Hard Light Productions Forums
Modding, Mission Design, and Coding => The Modding Workshop => Topic started by: Freespace Freak on August 22, 2006, 09:24:11 pm
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So I decided to jump in with you guys into the looney bin. I'm going to try my hand at a little bit of modding, but I wanted to ask you guys a few things before I jumped in. This is a long read, so bear with me.
First of all, I'm new to the SCP and it may take me awhile to get used to the whole modding thing, so don't do this to me :headz: when I ask for a little help. The good news is, the mod that I'm doing first is essentially a table edit, with maybe a few tweaks on some missions with FRED. I've had a few conversations with Snail over this mod, where I was asking his help to make what I've call the "FS1 Overhaul" mod. And the concept behind it is this:
There's been some discussion about the discrepency between the Shivan ships in FS2 and FS1. I played FS2 first, and what made me want to play FS1 was when I first played the mission in the nebula where I you were to escort the Lysander and the Actium. The pilots had a conversation that went something like this: "Can you imagine what it must of been like during the Great War?" To which the other pilot responded, "Yeah. No shields, no beam cannons, no flak turrets." To me, this implied that the Shivans had all of these things, but we did not, which would make FS1 really tough, which sounded fun. So I went to CompUSA and got it, complete with the Silent Threat campaign.
After playing it for awhile, I started to notice something. Yes, we had no shields, which the Shivans had, but where are the Shivans beam cannons, and flak guns? Then it turned out there never were any flak guns, and only the Lucifer had a wannna be "flux cannon," which if you stretch your imagination far enough, you might call it a beam cannon. Indeed, it appears that :v: wants you to think this, because the intro cutscene to FS2 has the Lucifer clearly firing a beam cannon, destroying an Orion, which has to be the Galatea, during the battle of Deneb.
So, beams, along with shields, were according to canon taken from Shivan technology. If that's so, then we are expected to believe that only the Lucifer had beam cannons, and no one had anti-fighter beams nor flak guns during the Great War. So, the GTVA developed beam cannons and not only equipped their destroyers with them, but equipped all of their capital ships with them. At the same time, we are expected to believe that by some strange miracle of chance, the Shivans also developed beam cannons for their smaller ships along with the anti-fighter beams and flak guns and equipped all of their capital ships with them, too. This means that both sides had not only spontaneously invented new technology, but had given all their ships nearly identical armament schemes all without knowing that the other side was doing the same thing. This is preposterous! And when the two sides encounter eachother after being seperated for 32 years, neither one bats an eye at this incredible coincidence.
How is this possible? Answer: the coincidence never occured. If :v: had the technology, I believe we would have seen beam cannons and the like on all Shivan ships during FS1, but since such graphics technology wasn't readily available at the time, they either dropped it, or just invented it for FS2 and damn the consequence. My mod aims to eliminate these discrepencies.
This 'FS1 Overhaul' mod will make the Shivan ships more like their FS2 iterations. In other words, they'll all have Beam cannons, and anti-fighter beams. These beam-equipped Shivan ships will be similar to their FS2 counterparts, but the beam weapons will be individually slightly less damaging, and the armor a bit more weak to make it look like the FS2 versions had been 'upgraded' a bit. To make it balanced, I'll use Snail's table edit for his T/V War mod. His T/V War mod increases the firing rate, damage, and velocity of all T/V weapons, so T/V warships are actually capable of doing something besides just being big lumbering targets as they are in vanilla FS1. This will make the T/V ships quite formidable, but not quite so much as the Shivan ships. Other balance issues would just need a little tweaking in FRED to alter the missions to make them beatable. Essentially, the player will have to destroy Shivan beam cannons to complete his mission objectives.
Now we have the issue of the flak guns, and this is where I need all of your opinion. Flak guns always struck me as being a characteristically human weapon. They're projectile weapons that cause shrapnel damage, instead of big blobs of weird looking energy bolts that you'd expect from some sort of alien technology. I can't have flak guns be something that T/V forces have at the beginning of the Great War, because this would contradict that pilot who said "No shields, no beam weapons, no flak guns." So to close this particular discrepency, I have two solutions and I'd like to all of you to contemplate. The consensus on the scenario that's chosen will be the one that I'll put in my mod(s).
Scenario one: The Shivans have flak gun technology and it's present at the onset of the Great War, when they encounter the T/V forces. The T/V forces adopt this Technology from the Shivans.
Scenario two: The flak gun is developed by T/V forces sometime after the Lucifer is destroyed, but is either captured or studied by the Shivans before they're driven from T/V space. This would close this descrepancy, explaining why the Shivans have this technology when the GTVA encounters them again in Gamma Draconis. This would also work because, unlike beam and shield technology, it is never expressly stated that we adopted this technology from the Shivans. It's never expressly stated that the Shivans adopted it from us, either, so it could go either way.
I personally prefer scenario two. However, Scenario two would need a full campaign to explore, which I wouldn't be able to do by myself. However, we could go through with that campaign regardless of which scenario is chosen, because it deals with the end of the Great War and the beginning faction crisis after the collapse of the GTA. Later, I'll disclose the details of the concept for this campaign after the scenario is agreed upon. If there's enough interest from the community to develop it, then I'll work with you guys to make it. :D
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We're going to overload the welcome beam cannons tonight.
I'll leave the questions for the FS2 pros. Asking questions never hurts, well as long as you don't ask that forbidden question :drevil: A table editor and fredders seem to always been in short supply around here.
Oh and Welcome to the club. :)
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Thanks, but I'll take opinions from non-modders, too. Let me know what your opinion is, regardless of 'expert' status, cause I am by no means an expert myself. I don't care who you are, as long as you like Freespace, I want your opinion!
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Arr. More modders is always good. Welcome :)
I should note, tho, that the Orion destroyed in the FS2 intro cutscene was confirmed by Volition as NOT being the Galatea. Most fanon has it as being called the GTD Legion, although the campaign "Beyond the Cause" has it as the GTD Urateries.
Also, Scenario Two that you mention (after Silent Threat, beginning of the Terran Blocs) is precisely the setting of my campaign-under-construction, Eagle Takes Flight. Methinks we could have a chat. :nod:
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I should note, tho, that the Orion destroyed in the FS2 intro cutscene was confirmed by Volition as NOT being the Galatea.
That's good to know! So, I take it that you prefer scenario two as being the preferred method for introducing the flak guns? I'll PM you what I sent Snail.
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More power to you. Never be afraid to ask questions, though. No Vasudans will do this :headz:.
You learn by asking questions, which is why I am sure that I've annoyed the hell outta the admins and advanced modders with all the stuff I've asked about! :D
You've all been a great help over the past year! :yes:
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Thanks guys! Er, um. Not to poke and prod, but which scenario do you two prefer? Scenario one, where flak guns are something the Shivans had from the get go which the Terrans and Vasudans adapted; or scenario two, where the Terrans or Vasudans invented flak guns and then the Shivans stole the technology before they dissappeared/were wiped out from known space?
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I like the first scenario.... no wait a minute why does all the GTVA's great technology have to be adapted? I vote second scenario.
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I like the first scenario.... no wait a minute why does all the GTVA's great technology have to be adapted? I vote second scenario.
I never thought about it that way, but yes. If scenario one is the case, then the implication that all of the GTVA's capital ship weapons technology, except for the laser turrets, would have been adapted from Shivan technology.
The only problem with scenario two is that it implies that the Shivans adapted technology from us, and Snail said the Shivans are not known for stealing or adapting technology from anybody. However, I don't know if what he said is canon. If it is canon, then I think I'll be forced to go with Scenario One. Are there any experts on this in the house?
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How exactly does a person qualify as an "expert" on Shivans? :doubt:
They're not known to steal or adapt technology for the simple reason that they almost never need to. Whenever they attack a spacefaring race, Shivan tech is always several centuries ahead. I'm sure that if they saw a useful technology that they didn't have, they'd use it.
There is no canon source either way, no sources say Shivans adapt, no sources say Shivans never adapt.
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Arr. More modders is always good. Welcome :)
I should note, tho, that the Orion destroyed in the FS2 intro cutscene was confirmed by Volition as NOT being the Galatea. Most fanon has it as being called the GTD Legion, although the campaign "Beyond the Cause" has it as the GTD Urateries.
Also, Scenario Two that you mention (after Silent Threat, beginning of the Terran Blocs) is precisely the setting of my campaign-under-construction, Eagle Takes Flight. Methinks we could have a chat. :nod:
Didn't someone also call it the GTD Minnow somewhere? Or am I making that up?
(did check; the Minnow and Intrepid were guarding the Antares-Vasuda node and the Bastion & Galatea Bastion - without another capship mentioned at Deneb, and it not being the Bastion, I can only surmise the ship destroyed was not mentioned in CBs - i.e. the Legion - or that either the Intrepid or Minnow were somehow pulled into Deneb to reinforce the fleet, something that only makes minimal sense and would presumably only be to try and engage the key threat posed by the Lucifer)
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I guess I meant to say expert on the canon lore. A person with access to archival interviews with :v: Like whoever said that the Orion destroyed in the intro cutscene for FS2 wasn't the Galatea. I didn't know that, and I don't know where that information came from, but it had to come from somewhere.
I agree with you. It seems that the Shivans wouldn't need to adapt technology from other sources, but that doesn't mean they wouldn't. It would seem that they wouldn't need to for one, and their technological level from when T/V forces first encountered them in FS1 seems unchanged from when the Ancients first encountered them. So it looks like they never upgraded their technology much since then, meaning they don't adapt.
But now I have a new theory to postulate. Suppose it's true that the Shivans are an artificial species. Suppose their brains are wired to be very analytical, but not creative. In other words, they're perfectly capable of adapting their enemies' technology, and even improving the technology they adapt, but they're not capable of inventing new technology from scratch. So, they can make new fighters, bombers, capital ships, etc. as long as it's all based on technology that's already developed, but they won't invent stuff on their own. This would explain why their technological level is the same from what it was when they destroyed the Ancients, whilst showing how they adapted flak guns, created new ships for FS2, and upgraded their technology a bit.
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Yuck, we're getting into FS3 theory territory here. :ick:
It's a good theory, and certainly makes the Shivans no less dangerous.
The reason I said the top statement was because if the Shivans are artificial, the next quesion someone's gonna ask is: who created them?
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The reason I said the top statement was because if the Shivans are artificial, the next quesion someone's gonna ask is: who created them?
That's where the campaign I'm working on comes in *grin*
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Yuck, we're getting into FS3 theory territory here. :ick:
It's a good theory, and certainly makes the Shivans no less dangerous.
The reason I said the top statement was because if the Shivans are artificial, the next quesion someone's gonna ask is: who created them?
Who knows? I wish :v: would be so kind as to release that information.
Either way, we don't need that premise for this to work, it would just be a plausibilty as to why things turned out as they did. They are an adaptable species, just not a very creative one. Much like the Neanderthals, who had the same technology for half a million years before adopting Homo Sapiens technology after they had encountered them. They were certainly as smart as us, they just for some reason or another completely incapable of concieving of things that don't exist, so they couldn't invent new technology.
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I guess I meant to say expert on the canon lore. A person with access to archival interviews with :v: Like whoever said that the Orion destroyed in the intro cutscene for FS2 wasn't the Galatea. I didn't know that, and I don't know where that information came from, but it had to come from somewhere.
Developer comments on the VBB or VWBB most likely.
I agree with you. It seems that the Shivans wouldn't need to adapt technology from other sources, but that doesn't mean they wouldn't. It would seem that they wouldn't need to for one, and their technological level from when T/V forces first encountered them in FS1 seems unchanged from when the Ancients first encountered them. So it looks like they never upgraded their technology much since then, meaning they don't adapt.
They didn't have to.
But now I have a new theory to postulate. Suppose it's true that the Shivans are an artificial species. Suppose their brains are wired to be very analytical, but not creative. In other words, they're perfectly capable of adapting their enemies' technology, and even improving the technology they adapt, but they're not capable of inventing new technology from scratch. So, they can make new fighters, bombers, capital ships, etc. as long as it's all based on technology that's already developed, but they won't invent stuff on their own. This would explain why their technological level is the same from what it was when they destroyed the Ancients, whilst showing how they adapted flak guns, created new ships for FS2, and upgraded their technology a bit.
Except they beat the ancients, lost the Great War, and then came back with oodles of new weaponry including the rather impressive ability to destroy a star, which surely indicates they either do adapt, or that they didn't send the big guns out in FS1. Particularly as the Sathani is more powerful than anything the GTVA can throw at them, when you consider the subspace 'weapon' it appears to have.
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Where are these developer comments. I've perused the Freespace Watch board, but I haven't seen any. Gotta link? Not to pry, aldo_14, but, which scenario do you prefer?
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Where are these developer comments. I've perused the Freespace Watch board, but I haven't seen any. Gotta link?
Not offhand. The Volition peeps stopped really interacting with the community well before my time, and I think the majority of/ best stuff was on the now-dead VBB anyways.
quote author=Freespace Freak link=topic=41793.msg852925#msg852925 date=1156344737]
Not to pry, aldo_14, but, which scenario do you prefer?
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Which scenario of what?
Neither. My position is that we haven't seen anything close to what the Shivans are capable of, and that their apparent technological progression was simply the result of them committing more valuable assets to the 'frontline' for whatever purpose made Capella valuable to them (whereas FS1 was a low priority engagement to them, a simple casual act of - attempted - xenocide done as almost an afterthought).
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So you don't think it's strange that when the GTVA and the Shivans re-encountered one another in Gamma Draconis, that the Shivans had exactly the same technology as the GTVA. They both had flak guns, they both had anti-fighter beams, and they both had Lucifer-style beams equipped on every capital ships, including the small cruisers, even though none of this was true for either side during the Great War.
So, you're saying you have no problem with the idea that both sides invented this technology independantly without being in contact with one another and equipped all of their ships with the exact same design philosophy all without knowing the other side was doing the same thing?
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So you don't think it's strange that when the GTVA and the Shivans re-encountered one another in Gamma Draconis, that the Shivans had exactly the same technology as the GTVA. They both had flak guns, they both had anti-fighter beams, and they both had Lucifer-style beams equipped on every capital ships, including the small cruisers, even though none of this was true for either side during the Great War.
So, you're saying you have no problem with the idea that both sides invented this technology independantly without being in contact with one another and equipped all of their ships with the exact same design philosophy all without knowing the other side was doing the same thing?
They're not the same design philosophy; we know the Shivan ships, for example, have better subspace drives, different abilities, and are - in theory and description if not actual gameplay - vastly superior to GTVA designs (take the command briefing description of the Ravana in Slaying Ravana, or the shocked messages from your wingmen regarding the speed of the Maras when you first take them on).
Moreso, we're not talking a rocket science level here, anyways. For all we know, the GTVA developed beams by examining scans, etc, of the Lucifer as they did with the likes of shield technology; in which case it'd be flak guns - a relatively common sense concept IMO - which are the 'oddity'. Even then, there's still less basis for assuming the Shivans copied the GTVA as there is for the GTVA somehow copying the Shivans, given the aformentioned statements indicating Shivan superiority in all departments.
And, of course, there's no upper 'cap' on Shivan weapons; for all that 'we' know, they are deploying ships designed to test the GTVA rather than annihilate, like some cosmic game of chess to prepare them for a real foe, or stimulate cultural progression, or even simply to end the internal warfare of the TV war or NTF rebellion by providing a strong enemy that forces the GTVA to make peace-or-die.
Finally, I'd hazard a guess that the Lucy flux cannons are far more powerful than any GTVA beam weapon and possibly even the BFRed.
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there doesn't have to be an in-game explanation. It's simply that computers had progressed so that FS2 could include such things, and they innovated it to improve on FS1, which was their first attempt. Why does there have to be an "in-game" rationalisation for it ?
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Because he's trying to make a retro-mod: a FS1 mod based on lore from FS2, simple as that, I for one would love to see this
btw, Scenario 2 for me please.
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Finally, I'd hazard a guess that the Lucy flux cannons are far more powerful than any GTVA beam weapon and possibly even the BFRed.
I'm not so sure. The Lucifer flux guns took six hits to destroy an Orion... it's been awhile since I've played "Feint! Parry!Riposte!", but isn't that about equivalent to the Colossus's main beam weapons?
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Quick question....
How did you find Freespace at CompUSA?? I couldn't find it anywhere! When did you buy it?
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Where did that come from? ComUSA hasn't been mentioned in here... :wtf:
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Quick question....
How did you find Freespace at CompUSA?? I couldn't find it anywhere! When did you buy it?
1999
Edit: That was Freespace 2, sorry. I got Freespace: The Great War in 2000
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Because he's trying to make a retro-mod: a FS1 mod based on lore from FS2, simple as that, I for one would love to see this
btw, Scenario 2 for me please.
Yes, this is essentially what I'm trying to do. You can rationalize that "the Shivans all the technology you can think of," but if the Shivans truly had all of this technology already in reserve, they just didn't want to "use" it on us at that point, how did they know to equip their ships with these beam weapons and flak guns to match our technology when they encountered the GTVA in Gamma Draconis? Remember, there was no contact between the GTVA and the Shivans for 32 years. If :v: is to be believed, then during that time the Terrans and Vasudans acquired beam technology from the Shivans, invented anti-fighter beams and flak guns completely from scratch, and equipped all their capital ships with it. When the Shivans reappeared in Gamma Draconis, they also had all of these things equipped, but they haven't seen the GTVA in 32 years. How did they know that the GTVA had this technology and to equip their ships with it before the chance encounter in Gamma Draconis. It just doesn't make sense.
What makes sense is that :v: added this technology to both sides because it was cool. My belief is that if they had the graphics technology, they would do exactly what I'm doing with this mod, that is to have the shivans have beam weapons, true beam weapons as we see them in FS2, not the imitation flux cannons. As brandx0 said, this is a retro mod.
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Isn't it possible that both species developed the technology simultaneously?\
Edit: And yes, it was cool.
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Quick question....
How did you find Freespace at CompUSA?? I couldn't find it anywhere! When did you buy it?
CompUSA? I dont even think they had it when it was new!
My copy came from EB Games, personally...
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My father bought mine, long ago when it first came out. I don't know where he got it. I think he bought it because it had the word "Descent" in it (he loves the Descent games). He didn't even pass the trainings; I got hooked on it soon afterward. FS2 I got off of Ebay ($60! :ick:) maybe two years ago.
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I first got Descent: FreeSpace - Darkness Rising (the OEM version) with my Dell Windows 95. I watched as my dad played. When he couldn't pass training 2 (when it told me to target one of the subsytems, I only pressed S once so it targetted Navi, not Weapons, so we couldn't pass), he stopped playing and I forgot it for a while. Two years later, I started it up again after reading a walkthrough and I blew away all the drones. I completed it up to the Taranis mission where the OEM finished. I really liked FS1, and I bugged my dad to buy it. After a while, we got a release which included FS1, Disc 1, Disc 2, FS2, Disc 1, Disc 2, Disc 3, and the Manual disc.
And... Um... FreeSpaceFreak, aren't we making a campaign that takes place after FS1 and deals with the Terran blocs... I 'are' so confused...
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Er, um, yes, that would be option 2. The purpose of this thread is to see what the publics reaction to having the flak guns being developed by Terrans or Vasudans and have the Shivans 'adapt' it.
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Finally, I'd hazard a guess that the Lucy flux cannons are far more powerful than any GTVA beam weapon and possibly even the BFRed.
I'm not so sure. The Lucifer flux guns took six hits to destroy an Orion... it's been awhile since I've played "Feint! Parry!Riposte!", but isn't that about equivalent to the Colossus's main beam weapons?
Well, they have 15 000 damage, fire at 10s rates, and considering firing rates and recharge time vis-a-vis the Colossus LRBGreens, I'd say they definately are (and lets not forget the Big C overloaded its power grids firing it's own beam as well as melting chunks of the hull, whilst the far smaller Lucifer was able to use its main weapon and still maintain an invulnerable sheath shield... plus that's assuming the super-cannon was the same weapon as is seen destroying Vasuda Prime in the cabani)
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Aggreeing with Aldo here, Computer tech advanced enought to include fancy effects, If :v: hadn't added new gubbins, why on earth would we buy it...............
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CompUSA? I dont even think they had it when it was new!
My copy came from EB Games, personally...
They had the strategy guide. I read about the mission with the Plato while sitting in an aisle at CompUSA a year or more before I actually got FS1. That's part of the reason I got FS1, happened to recognize the Apollo on the case.
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Aggreeing with Aldo here, Computer tech advanced enought to include fancy effects, If :v: hadn't added new gubbins, why on earth would we buy it...............
Yes, and this mod makes it so that the lore is in step with the advanced real-world tech. That way we can say "Yes, we got beam cannon technology from the Shivans. See here (this mod) the Shivans have beam cannons and anti-fighter beams. The Lucifer on the other hand, had these massive beams we have not been able to replicate. They're in another category all together. We call the flux cannons." That way the whole FS1-FS2 story is more continuous and we don't have to make excuses as to why we see both sides having all this stuff on all their ships at the same time that never existed in FS1.
So, I think I'm going to make this mod IAW Scenario 2. I'll start work on the table edits ASAP to add the beam cannons back to the Shivan ships in the FSPort, and upgrading the T/V weapons so they can actually do something and make the game more balanced. I'll probably have to tweak a few mission with FRED. As soon as I'm done with most of it, I'll ask some of you guys to beta test this FS1 Port Overhaul Mod, and see if there's any problems. I'm not sure if I'm going to test any of these missions' beatability on Insane difficulty since I can hardly beat very missions on Insane vanilla style.
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Cool, so this a table mod or a Freespace port add-on ?
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Cool, so this a table mod or a Freespace port add-on ?
Er, yes! :yes: It's mostly a table mod, but I want to release it as an optional add on to the Freespace Port. A lot of people are going to want to see what FS1 looks like "old school" version with just the new shiny SCP graphics. Others who have played FS1 many times over would just like to see what it's like to play against Shivans equipped with beam weapons. It makes it scarier (they have beams, we don't) and more fun, plus it makes the gap in tech and ship design philosophy from FS1 to FS2 more continuous. I'll have to do some Fredding to make sure all the missions from the campaign are balanced. After that, it's just beta testing and then releasing.
Then, I'm gonna work with several people on making a new campaign. I'm still working out the details on its storyline, but part of it will chronicle the development of GTVA weapons we're familiar with in FS2, among them flak guns and GTVA-style beam weapons.
I'm going to be going to school full time and working full time, plus I'm a newb at this, so don't expect a fast release. I'm strapped for time, plus I gotta make sure my wife knows I still love her and I'm not placing games or modding before her. :nod: That could make her angry and want to destroy my computer. That would be bad... :eek2:
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Cool, so this a table mod or a Freespace port add-on ?
plus I gotta make sure my wife knows I still love her and I'm not placing games or modding before her. :nod: That could make her angry and want to destroy my computer. That would be bad... :eek2:
I hear ya, I used to live in the modding forum about 5 years back, Now i rarely release a mission.
The FS Port has all new shiny bits already BTW...
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The FS Port has all new shiny bits already BTW...
I know that, and I'm not changing graphics or anything, I'm just equipping all the Shivan vessels in FS1 with beam weapons, mostly. No new models, no new shiny graphics. Just what I stated, Shivan ships will have beam weapons, similar to what's in FS2, but less powerful and with weaker turret armor. Terran and Vasudan ships will be mostly the same as vanilla FS1, but I'm increasing their turrets' damage, firing rate, and velocity to make T/V ships more formidable, but not an absolute terror like the Shivan ships. Other than that, just tweaking with FRED to make the missions balanced.
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Then we make a new campaign centered around the Regulus rebellion and the reconstruction era. :D
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K, so your sourcing the FS1 models and missions, just changing weapon info and balancing so its a FS port mod,
I understand completely.
:D
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Then we make a new campaign centered around the Regulus rebellion and the reconstruction era. :D
Yes, that'll be the biiiiig mega over my head project. :shaking:
The port mod I'm confident about though. I've only occasionally dabbled with FRED in the past, doing the tutorial. All I know is that it's a long, drawn out process. Me very scared. :eek:
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Fred 2 is a piece of cake, Just do the tutorial in Freddocs, then play with the SEXPS you havent used. Then open campaign missions to see how they're put together and you shouls have an "initmate knowledge" of it. :yes:
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I'm not good at fred, just okay at it. :(
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Practice Practise and Praktiss,
These three words will steer you true.