[colecampbell666]

You mean the FreeSpace mod for Homeworld?

Or Sins.

[General Battuta]

If you guys do come up with any improvements to the order system, I bet a bunch of FREDders would be salivating to try them out in 'regular', first-person FS2.

[Krackers87]

You mean the FreeSpace mod for Homeworld?

Or Sins.

Someone should pick the HW2 FS mod back up, thats already RTS and it was pretty fun last time i played it, even in its half finished state, unless the aim is for a less outdated engine (prepare for homeworld 3 perhaps? )

[colecampbell666]

I meant Sins of a Solar Empire, the game is much more cunducive to FS gameplay.

[Droid803]

The only FS mod for Sins is FS1.
No beams.
BOOOORRRING.

It also crashes on me.

[Aardwolf]

The only FS mod for Sins is FS1.
No beams.
BOOOORRRING.

It also crashes on me.

Actually, the Shivans have red beams for some stupid reason. Also, you need to manually patch SoaSE to the recent version, or it will crash upon enabling the mod.

Anyway, no progress on this project since last time.

[Droid803]

You can't manually patch sins to the newest version. You need to download if off Impulse and it'll autoinstall.
And I've played as the Shivans - never saw a beam.

[Aardwolf]

Oh... maybe I had it backwards. But the Shivans definitely had beams. Lilith and Demon, I think, had 'em.

Anyway, back on topic!!!! The FreeSpace in FreeSpace RTS Mod (not to be confused with the FreeSpace in Sins or FreeSpace in Homeworld 2 mods)

Edit (rather than double-posting): I've made a prettier-looking version of the mod's site. For now, it's at A Different URL, but once I've made sure there's no bugs with it, I'll replace the main index page with this one.

[Aardwolf]

So, the mod is at a point where we need to do make flowcharts. That is, we need to plan ahead a bit, how the UI will work. "The E" has offered his help, and I obviously am going to want a part in it. I'll probably be creating a new topic on the RTS forum about this shortly.

Not much work has been going on recently, though. I got distracted by a number of other things (including school).

[Aardwolf]

Okay forget about flowcharts.

Basically, we need some interface art people, to make stuff like:

• Action button icons
• 3D modeling/texturing for the 3d components of the interface (particularly if we end up needing a quit or pause-menu dialog)

Also, some more people with scripting talents would be welcome.

[Jake2447]

Are buttons going to be 3d objects or just images?

[Aardwolf]

The plan right now is for them to be just images, drawn in the correct place so that they look like they're "on" the surface of the 3d control panel.

I've already made a decent 'template' button, which is drawn in every slot where a button can go (there is room for 10 buttons, in 2 rows of 5). It has a normal, mouse-over, and pressed appearance. Then, each actual action would have an icon that goes with it.

The icons would have two states: a 'valid' and 'invalid' state. The valid icon is drawn when the action is actually doable, whereas the 'invalid' state will appear if the action is applicable for the ships you have selected, but cannot be executed for some reason, er go if one or more of the ships you have selected are jump-capable, but none of them have their jump drives charged, you'd see the 'invalid' version. Basically, this would be a grayscale copy of the normal icon. However, because of the way the icons are drawn, they need to have proper alpha-channels (transparency), and it seems like the grayscale version will have to be darker and less opaque overall.

[Jake2447]

The plan right now is for them to be just images, drawn in the correct place so that they look like they're "on" the surface of the 3d control panel.

I've already made a decent 'template' button, which is drawn in every slot where a button can go (there is room for 10 buttons, in 2 rows of 5). It has a normal, mouse-over, and pressed appearance. Then, each actual action would have an icon that goes with it.

The icons would have two states: a 'valid' and 'invalid' state. The valid icon is drawn when the action is actually doable, whereas the 'invalid' state will appear if the action is applicable for the ships you have selected, but cannot be executed for some reason, er go if one or more of the ships you have selected are jump-capable, but none of them have their jump drives charged, you'd see the 'invalid' version. Basically, this would be a grayscale copy of the normal icon. However, because of the way the icons are drawn, they need to have proper alpha-channels (transparency), and it seems like the grayscale version will have to be darker and less opaque overall.

I have an idea of "holographic" style buttons.  The buttons would be transparent except for a bright color (such as the default green color for the fs2 hud), if you could work out an animation they could grow when the mouse hovers over it, and then when pressed it would change color.

Not sure if that is the style you had in mind though.

EDIT: Quick example I made in about 2 minutes in GIMP



Obviously a final version could have more effects with transparency or a glassy appearance...

[Aardwolf]

Oops, I didn't see your reply.

We're probably just going to stick to two versions of the images, one grayed out and one normal. The shape of the button is (at least right now) stored in a separate image, which has mouseover and mouse-click versions. That much is working. So that sort of square outline would be unnecessary.

I think we'll want to keep it fairly simple. Consider the sort of button images for unit actions in StarCraft, for example.

I can't easily come up with a complete list of all the buttons we might need, but... here's a list of some of the ones that come to mind:

• Move
• Attack
• Stay Still
• Defend (probably just for fighters)
• Enter fighterbay (for fighters)
• Deploy fighters (for ships with fighterbays)
• Jump (in-system)
• Cancel (for actions which require a target)

Move and attack actions don't necessarily conflict with each other for warships, so they might need to be independently assignable and cancellable.

[Droid803]

Attack Move? It's a fairly often used command in RTSes. At least for me...
ie. A fighter wing will move to a designated point but will break off and attack anything hostile that it picks up along the way, instead of a plain move order which means "ignore the **** and go there NAO."

[Aardwolf]

I can't really visualize a definite way it would work.

[Droid803]

Well, the way the engine is now, if you tell a fighter to do waypoints, they'll basically attack move already.
It's more of making the 'move' command have the ship moving ignore targets that it can't shoot with its turrets (if it has any) without straying from the path.

'tis for micro.

[Aardwolf]

Really? I figured missions like that (er go Mystery of the Trinity) cleared the orders when hostiles showed up, and then gave them again when it was time to fight. But I haven't looked into it in much depth...

[bobbtmann]

Really? I figured missions like that (er go Mystery of the Trinity) cleared the orders when hostiles showed up, and then gave them again when it was time to fight. But I haven't looked into it in much depth...

Probably not important, but could you enlighten me on your meaning of "er go"? You've used this couple of times in this thread and it's throwing me off.

[Droid803]

eg.

you know, example.