats on your release, Darius! This is a certified 10/10 time, and even I, a total Solaris scrub who took three full months to finish the OG version, managed to finish this in less than a calendar year. There's more tasty gameplay, an engrossing story, and most importantly for my fellow scrubs - a liberal use of checkpoints! Full spoiler-tagged review to come soon.
Title: Re: RELEASE: Solaris - Black Sun (A FreeSpace Open Total Conversion)
Post by: Colonol Dekker on October 09, 2021, 02:22:43 am
Mega, loved the first, the second will no doubt improve on it. 
Title: Re: RELEASE: Solaris - Black Sun (A FreeSpace Open Total Conversion)
Post by: Nyctaeus on October 09, 2021, 03:08:16 am
Poverty, covid, dictatorships, xenophoby, wars, environmental crisis and BioWare game releases will not end today.

But this is still gonna be a great day! Everybody! Think about it for a while: Solaris 2 is released! Despite all of the **** happening around, I assure you that this day will be great one :].
Title: Re: RELEASE: Solaris - Black Sun (A FreeSpace Open Total Conversion)
Post by: CapellaGoBoom on October 09, 2021, 11:39:50 am
Congrats on release! Just started another run-through of the 1st campaign to see the changes! However I found a bug...the support drone refuses to undock with either me or AI pilots after completing rearm/repair. Just discovered this in the 1st few missions
Title: Re: RELEASE: Solaris - Black Sun (A FreeSpace Open Total Conversion)
Post by: Darius on October 09, 2021, 06:20:29 pm
That seems to be a recent bug that has since been fixed for the next nightly. In the meantime you could use the most recent stable build (Solaris was developed for 21.4.0).
Title: Re: RELEASE: Solaris - Black Sun (A FreeSpace Open Total Conversion)
Post by: starbug on October 10, 2021, 10:36:40 am
Congrats on the new release! i am just downloading it now and sooooooooooooooo looking forward to playing it!
Title: Re: RELEASE: Solaris - Black Sun (A FreeSpace Open Total Conversion)
Post by: CapellaGoBoom on October 10, 2021, 01:54:31 pm
That seems to be a recent bug that has since been fixed for the next nightly. In the meantime you could use the most recent stable build (Solaris was developed for 21.4.0).

Thanks for that! Just wrapped up the whole storyline thus far :) Seeing all the Rebel Galaxy capships was dope!
Title: Re: RELEASE: Solaris - Black Sun (A FreeSpace Open Total Conversion)
Post by: manwiththemachinegun on October 10, 2021, 02:38:31 pm
Is this Act 2 of ???
Title: Re: RELEASE: Solaris - Black Sun (A FreeSpace Open Total Conversion)
Post by: Darius on October 10, 2021, 10:31:10 pm
Putting up an update for the third mission of act 2 (13.fs2) that soft locks if events happen in a certain order. Hopefully this fixes the bug.
Title: Re: RELEASE: Solaris - Black Sun (A FreeSpace Open Total Conversion)
Post by: 5thAce on October 11, 2021, 11:18:54 pm
Wow, I just finished act 2 and I very much enjoyed it! The story was very "Expanse like" if you ask me, much to my approval! I'm looking forward to whatever the future holds for Solaris!
Title: Re: RELEASE: Solaris - Black Sun (A FreeSpace Open Total Conversion)
Post by: Rodo on October 18, 2021, 03:31:26 pm
Well hello there!

Came back to a bunch of new content, downloaded this one with Knossos and tried to run the first campaign but I'm getting constant crashes with "Failed to wait until uniform range is available! Get a coder."
I'm guessing I borked something in the install, anyone has a clue what can I do?

Here's the log: https://fsnebula.org/log/616dd5a0b0382161d32001cd

edit:
nvm, fixed it.

Updating my vga drivers... never thought I'd have to do that again. Good 'ol cranky fso I missed your mood swings :p
Title: Re: RELEASE: Solaris - Black Sun (A FreeSpace Open Total Conversion)
Post by: manwiththemachinegun on November 27, 2021, 08:40:46 pm
Story feedback:

At least Ross is a bit less pissy and seems to understand he blew it with Raptor. I still don't understand how a military officer can go "half pay" and galivant around as a Merc, but it's a nice change of pace.

Speaking of the Merc team, I always enjoy "the little guy/free company" stories set against a larger war. It helps with both the missions and story to feel like you're punching above your weight class. I hope this 3 ship team sticks around for future installments.

The happy, helpful religious band were pretty refreshing as a sci-fi tend tends to view "faith in space" as obsolete or dangerous, rather than just another part of human nature. Seeking Eden/Shambala in space is genuinely sweet, and I hope they do well out there better than the GEFs.

The Combine running another proxy war was interesting and again draws in more parallels to the real life Cold War. It's a nice sense of the fringe along with the Corporate Mercs and Traders out in uncivilized sectors of space.

With the exception of scary gravity super weapons, I hope aliens stay out of the setting. You've got a good vibe going and it reminds me a lot Titanfall, IN SPACE, which is great since that series rules.

We'll likely head back to the larger war at some point, but enjoy smaller stakes stories, and hope the big battles stay balanced with the quiet story ones.
Title: Re: RELEASE: Solaris - Black Sun (A FreeSpace Open Total Conversion)
Post by: Iido on December 20, 2021, 01:17:12 pm
Oh, I had no idea that part 2 was out until now! I'll definitely play this soon!
Title: Re: RELEASE: Solaris - Black Sun (A FreeSpace Open Total Conversion)
Post by: Mobius on November 23, 2022, 08:55:51 am
I've just completed my playthrough of Black Sun and wow, I can't wait to play what's coming next in this TC. Any sneak peeks on what the next Solaris campaign will be about?
Title: Re: RELEASE: Solaris - Black Sun (A FreeSpace Open Total Conversion)
Post by: Darius on November 23, 2022, 05:28:11 pm
Thanks  :yes: I'm looking forward to releasing it at some point.

MatthTheGeek did a stream of the first couple missions of Act 3 a couple months ago

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1594319053

The missions are very WIP but should give an idea of where the story's headed next.
Title: Re: RELEASE: Solaris - Black Sun (A FreeSpace Open Total Conversion)
Post by: SF-Junky on August 18, 2023, 12:59:24 pm
Thanks! I'd be interested to see how much story gaps will be filled by act 2 (or whether it creates even more questions  :confused: )
I'll answer this one here. :)

Worldbuilding and characters improved a lot. Act 3 brings meat to the universe's bones. Various factions feel credible, realistic and divers. I also liked the characters, particularly Meiks. You're a good writer, keep that up! These people feel really alive and like real personalities. The voice acting adds a lot to the atmosphere here. Is that really all TTS? How do you do it exactly (iirc somebody already asked that in the first thread...  :nervous: )?

I'm sure there's people out there who'd say that this should have been the first act, and what's act 1 and 2 now should be 2 and 3 because this feels a lot more like the exposition. Start small and harmless and then evolve the story into something bigger. I generally like the approach you have taken: Throw some huge chunk of WHAT DA HECK at the player as an appetizer and then slow down a little bit to allow the audience to take a breath, take a step back and take a close look. But I think it's become too extreme. We had an interstellar war, planet killers and gargantuan alien structures in part 1 and this is all completely forgotten in the first half or two thirds of this campaign and nobody even talks about it. The war between the Combine and the Federation should have been more present in the earlier stages of part 2. Not neccessarily by involving these faction directly, but via character dialogues, media broadcasts, etc. Towards the end, you bring attention back to the alien artefact nicely, though.

Two missions really annoyed me tbh. Mission 14 which I haven't beaten without cheats yet. I really think that this is too difficult and needs rebalancing. In mission 15 the beginning is super annoying because these refugee transports are extremely fragile and it's very difficult to fight enemy craft while trying to evade at the same time - moving the Hoshikuzu more into the enemy fighters' attack path to scatter their formation would probably help a lot already. In the second part the mission makes a transition into "sit there and shoot missiles" followed by "disarm a cap ship, take 124"...

In the mission with the bomb (19, I think it was) it would really be helpful to either set the checkpoint right before you start shooting the doomsday cracker or give the player more precise instructions on how to properly disable the freighter without setting the damn thing of. ;)

Overall, I liked Black Sun and I look forward to part 3.
Title: Re: RELEASE: Solaris - Black Sun (A FreeSpace Open Total Conversion)
Post by: Darius on August 22, 2023, 06:42:32 pm
Thanks :yes:

What specific trouble were you having in mission 14? Is it surviving, the Hoshi getting destroyed or not having enough time to disable the capital ship at the end?

The Hoshikuzu covering the transport is a good idea and an elegant solution to a problem I've been having with that mission.
Title: Re: RELEASE: Solaris - Black Sun (A FreeSpace Open Total Conversion)
Post by: SF-Junky on August 24, 2023, 11:40:59 am
I'm usually overwhelmed by the enemy bombers/gunships. As I said, dogfighting is really tough in this mod. What particularly bothers me is that I often feel that if somebody has you in their sights it's very difficult to evade. Maybe I'm just slow, but it happens so often to me that I lose no less than 30% or so of my hull integrity whenever I'm hit.

The enemy capship escaping has also happened, but not so often. In the beginning, Meiks' advise to ignore the enemy fighters is just not what's the best way to go in my opinion. One missile for each of them asap and then go for the enemy ASMs works quite well for me.