Author Topic: Looking for some lost files  (Read 22913 times)

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Offline JGZinv

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Re: Looking for some lost files
The weapons and such are coded into the exe, no one has a good idea of where they are buried.

To get the data I used for our mod, I ended up buying the Mars Guide and that is based on pre release information, and in many ways, wrong.
So I spent a good month or so running tests in game, trying to measure the weapons.

What I came up with is that Tachyon uses it's own armor system, which is based on factions, what weapon is used, how fast it hits a target, it has a chance to bypass the shield.
It got to be so complicated that I reached out to one of the devs to confirm my suspicions and he thought it was even more complicated.

Pretty much all you can do to the actual weapons is freeze the memory values, giving you infinite ammo/energy/burners/shield, or there's a old hack that was called a "godrail"
where you edit a capital ship beam turret into a weapon slot, which has infinite range, infinite damage, and mostly fires instantly. The graphic used in the various
capital beams is also so large, it blocks your view. For a variety of reasons I can't give the godrail out.

...and before you try it, I spent a ton of time trying to get a capital ship playable. There were rumors that someone did it, but I figured they probably model swapped their ship
instead of actually ever making it work.  The game does some trickery with the training rings files and builds a base or cap using a OCF file as a multipart object.
Ultimately the closest I got was a "almost" flyable base.  See the base lasted about 3-4 seconds as a playable ship, then started self destructing, which soon after crashed the game.

Been there, tried that. Sounds good, doesn't work.
True power comes not from strength, but from the soul and imagination.
Max to PCS2 to FS2 SCP Guide
The FringeSpace Conversion Mod

 
Re: Looking for some lost files
You tried to make a capital ship playable? Wow (0_o). Don't worry I won't try anything like that.

The only thing that I ever tried but without success was to make the tachyon mega-gates that are in the game selectable, so that I could open them. The plan was to make a "Bonus Mission",  so when I finally finished the game, I could do a "Free roam" through space and all of its sectors, just to pass the time.  I would only need to enter the the Letzer ring training course mission in the HUB, I would only need to target a mega-gate, type the cheat code and enter it. Unfortunately I never knew how to make those gates selectable in the game (Only one can, the one in Neptune).

Is that even possible?

 

Offline Novachen

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Re: Looking for some lost files
PS: 100 cr in Ganymede? Where is it? I could only find the "Trade Goods" in that sector.

Right in the middle of the station itself. In the upper metal column of it.

Quote
(Only one can, the one in Neptune).

Yeah, interestingly it is a SOL Gate within SOL  :lol:
Actually even if it would be possible, i think the effect would be the same as you try to fly through the Gate in Neptune... your ship freezes and nothing happens.

Maybe this targetable gate is still a left over from the Beta Demo from 1999 where you actually did have a Free Roam feature.
Whole SOL seems to be a left over of all the plans Novalogic did have with the game. For example the "Security Breach" mission where you have a whole side quest in Luna... a sector you would not fly to for your main objectives.
« Last Edit: September 12, 2017, 04:47:04 am by Novachen »
Female FreeSpace 2 pilot since 1999.
Former Global moderator in the German FreeSpace Galaxy Forum.
Developer of NTP - A Multi-Language Translation Library Interface, which allows to play FreeSpace in YOUR Language.

Is one of my releases broken or not working? Please send a PM here, on Discord at @novachen or on Twitter @NovachenFS2, a public tweet or write a reply in my own release threads here on HLP, because these are the only threads i am still participating in.

 
Re: Looking for some lost files
Right in the middle of the station itself. In the upper metal column of it.

Thanks for the tip.

Yeah, interestingly it is a SOL Gate within SOL  :lol:
Actually even if it would be possible, i think the effect would be the same as you try to fly through the Gate in Neptune... your ship freezes and nothing happens.

Yeah, quite funny a gate to SOL in SOL XD, I believe it was left there so that the cutscene when you are exiled played properly.

As for what happens when you cross the mega-gate, I made some tests, and the results where many:

1: If you try to enter the HUB  mega-gate in Neptune (I edited the def_vars file to make that possible) when you are in a mission that is NOT the one that you are exiled, as you said the game freezes and crashes. When you do it when you are the Neptune mission the gate supposedly teleports you to the HUB region, but there is no space station, no gates, nothing, only emptiness.

2: If you try to enter any mega-gate to a different region, BEFORE you have visited it the first time by a normal method (Example: Try to go from the HUB to the Frontier just moments later you have been exiled), the game again freezes and crashes.

3: If you try to enter any mega-gate to a different region, AFTER you have visited it the first time by a normal method, the gate works perfectly fine with no bugs ore problems, except when you look back to the mega-gate you just came from, and you realize that it is closed and you have no way to go back DX. I tested this successfully on a mission with the Bora, the one that you have to kidnap a Galspan frigate. For a brief amount of time the mega-gate to the Frontier region opens, and if you are fast enough you can cross it with no problems, and if you want you can even dock at New Vegas station (Still you cant go back and you have to go back to Bora space and restart the mission from the beginning DX)

I could further look upon those problems in the future, but first, someone has to tell me HOW to make those mega-gates targetable.

That's all I ask.

 

Offline JGZinv

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Re: Looking for some lost files
Well there's a few things here since we're talking ancient history.

Novalogic as a company and management, I'd venture to say that they had no particular love for Tachyon. It was a business, the end.
The dev team was the ones who were passionate about Tachyon, and as the story goes they were inspired by the other games coming out, the sci fi of the time, and
literally sketched out some ideas on a napkin, went to their boss to get moderate funding, and went from there. Novalogic cut the project short and demanded it ship,
by which point many of the key devs were looking to greener pastures, and moving away. A couple devs stayed behind long enough to make the 3-4 patches to fix the worst
of the problems of the time.

None of them expected Tachyon to get such a cult following as it did and get such large international appeal.
By the time Novalogic started on Delta Force Angels Falls, they'd already spent a few years hawking the game library digitally over GameTap and a couple other early Steam Store wanna-be's.
Based on what I heard there was only one or two devs from Tachyon's dev team still at Novalogic by 2008/09 when we inquired.
--------------------------------------------------------

As to the gates, the beta is one potential solution. The SOL gate is the way it is because it was used for that cutscene. They didn't create a dummy gate to replace it post intro, so it's literally a leftover.
The gate that dumps you into a void, is because that gate doesn't have a target map file if I remember correctly. You can replicate this in multiplayer maps by not picking a destination gate in the editor.

As to free roam, I'm pretty sure I remember after you finish the campaign you can just reload the game and it goes back to before the final battle, you can free roam that way.
For several months RK hosted a multiplayer server that had all the HUB areas accessible.  I didn't look into it, but I think that's just something where you'd you'd simply setup the acessory files to use whatever campaign map, and the rest of the game doesn't care. Since the host system controls it it would work. The troublesome part is if you modifiy the map files then you have to distribute them to all players.

This is why TSB exists, because if you load a multiplayer player into a server running a map they don't have, or a background they don't have, it'll either crash, or they'll get in game but they can't see anything.

But yeah ultiamtely 11 sector multiplayer maps were a thing, I want to say either 11 or 13 was the highest. It just didn't play well, it was more for ****s n giggles.
1, 3, 4, 5, 7 were what we stuck with for playability. Doesn't mean that you couldn't do more.  RAM used to be a limitation, but that's hardly a concern anymore. There were also server tools made by modders
that allowed you to ban by IP, kick players, etc. But they were all exe based, so they were mostly dropped after the lobby moved hosts and the IP became too long.
True power comes not from strength, but from the soul and imagination.
Max to PCS2 to FS2 SCP Guide
The FringeSpace Conversion Mod

 

Offline JGZinv

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Re: Looking for some lost files
My only guess on making mega gates targetable would be that it's a separate class of object, which isn't targetable at all.  The cutscene gate remember too isn't a actual "gate" that works per say in game.
It's a prop, that looks like it works thanks to how the cutscene plays out. I kinda wonder if this isn't why every time you change regions, you get that auto pilot cutscene, to keep the
player from figuring out the mega's are just props.

The only way might be to copy the one animated gate to every location and target other maps. You'd either have to check if you can change the Mega in place on a campaign map, and it works,
or you might have to hex edit the gate in it's entirety between map files (which being they look like gibberish ought to be fun) and then open the map and set a destination. Either way I still
don't think it'll work because the gate isn't anything more than a prop. Megas just aren't setup like regular gates on the backend.

I don't know. You'd have to do a ton of work to swap the map entries for gates, the gate files would have to be swapped from a regular to a mega model file, the animation wouldn't work
properly because the shape is different, and the largest problem of all is I don't think all the necessary files are accessible. ANIM and SCRIPTs can't be modified if I recall, and some of that is going to
be in the exe.

I really don't think it's possible with the resources we have.
« Last Edit: September 12, 2017, 01:30:33 pm by JGZinv »
True power comes not from strength, but from the soul and imagination.
Max to PCS2 to FS2 SCP Guide
The FringeSpace Conversion Mod

 
Re: Looking for some lost files
I was thinking a more simple way.

The main problem to me seems to be in the files that compose a ships targeting system. It is program to target enemies, friends, neutrals, crates, nav buoys and gates. If we managed to add a new target option to identify the mega-gates, or at least edit the mega gate files to make them be identified as normal gates, then we would solve this problem. Since the SOL gate in Neptune, when targeted, it actually has the signatures of a normal gate.

As for the coordinates of where the gates should take you, I found that they are already set inside the map files, so there is no need worry about that.

 
Re: Looking for some lost files
I just found a little problem in the Bora story line, I hope there is a way to fix it:

In the Twilight region, there is an option to use a megagate that goes from there to the Ripstar region. The problem is, this gate could only be used when you are following the Galspan storyline, when you are playing as a Bora, the option to use that gate never appears.

If I could, I would edit, or create, a script in the game that would allow the megagate to RipstarĀ“s Liberty starbase available in the job board there, after the conclusion of the mission you perform for the Bora with Cassitor, since Anna tells you to proceed there once you complete the mission. Also, once the mission is completed and you receive the debriefing message, I would have to modify the script of the text to show a message saying the line that a new regional gate is available.

Unfortunately, I don't know exactly how to do it.

Does anyone knows how to do it and what files need to be modified?

 

Offline JGZinv

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Re: Looking for some lost files
Again, we do not nor have ever had the means to edit the scripts or mission files that dictate how a campaign mission works.
If we had, there quite likely would have been a lot of modding campaigns, much like FS2 here enjoyed.
True power comes not from strength, but from the soul and imagination.
Max to PCS2 to FS2 SCP Guide
The FringeSpace Conversion Mod

 
Re: Looking for some lost files
Again, we do not nor have ever had the means to edit the scripts or mission files that dictate how a campaign mission works.
If we had, there quite likely would have been a lot of modding campaigns, much like FS2 here enjoyed.

Ok, thanks anyway.

 
Re: Looking for some lost files
That's odd, I install both ship packs on my game in order to have access to all of their files, but when I open the tachyon.pff file, extract the files that I'm interested in and decrypt them, I found out that they remain unchanged, I mean, they remain been the originals, with no modification (O_o). Weird.

Anyway, the only thing I was trying to do was something that was already been done, still, I needed to check it out on the mod to know how exactly to do it.

Turns out that those mods, somehow managed to make the game identify the new ships in the hangar by name. Everything name is correctly placed in every ship, with no issues in no starbase hangar. I tried to replicate this simple thing in my personal modifications, but every time I try, something goes wrong or simply nothing happens.

On the place where the name should appear, it only shows a weird text saying "!Ship Desc"

How can I fix that?

 

Offline JGZinv

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Re: Looking for some lost files
Sonic's mods if I remember correctly used a launcher or patcher if you will that loaded the mod files directly before launching the game.
What I ended up doing to get at his files was create an empty PFF (duplicate PFF and strip all the files out of it so it's a container) and let the launcher
place files into it. Then you have just his mod files and can tell what the changes were vs. stock.

Multiplayer and single player availability of ships are two different things, other than maybe one or two areas.
You've not been super clear on what you're trying to accomplish. Are you trying to mod Sonic's files into campaign somehow differently?

Multiplayer you can only add so many ships before the menu system breaks if I remember right. Campaign, granted you "can" add more than the default
number of ships, but it doesn't work at the ship select menu then. You have to scrap ships, and even then there's a bug where the stock ships won't actually
go away after you sell them, so you can never select the mod ships. Few modders figured out how to add ships to campaign, and in doing so it breaks the mission flags
as best I can tell. Like if you remove or change the Mako, you will break the game right away when you are exiled to the Fringe.

There's another one where you can't progress later on in the fringe, an event won't trigger to pickup something. Then there's the one with the freighter going to the GS base
being attacked by Daggers where the freighter won't spawn in the last sector if you have a modded ship. 

It isn't as simple as it seems to get things working.

True power comes not from strength, but from the soul and imagination.
Max to PCS2 to FS2 SCP Guide
The FringeSpace Conversion Mod

 
Re: Looking for some lost files
You've not been super clear on what you're trying to accomplish. Are you trying to mod Sonic's files into campaign somehow differently?

Im only trying to make the game recognize the new ships by name, you know, when you go to the hangar and you look up, you see the name of the ship displayed (Pegasus, Orion etc). In my case instead, the extra ships I managed to put in the hangar only shows "!Ship Desc" in the text box. I only wanted to know how to fix that.

Regardless, after many tries and errors, I managed to locate and extract some of Sonic's modified files I needed to start looking for a solution, with the exception of the "SOLPTRLF.des" file. Can you post this file here please ?

I'll keep you updated if I managed to find a solution.

Edit: There is no need to post the des fille anymore, I already found him.
« Last Edit: September 19, 2017, 09:30:56 pm by Guibaesa »

 

Offline JGZinv

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Re: Looking for some lost files
No the weapons settings are in the EXE.  Those also are not accessible. Although you can use a memory freeze tool to change your stats like energy, ammo, etc.
True power comes not from strength, but from the soul and imagination.
Max to PCS2 to FS2 SCP Guide
The FringeSpace Conversion Mod

  
Re: Looking for some lost files
No the weapons settings are in the EXE.  Those also are not accessible. Although you can use a memory freeze tool to change your stats like energy, ammo, etc.

No worries, I already found a solution using Cheat Engine XP

Anyway, thanks for everything.