[SerialMascot]

IMPORTANT PLEASE READ UNTIL #END IMPORTANT
$TRACKIR
+file name:  scptrackir64.dll
There are many other ways to get access to the magical player camera controlling scptrackir.dll besides TrackIR. I do not use TrackIR. TrackIR works fine, but is totally unnecessary and way overpriced. And the retail software is bad and assumes you are stupid.
https://github.com/opentrack/opentrack
I do not use OPenTrack rn, but it is amazing and I have used a few of it's inputs and outputs for FreeSpace and other games in various weird ways.
If you do not use head tracking:
...and absolutely refuse to get it/try it, you will have no way to see past/around the cockpit geometry. That may or may not be ok with you. It will also be much harder to keep track of your vector (direction). "Keyboard lean" might be available soon to mitigate this. But seriously dude you're missing out just get it. It's cheap. It's free if you are good at computers. There is a "generic cockpit" that will be much more playable. Modify the fs1cp-shp.tbm file accordingly. Just copy the entries for the Ursa or Angel (using TerranCP.pof). You'll also need to change the $ships flags in the -hdg.tbm gauges files. Follow the Ursa example. Sorry, but if I provide backwards compatibility, then fewer people will try it in it's proper form. Half of you nerds have legit retail TrackIR already, and are too lazy to set it up/plug it in/charge the batteries/install the software/whatever. FFS people  Using the old generic cockpit might solve the visibility problem, but not the orientation and situational awareness problem. (where am I coming/going and how fast?) so use mouselook/POV hat/thumbstick maybe, but "your mileage may vary". Please check out OpenTrack. There are some legit ways to get very good frames in sim games. Smartphones are good now, and other weird projects.
$DIFFICULTY /Multiplayer Respawns
If you don't die in Eve of Destruction turn it up to hard or insane. I recommend zero respawns and restarting the mission on any player death. Work together.
+I may add this note to the briefing on the added player notes screen.
$BUILDS
Nightly builds are required. This mod is bleeding edge, but it's stable (shouldn't crash)
$CONTROLS
If you try and play for more than 60 seconds:
please bind all of the controls and try them out. This includes:
toggle glide, press glide, lateral and reverse thrust  ctrl,space,a,s,d, an analog throttle, and  k,l,o for zoom
if you want other keys and don't know how see below. controls are hard I'll get there
$PACKAGES
The modular format was just awful to prepare and maintain, so that's gone. The only optional packages now are the two zooms and there's no optional mod dependencies anymore. Knossos just really wasn't designed to do that, even if it's technically possible.
$LIGHTING
Deferred cockpit lighting is now available. Please turn it on in FSO settings and also leave the other "deferred" checkbox checked. Adjust lighting features according to preference in the F3 lab. This is like pressing F2 for options but in the mainhall only I think(?) The older specular and ambient settings might look ok idk.
$FOV & zoom:
I'd advise against this, for reasons, but If you change FOV, then you must change the corresponding value in the zoom script, which should be easy. (NormalFOV) The script is simple.
$CAMPAIGN/MISSIONS:
The missions all in this format:
S_FS_1_*.fs2
gl;hf with anything else. It's there for modders.
Launch from multi for Act 1 and Act 2 Great War missions.
#END IMPORTANT

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLoAUTDCfJ5kELc5QGfT-6Wt4Bl2eckzMw
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLoAUTDCfJ5kFtm8Wu1b9wGVtQi-1u_Eru
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLoAUTDCfJ5kExnmhBVqycqNmxgL44-2Ha
https://fsnebula.org/mod/S_FS1
https://fsnebula.org/mod/S_ST_R
https://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=98469

This is a Work In Progress.
Also it's my first attempt at... well lots of stuff.
Caveat Emptor. Management is not responsible for any and all unhapiness.
Use this thread or come to the Discord for updates, or to help me figure out how to do the rest. Testers/collaborators/requests/bug reports all warmly welcomed. Feedback on the flight and physics balance is most needed.

Now included:

NEW: Time Attack Gauntlet - Try to get Primary, Secondary, and Bonus objectives in under 10 minutes. GTF Valkyrie is the obvious choice for speed, but it's poor shields and armour + small secondary capacity make it a challenge. Any ship can beat it though and the multi warhead secondaries make quick work of the Shivan hunters.

Re-Scaled "Great War" Act 1 missions
(see the post below)
I'll be adding my tips to the briefings (eventually), so check there.
Looks for the filenames beginning with "S_FS1".

Silent Threat: Reborn

Internally Rendered Cockpits
with new tactical gauges, no Virtual HUD, RTT messages etc.
(These are basically done for now)
GTF Apollo
GTF Ulysses
GTF Loki
GTB Medusa
GTF Valkyrie
GTF Hercules
GTB Athena
GTB Zeus

still using the generic cockpit

GTB Ursa

Modern Thruster Inputs + Glide for all GTFs and GTBs
Realistic Momentum (and advanced control) for ALL small craft
Newtonian Velocity Vector for all ships and weapons
Basic Zoom Script -  Just the L Button
Advanced Zoom Script - L = in 10%, K = out 10%, O = reset to 0%
3D Velocity Vector Script

Major hurdles:
Vasudan cockpits - plz halp 

Coming Soon:
FreeSpace Multiplayer for Dummies YouTube Spectacular
also boring head tracking tutorial videos upon request
Hacky support for some VR headsets  ETA early 2023
B i t c h i n  Betty with mission-event based messages (not just ship status warnings - kind of like in the old Mechwarrior titles)
Synthwave
event based music tracks.
FS2
Derelict
Hercules MkII
Myrmidon
Artemis
ArtemisDH
Warmachine
Act 2-3 of FS1



Thruster sounds:
These are hooked to keypresses for the time being. This will be done differently in the future, but I haven't decided which way. For now, replace a,s,d,ctrl,space with your controls in thrust_snd-sct.tbm

Multi:
Something still breaks "observer mode" in multiplayer, probably the zoom or the vector indicator. Don't click "observer mode" when it comes up, and everything will be fine.

[SerialMascot]

I've reorganized everything in a modular kind of way after doing it differently and after lots of feedback. The above post was updated too. I'll put some notes for modders here soon...
but the short explanation is that the 3 "utility" mods are meant to be easily used as resources outside of my "modpacks".

[Goober5000]

Nice work.

[SerialMascot]

UPDATE: The packages were all wrong before and everything was required. Sorry about that it should be fixed now thanks to some unintentional testers.

[SerialMascot]

GTF Loki now available.
Serial's FS1 Cockpits 1.2.0

[SerialMascot]

Changed the radar in "Serial's FS1 cockpits" HUD. Looks more clear and takes up more of that spot.

Some minor cockpit offset changes, probably bringing the eyepoint a touch further down in 2 or 3 ships. Might be a matter of preference. I wrote instructions on how to easily find the value you want and change it. It's in Discord, but will repost if someone needs.

Streamlined packaging (again) for FS1 and STR packs.

Will Probably make a good change to the ai/flying stuff, that I've tested. It's so much fun to play and hopefully the new version will be not too hard / not too strange.

[SerialMascot]

there's a 2 player copy of Warship Gauntlet for practice w/ a friend against a dangerous but slow target

[SerialMascot]

https://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=98469

Eliminating Virtual HUD gauges...

The new set is practical for Z-axis lean. You kind of have the shields and target monitor still in your face if you are leaning forwards, but they're positioned to still be nicely angled/viewable from the default position. These might be a little different on each ship.
Also: back by popular demand.... (read: torches and pitchforks)  the radar in bottom center position!!!

[SerialMascot]

https://youtu.be/rbH-8DAWwu4
attempt #2 for the apollo will be in an update today

[Darius]

That looks great 

I particularly like the velocity vector and gun chase indicator (and now have a hankering for someone to remaster and rebalance the FS2 campaign for glide and strafe)

[EatThePath]

That looks great 

I particularly like the velocity vector and gun chase indicator (and now have a hankering for someone to remaster and rebalance the FS2 campaign for glide and strafe)

Yeah I'm definitely going to see about porting those over to warmachine in some form

[AstralStorm]

Concept is pretty cool, especially the new flght.

Some sort of AI change makes the game at least 3 steps harder when dogfighting Shivans even if you fly right.
That on its own is not terrible, however I would not expect a Scorpion to be able to outfly a Valkyrie with boosted engines, but it does because it now slides and is almost just as fast.
Basilisks are deadlier than in Blue Planet where they showcased their alleged full power...
Are all Shivans now boosting their shields plus engines and redirecting power much better as well? Takes quite a while longer to shoot them down. This essentially ruins the balance of some missions, and makes the difficulty slider almost worthless.
(With easy reaching difficulty of hard in retail.)

Their bombers instead are collide-suicidal even more than usual. Friendlies also love to collide into enemies and you, especially when they're flying Apollo and Athena which are wide.
While this only shows up in particular mission, when it does it's pretty bad. Certain missions are on the edge of busted even on Very Easy. Not entirely sure what causes all of it besides what I mentioned.

For gliding, it could use an arrow indicator with size of velocity vector in vertical or horizontal.
The side and reverse thrusters are very wimpy in comparison with forward one on many ships causes some problems with gliding, in particular trying to correct or prevent an accidental orbit or mis.
The travel direction indicator is cool when it is visible, but it is not when you're flying reverse - which you would do in a dogfight when gliding.

Cockpits look great and do not hinder too much even without head tracking. (Joystick or mouse freelook, padlock etc. help in any case.)

Zoom script needs to be placed in settings - kind of hard to use with joystick otherwise - but regardless it's not *that* useful when AI just gets on you within 100 units anyway when they do want a dogfight.

[Iain Baker]

Glad I’m not the only one that noticed it was quite a bit harder. I thought I was just getting rusty in my old age 😜

I had a thought of how the ‘can’t see backwards when using cockpit mods’ problem could be fixed: a Picture-in-Picture rear view feed in the cockpit, emulating what a rear-facing camera would see.

This could be even more useful than being able to look backwards since you could see what is going on behind while still looking forwards.

I don’t know if FS is capable of this of course. A potential problem might be performance impact - I have noticed in some FPS games with PiP scopes that the frame rate drops by about 50% when using the scope. If this were to become a problem, then perhaps make this a toggalable feature in-mission via a key press, so you only have it displayed when you need it (I imagine most players would be ok with their FPS dropping from 60 to 30 if it was only for a few seconds at a time and they could control when this was.)

Either way, keep up the good work 👍

[SerialMascot]

Nomad:

If the "problem" is not having full yaw in head tracking, the "solution" is just changing that in the FSO engine. I can't promise it would work, or will happen soon, but I know where it fits in the code.

I do have a workaround solution for you though, albeit a clunky one:
If I understand what you said before, you can currently use your pov hat on your stick to yaw more than 360 degrees. Not being able to de this with Headtracking is a deal breaker for you. I think you'd change your mind and forget about the full twisting if you understood the point of having both rotation AND translation with 6-dof.
Once you have your TrackIr 's battery problem solved you'll see this. Or you could watch some of the videos.
BUT! If you absolutely positively must have 360 degrees of yaw with your trackIR device. I can talk you through 3 different apps that can turn the trackIR output into joystick input. But first I will force you to listen to me rant about how the limited yaw is a design choice within FSO, and how I know this.
I'm coming up with solutions for a problem that doesn't need to be solved really. The game was designed with a certain "viewing angle" in mind for the camera/the ships. Right now if you look all the way back in the cockpits you'll just be looking at/ clipping into the seat / the hull. It will still be useful in the generic cockpit though. Or with no cockpit rendered. (toggle button coming soon)


Just try it with 6-dof. Please.

[SerialMascot]

Regarding Difficulty
There was one update that was much closer to BtA difficulty, which was indeed way to hard, and I also got my ass kicked. This might be what you are playing. A lot of it is about making the difficulty slider do what the player expects it to. The next update will be much more reasonable, and will have all the Shivan and Vasudan fighters/bombers with updated physics and behavior. This mean a lot of things, but in the end, its less deadly than what you have now, but with much more interesting opponents and fights. Check the top post here after you see the version change on the FS1 Flight Dependency.

I've also ported some missions to play better with the modern flying. Still unsure how they will be shared. If you are playing a classic mission, and you think you see something broken/boring/whatever, just post here. I take everybody's input pretty seriously. If you offer a clever solution , then I'm likely to fix it right away.

[SerialMascot]

Astral Storm... Is there even a value for  the sidethrust? I think it's just on and off no?  If it's just a momentary input, and they don't add your feature request of a side thrust axis, I don't think I'd want to add more clutter to the HuD or the gauges. What it really needs is a sound. The lack of feedback  feels unnatural to us and it really breaks immersion. I bet once I put it in there, it will feel right to you. It's all about the right feedback. The engine sound is also broken in Freespace, but I'll leave that to you guys to figure out.

If they do add a sidethrust axis, and I do like your FR btw, then I would redo the entire flight model, and I'd want a prominent on screen display for that. You probably already got an idea for what I was going for if you saw the video with the on-screen controls. (your idea, and a good one)

[AstralStorm]

Oh, I have not looked into flight tables, but I believe there are thrust values for ships in all directions. The side ones in at least the few ships I tried are super weak. Holding the thrust keys takes a while to even move the ships. The thruster is on par of 5-10 units on a Valkyrie with max boosted engines?
And that is one of the stronger ones.

[SerialMascot]

yes

all the ships have sidethrust

but my point was that there is no range of values to generate a useful hud indicator

I think it's either ON or OFF, but correct me if I'm wrong

The forward thrust (combined with correctly toggling "glide") is intended to be the main way you get from A to B, with afterburner supplementing that because you can't always overclock the engine.

The side and reverse thrusters are INTENTIONALLY WEAKER. I don't know how else to to explain this. 

Making them as strong as the forward ones pretty much results in "Descent 1" flight, which is not what I'm looking for. I loved Descent and Overload, but circle strafing gets old fast in wide open spaces, and also the A.I. is way better at it and you will die too much.

The velocity vector NEVER DISAPPEARS. I PROMISE!!! You just aren't looking where it goes.

[Iain Baker]

Plus, you can always alter the speeds yourself by editing the ship table. You could have your ship fly sideways at 1000mps if you really wanted to although I suspect you might crash if you did 😂 look up Reythan’s asset release thread for details of how to DIY which is what I started doing before SM started doing this 👍

[SerialMascot]

UPDATES:

Cockpits
Reshaped the struts on the Apollo (again ) . They are better now for both 6-dof users and legacy-mode camera controls.

Flight
I made some pretty massive changes to the flight and AI, so be sure you're using FS1 Flight 2.2.0 or greater. You should notice a bunch of differences. Your dudes and the bad guys should all be able to do the silly stuff you do. Many.... many variables are adjusted to account for this.

Difficulty
This has been tuned back and forth quite a bit. Once you get comfortable with the flight mechanics (not trivial) I want you to be able to win stuff on "normal" without too much practice/repetition. Normal should still be unforgiving if the player is making flight mistakes and going off course or exposing himself to attacks. Balance between friendly and hostile AI was also addressed.

Missions
By popular demand I have rescaled some FS1 missions. They are FREDDed to be fun either in multi or in single player. For single player, you can optionally disable PXO to skip PXO, and you can also use the "skip mainhalls" FSO setting for convenience. Look for the four co-op missions that have "S_" at the start of the file name. Full repairs are enabled for the support ship. You really can't take much punishment in the pre-shields missions so use it. AI wingmates will use it like in Blue Planet. These missions are currently balanced for zero respawns (not very immersive lol). I think if your multi friend dies, just restart the mission like you would in single player. And maybe watch each other's back on the next attempt.

Eve of Destruction
Be aware that some Vasudan craft are still damaged after being pushed back towards the Orff's sector.
Targeting the guns (you or your wing) on the transports and freighters is a good idea.
The Orff can fend for itself for at least awhile, so you can repair/rearm if you can find a safe spot, but don't let your wings die while you do it.

Field of Battle
This mission can be a moderate test of your mastery of the controls and your situational awareness. Use the DRADIS radar (should be in the latest cockpit updates) together with the on screen radar and the wing hotkey. Keep in mind that the enemy wings will now "wake up" at 2000 fsu. The challenge is to keep your force together and only fight one at a time, repairing/rearming as needed. The Vasudan ACE is a real asshole, but you don't have to kill him.

Small Deadly Space
Taking out the freighters before they escape is hard but doable, but it's probly more fun to let one get away and fight all the backup they call. Disruptors are viable. Don't forget Delta is a "reinforcement" wing you can call.

The Hammer & the Anvil
You really need to focus on quickly deleting those Shivans that target the cargo or the transports. It can be easy to get distracted and split off dogfighting one that's doing something else. I have something in mind for the end of this mission to demo a new feature. For now, don't worry about the HoL traitor craft, but stick around at the end for a small bonus fight against nimble Vasudan fighters.

Suggested "as-is" ST:R missions:

Silence All Voices
Credit to Goober. This is a very replay-able one. Try beating it with and without participating in the big dogfight, and with the different available ships.
The easiest tactic imo: Let all the AI friendlies stay busy dealing with the big fight where you get dropped off, and deal with the two transports yourself or with a multi buddy. Pilot a Hercules with Prometheus or Avengers and at least one bank of Disruptor missiles, which make dealing with the transports manageable. They are more challenging if screen shake is enabled. One solution for preventing the 2nd transport from using the communications relay is murdering the communications relay.

More Than Meets the Eye - Ghosts
Double header/Red Alert mission. recomended

He Who Rides The Tiger
Make sure you have engine energy to use afterburners or the Shivan Gremlin will kill you. I might need to tweak that. The waves come in a bit close with the new speeds, but it doesn't really matter. You will end up not having to rely as much on AI when things get spread out towards the end, but this works ok imo, maybe could use something for more danger at the end. Interested if Goober has an opinion on how things are changed and what might be scaled in FRED to keep the original intent working.

Hellfire
I have had more fun in multi playing this mission than any other. It's really hard to get all four cruisers, but remember that's not mandatory, just better in the campaign. You can take turns being the bomber, or the fighter cover, or the subsystems killer and disruptor missile boat. Having humans playing the different roles is very satisfying, but it's FREDded nicely and plays well in single player also.