Hard Light Productions Forums
General FreeSpace => FreeSpace Discussion => Topic started by: paperjack on August 22, 2009, 01:32:46 pm
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I found my copy of FreeSpace 2 in my closet accidentally, and I lurked around the internet a bit for finding more information about this awesome game, so I came here. And I'm really surprised there is no Battlefleet Gothic mod.
Is there any reason for the lack of one of the awesomest universes ever ?
I mean, look at this (http://fc09.deviantart.com/fs30/f/2008/098/9/c/Battlefleet_Gothic_Scale_Chart_by_The_First_Magelord.png), they are like, screaming to be made into a mod.
(Is it even possible to have a 7km big starship into freespace2?)
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1. modelling such ships is going to be a challenge
2. thousands of cpu's&gpu's would scream out in pain at the huge amount of polys each ship has
3. piloting capships for a player isn't really that much 'fun', got fighters in battlefleet gothic?
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I hadn't heard of this before, but it looks like an interesting concept if someone (probably you) is willing to make it.
Is it even possible to have a 7km big starship into freespace2?
The Vishnan Preserver (http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/Vishnan_Preserver) is the biggest one I can find right now, but I think there was another ship that topped 20km.
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Needs moar fighters, but yeah, could be done. Learn to model...and you could do it!
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The Battlefleet Gothic ships make my head want to implode.
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there are fighters, too, I just can't find a picture: the Fury Interceptor and the Starhawk are designed for in-space only fighting, but there are tons of variants (each cap-ship has a different one, I think) and there are many other fighters that are able to be functional both in space and in-atmosphere.
Here's a more-or-less complete list of ships http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Imperial_Space_Fleet
Also, those are just the Imperial battleships, there are other races too in case you guys didn't know.
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I hadn't heard of this before, but it looks like an interesting concept if someone (probably you) is willing to make it.
Is it even possible to have a 7km big starship into freespace2?
The Vishnan Preserver (http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/Vishnan_Preserver) is the biggest one I can find right now, but I think there was another ship that topped 20km.
The Shivan Dante is pretty damn big.
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Gigas, Icanus from the Inferno R1 are damn big. Not too mention Colossus is 6km long. But the ships here aren't that great, most of them are almost same just a bit of change in colours/details so no jizzing here.
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Excuse me? HLP ships are pretty darn good!
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Gothic wouldn't adapt well. Most ships are simply too far out of a fighter's reach to attack.
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The Gargant tops 30KM.
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Gothic wouldn't adapt well. Most ships are simply too far out of a fighter's reach to attack.
what do you mean
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i think i would enjoy piloting cap ships... maybe thats just cuz i havent tried it :[
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what do you mean
Imperial Furies are ships which actually have a crew of as many as four and numerous lascannon, missiles, and autocannon. (That's easily bomber-class by FS definitions.) The Gothic rules have stated at various points that a whole squadron of Furies is either sufficent only for a single point of damage (which capital void shields will most likely save), or only enough to distract/suppress one point of the ship's turret strength from the bomber groups making a run. A whole squadron of them.
A squadron of bombers has, at best, a 50-50 chance of successfully dealing with most escort-class ships. The numbers quickly escalate out of control; 24 squadrons of bombers is considered good ante to assault a hostile battleship. It's not until you hit assault boats that a squadron-level attack really poses a significant threat of damage to most ships.
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24 squadrons is... 288 ships? :eek2: Or has Gothic redefined terms like FreeSpace did?
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i think i would enjoy piloting cap ships... maybe thats just cuz i havent tried it :[
The best-known game for that would be Independence War, I think, in which you pilot a "Corvette" class space ship, which falls in between smaller special-purpose designs, and full-size capital vessels. The only drawback I know of for that game may be its dependence on 3dFX's alternative graphics standard, "Glide".
After a quick trip to Games Workshop's web site, I am certain that I'd greatly prefer the Buck Rogers "Art Deco" look to that games' atrocious looking designs, if something unusual was really needed.
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Even if this went off, it would be visually boring as the Imperial ships are pretty much variations on the same uninteresting design that looks more like a spacebound version of Notre Dame than a serious warship, 7km long or not.
I speak as a Gue'vesa tho, I have not a care about those xenophobic fanatics. They who would burn entire planets to kill 10 Chaos, that reeks of Chaotic infection itself and I'll have nothing to do with it.
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I love gothic architecture, and if someone made a crossover themed along BFG lines I think it would be pretty awesome. That being said the BFG designs don't particularly appeal to me for whatever reason. Yes the ships have lots of detail, but that detail is repeated ad-nauseam so a person would just have to create the detail once then copy and boolean a bunch of pieces together.
With the right effects (firery broadsides) it would look pretty sweet.
And even if someone wanted to do a direct port of BFG you don't have to copy the boardgame exactly anyway. Could always shift things around so fighters become more important as a whole.
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Unfortunately I think BFG cap ship engagements take place over distances and at speeds that the FS engine isn't capable of reproducing, and even if it were it probably wouldn't be terribly impressive as you would rarely be able to see more than one ship at a time. Also the Alpha 1-centered gameplay that makes FS fun is sort of at odds with the nature of the 40K universe. Definitely some very cool ship designs there though; I think someone was making a BFG ship at scifi meshes or something.
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Unfortunately I think BFG cap ship engagements take place over distances and at speeds that the FS engine isn't capable of reproducing, and even if it were it probably wouldn't be terribly impressive as you would rarely be able to see more than one ship at a time. Also the Alpha 1-centered gameplay that makes FS fun is sort of at odds with the nature of the 40K universe. Definitely some very cool ship designs there though; I think someone was making a BFG ship at scifi meshes or something.
It doesn't have to be perfectly matching to BFG.
How many ships is too many for the FS2 engine ?
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http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/Engine_Limitations
400 ships max, but I suspect you'd probably hit other limits before getting there.
Dammit, I just remembered a sweet diorama from one of the open competitions of an imperial atmospheric fighter in its hangar bay and now I have to dig through a stack of old magazines to find it.
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Meh.
As long as any mod emulates the FEEL of the given universe, it's worth while I think. You don't need a gazillion fighters and a fleet of ships to make it BFG. Large battles like that are often not good in Freespace no matter what universe they're portraying.
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Excuse me? HLP ships are pretty darn good!
meant the battlefleet gothic ships. HLP ships are awesome.
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There was a BFG mod in progress for Homeworld 2 a few years ago; I used to check up on it but I think it might be dead (I can't quite find the thread on their forums). There were some sweet looking Eldar ships and some Imperial ones in it if IIRC.
HW2 would probably be a better platform for a BFG mod, considering the number of ships required (but if FSO in future could handle the numbers and distances involved I'd certainly give it a look).
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HW2 would probably be a better platform for a BFG mod, considering the number of ships required (but if FSO in future could handle the numbers and distances involved I'd certainly give it a look).
Uh . . . couldn't the same be said for Star Wars? But we have Fate of the Galaxy in the works.
Same could also be said for the Babylon Project and the Robotech mod.
ie all of those universes have battles that include more ships than the freespace engine could possibly handle. But people have worked on them regardless. So how is it any different with BFG????
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Model detail, for one. Second, all those universes have an established track record of Starfighters being important parts of any battle, thus giving us an easy entry point. BFG (Gotta love that acronym), on the other hand, seems to concentrate mainly on big ships, duking it out over vast distances, something that does not translate all that well to the basic concepts the FS2 engine was built on.
That being said, engines like Homeworld, or Nexus, which allow for a better control over capital ships, are probably better suited for a BFG mod.
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Uh . . . couldn't the same be said for Star Wars? But we have Fate of the Galaxy in the works.
Same could also be said for the Babylon Project and the Robotech mod.
ie all of those universes have battles that include more ships than the freespace engine could possibly handle. But people have worked on them regardless. So how is it any different with BFG????
That's true. I don't want to disparage anyone going ahead and trying to emulate a pilot's (or whoever's) perspective of BFG using FS2, even if the scale of the battles wouldn't be like it is in the 40k universe. It would still be cool.
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The best-known game for that would be Independence War, I think, in which you pilot a "Corvette" class space ship, which falls in between smaller special-purpose designs, and full-size capital vessels. The only drawback I know of for that game may be its dependence on 3dFX's alternative graphics standard, "Glide".
It's a Dreadnought class corvette, and it doesn't fail, Patcoms fail :p
CNV-301 is the sexy :o
I-War and Defience run fine, the briefings are a bit jittery but in software they're fine.. . . . . . windowed. :nervous:
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I don't want to detract from the topic too much, but for those interested here is the link to the thread about the HW2-BFG mod I mentioned above. http://forums.relicnews.com/showthread.php?t=73395 (http://forums.relicnews.com/showthread.php?t=73395)
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Model detail, for one. Second, all those universes have an established track record of Starfighters being important parts of any battle, thus giving us an easy entry point. BFG (Gotta love that acronym), on the other hand, seems to concentrate mainly on big ships, duking it out over vast distances, something that does not translate all that well to the basic concepts the FS2 engine was built on.
That being said, engines like Homeworld, or Nexus, which allow for a better control over capital ships, are probably better suited for a BFG mod.
Easy entry point? I would say constrained entry point myself. As in, there's no room to be creative. BFG is a boardgame which concentrates on fleet action. If Games Workshop published a game which concentrated on fighter squadrons would a mod suddenly be more desirable??? The fact that fighters are entirely abstract gives anyone working on the mod a lot of creative control (ie they can do whatever the hell they want).
I mean if the guy's talking about a BFG mod, obviously he's looking for a mod from the perspective of a fighter pilot. You don't go to Homeworld or Nexus to do fighter combat games do you?? Instead of everyone talking about how it's a bad idea. Why not talk about how it's an interesting idea, and what might need to be changed universe-wise to make it work.
IGNORE the fact that BFG is a fleet combat game. Instead focus on how to create a fighter combat game within the 40K universe.
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Well, it would probably end up similar to the BattleTech mod that's in the works, in that it would mostly be atmospheric combat. Fighters don't do that much in fleet battles in 40K. However, in ground battles, gunships and drop ships are often used, and the Tau are big fans of air support.
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The best-known game for that would be Independence War, I think, in which you pilot a "Corvette" class space ship, which falls in between smaller special-purpose designs, and full-size capital vessels. The only drawback I know of for that game may be its dependence on 3dFX's alternative graphics standard, "Glide".
It's a Dreadnought class corvette, and it doesn't fail, Patcoms fail :p
I-War and Defience run fine, the briefings are a bit jittery but in software they're fine.. . . . . . windowed. :nervous:
I'm afraid you lost me with the "Patcom" ?
http://www.acronymfinder.com/PatCom.html
Patent Committee?
:confused: :rolleyes:
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Patrol Combatant.
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there was a thread along similar lines about a month ago and the summery is that FS engine dont support player controlled capships well as it is a fighter based game i think it came down to things like turret control and mobility. so to make it work with minimal modification to the game physics the game would have to be fighter based and its a little hard to believe that 12 fighters including 4 bombers could kill a 30k ship
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In terms of graphics and greebles, am I correct in citing that FSO tends not to do so well because of these reasons?:
(a) I've heard FSO is only capable of using one processor.
(b) I've heard the biggest killer of performance is the outdated collision model.
(c) I get the general impression from reading various threads that the rendering engine is a bit outdated and also gets a little bogged down with the high levels of detail.
Are these assumptions true or partially true? If so, a BFG mod (or any other concievable thing to throw into FS... and FS itself) may not handle as well with the graphical requirements of such projects until the FSCRP manages to get around these issues.
-Thaeris
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My framerate always goes to **** in an asteroid field on high detail.
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I recall someone asking this before. A few reasons that a BFG mod won't work well.
1)The thing is any Warhammer 40K ship, be it a Cobra escort or a Retribution battlecruiser has many, many greebles and polygons. The FS engine will die if any of those ships is modelled to all its cathedral-like glory. Normal-mapping can only do so much for the details; some of the protrusions and like on the ships house cannons or launch bays.
2)All 40K ships have void shields. It's a minor issue, but you'd have to make a shield mesh for each and every ship.
3)Because of the void shield, fighters would be hard-pressed to do any damage to a ship with its shield up. They're not even fighters; they're more like gunships, with multiple turrets and pilots. For them to be of danger, the ship's shields would have to be down, and only another capital ship would be able to do that. The focus of the game would then shift from the fighters to the capital ships, and FS is a fighter game to begin with.
Of course, when all's said and done, if you wanna go ahead and model a BFG ship, go ahead. It'd be nice to have in game(assuming my CPU doesn't die).
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3)Because of the void shield, fighters would be hard-pressed to do any damage to a ship with its shield up. They're not even fighters; they're more like gunships, with multiple turrets and pilots. For them to be of danger, the ship's shields would have to be down, and only another capital ship would be able to do that. The focus of the game would then shift from the fighters to the capital ships, and FS is a fighter game to begin with.
Um. Dead wrong. Read the rules.
Bombers and Assault Craft IGNORE ship shields (as do ship to ship torpedoes)
And people saying that a bomber can't damage a ship are wrong as well.
An average cruiser, take the Imperial Lunar Class Cruiser. Or the Armageddon Class Battlecruiser. Both such cruisers have 8 "hitpoints"
Now each flight of bombers can do up to 6 hits (presumably one hit per bomber). So 12 bombers, can kill a cruiser. Is this ANY different from freespace whatsoever????? No. It's not. And one of these days people in this thread will wake up and realize that. (accounting for the fact that a BFG cruiser is a proper cruiser so probably somewhere between corvette and destroyer class)
A BFG escort-sized ship, used for patrolling and convoy duties has only 1 hitpoint. So it's probably as weak as a Cain or a Fenris in those terms. While the largest ships have only 12 hit points making them compartively weaker than Freespace super-capital ships. Even this dreaded blackstone fortress thing is only 16 hit points.
And of course fighters can't destroy capital ships. They can't destroy them in freespace either. They're designed to take out turrets and protect allied bombers. Just like in Freespace.
As for the models themselves. Yeah some of them have a lot of detail. Big deal, abstract it. Deal with it. Detail can be sacrificed for the sake of modding it in the first place. Hell Space Marine power armour has a lot of detail. But there are two games where you can have dozens of the things onscreen, so what's the difference.
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1)The thing is any Warhammer 40K ship, be it a Cobra escort or a Retribution battlecruiser has many, many greebles and polygons. The FS engine will die if any of those ships is modelled to all its cathedral-like glory. Normal-mapping can only do so much for the details; some of the protrusions and like on the ships house cannons or launch bays.
Look at the HTL Hades, then tell me why if something like that can be in-game, why space cathedrals can't, with proper detail boxing it should be feasible. True, that is the cutscene model, but if it can be optimized, so can these ships.
However, you'd have to throw away any dreams of BoEs and limit missions to 2-3 capships in existence at a time like the retail campaigns do. While apparently that's not quite true to the universe, it's just up to the mission designer to make it believable.
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These ships look lame AND ugly...what a combination. I hope the SCP engine is not infected with this ugly universe's crap. A metallic eagle headpiece...SERIOUSLY??? Give me FS and BSG ships any day over this lameness...
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These ships look lame AND ugly...what a combination. I hope the SCP engine is not infected with this ugly universe's crap. A metallic eagle headpiece...SERIOUSLY??? Give me FS and BSG ships any day over this lameness..
... Whilst I may not agree on bringing BFG to FS, I must ask you, sir, to take back your insults against the ships of the Imperium. For to insult the Imperial Navy is to insult the Imperium, and by that extension the Emperor himself!
But seriously. They're really very beautiful; plus I daresay they can probably outgun any FS ship.
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These ships look lame AND ugly...what a combination. I hope the SCP engine is not infected with this ugly universe's crap. A metallic eagle headpiece...SERIOUSLY??? Give me FS and BSG ships any day over this lameness...
An open mind is like a fortress left unbarred and unguarded.
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These ships look lame AND ugly...what a combination. I hope the SCP engine is not infected with this ugly universe's crap. A metallic eagle headpiece...SERIOUSLY??? Give me FS and BSG ships any day over this lameness...
Troll!
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An open mind is like a fortress with its gates left unbarred and unguarded.
Fix0red.
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And people saying that a bomber can't damage a ship are wrong as well.
An average cruiser, take the Imperial Lunar Class Cruiser. Or the Armageddon Class Battlecruiser. Both such cruisers have 8 "hitpoints"
Now each flight of bombers can do up to 6 hits (presumably one hit per bomber). So 12 bombers, can kill a cruiser. Is this ANY different from freespace whatsoever????? No. It's not. And one of these days people in this thread will wake up and realize that. (accounting for the fact that a BFG cruiser is a proper cruiser so probably somewhere between corvette and destroyer class)
Each flight of bombers is a full squadron of undetermined size, however other books from other series (primarily Imperial Armor) suggest that Imperial squadrons are anywhere from eighteen to twenty-seven craft.
The Lunar has that pesky armored prow if it's advancing into the strikecraft (and believe me, that happens much too often) and 5+ armor otherwise. Each hit has a one 1 in 3 chance of actually happening, at best. The average bomber strike of a single squadron will inflict...no hits, as the Lunar's turret array will shoot them down before release. (Also there's that painful bit about capital ships firing at bombers/fighters with their main guns sometimes.) To have a 100% chance of breaching the turret screen, four squadrons are needed, but realistically you can work with two. That will net you two hits. Six squadrons will get you six hits. Seven squadrons will be required for a one-turn kill, which is basically what we need to be talking about, because BFG strikecraft have to return to the hanger to rearm after a single run.
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So ... seven squadrons of bombers. Let's take it as 23; about half way between 18 and 27. That's about ...161 bombers. Then you have to have escorts. Assuming one a bomber, that's a total of 322. That's a lot of objects, excluding the weapons fire and stuff.
I'm not saying I'm against it; I'd love to run down a Chaos ship. But unless the FSO engine becomes wonderously powerful, that's not gonna happen anytime soon.
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Who said you need to maintain that ratio for the sake of gameplay?
Just make a squadron four, you know.
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In an abstract sense, what of a Warhammer 40,000 mod in general? Imaginably, more people are familiar with the planetary Warhammer 40K fighters than the BFG fighters/bombers. Things like landing ops or support missions in an atmosphere might actually be pretty cool... atmospheric combat is already possible for FSO (though I've never played such a mission). If and when we get Nuke's more advanced atmospheric flight modeling, it'll be even better. Also note that all or most Imperial "aircraft" can operate in a vaccum as well, so normal FS missions would work too.
The problem with a support mission is that it would require ground vehicles. SoL probably will adress this, but for the most part I do not believe that this is yet viable with FSO.
As far as BFG goes, does anyone actually know what a Fury or Stormhawk are supposed to look like? I've seen the diminutive game models, but those just don't have the detail to give an accurate impression of what they should look like.
In general, I'd say that a good BFG mod may someday be possible, but it won't happen with the current FSO. UNLESS it's extremely abstract. Think of Windmills: if you do distances like that with a similar interface, you could get off with massive capship battles just because the levels of detail would be so low.
-Thaeris
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Who said you need to maintain that ratio for the sake of gameplay?
Just make a squadron four, you know.
Exactly. Who cares what the bloody numbers are anyway. The only person other than myself who's even looked at the game rules seems to be NGTMR.
A mod for BFG is entirely possible on some level, all of this other stuff is quite frankly excuses.
The only REAL problem with making a GW mod is:
A - finding people who care (to make it)
B - hoping some other people don't care (ie GW telling you to quit violating their IP).
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I don't think that GW can sue you for making a mod as long as you don't earn a profit from it.
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I don't think that GW can sue you for making a mod as long as you don't earn a profit from it.
Well yeah maybe. BFG is a game GW doesn't really care about anyway. They only really care about WHFB and WH40k and maybe LotR but most of their other games are supported for like a year and then dropped (because the peak profit period is past). So now BFG and all its kin are relegated to some sub-department called Fanatic or whatever it's called now.
Anyway. I just think a BFG mod would be cool because it would be sweet to see two huge ships firing salvos of cannons at one another like two old tall ships. Beams are cool and all but massive batteries of ship-to-ship projectiles have an appeal all their own.
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Anyway. I just think a BFG mod would be cool because it would be sweet to see two huge ships firing salvos of cannons at one another like two old tall ships. Beams are cool and all but massive batteries of ship-to-ship projectiles have an appeal all their own.
I'm with you on that. Imagine watching lance batteries hammering away at void shields, torpedoes tearing after their targets, shells the size of Land Raiders hurtling through space ...
... Its almost orgasmic.
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In answer to the origingal question, there's absolutely nothing stopping you guys from making the models as you see fit and making your own mod or recruiting like minded souls to assist.
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In answer to the origingal question, there's absolutely nothing stopping you guys from making the models as you see fit and making your own mod or recruiting like minded souls to assist.
Yes, quite. I'm just worried about the effects of the cathedrals on the framerate.
As for realism, I have been reminded that it's a mod, so you can go ahead and change the stats to make gameplay fun.
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The cathedral should have no more impact than the scar asteroids i'd think. I don't remember the poly counts for the Diaspora ships but they seem to be pretty large. I'm under the impression that the engine still runs quite well though.
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If you just want gameplay... there's always the "X-Wing" approach to things: just put enough detail into the model to make it recognizable as the subject ship (think detail-2 or -3) and have at it it might not look pretty, but you just might pull of your 400+ ship uber-battle!
-Thaeris
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Thing is 400+ ship battles are seldom very fun for the player so who needs 'em anyway
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NEver know til you try :D
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Thing is 400+ ship battles are seldom very fun for the player so who needs 'em anyway
It'd make a hell of a movie. =P
We should make a movie using FSO.
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Thing is 400+ ship battles are seldom very fun for the player so who needs 'em anyway
It'd make a hell of a movie. =P
We should make a movie using FSO.
Um, considering how aggravating it was setting up some detailed camera moves in one of my missions I think I'll pass and stick to making movies with Maya, Flash or hand-drawn.
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Well we have all the cutscene geniuses ... :p
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Well we have all the cutscene geniuses ... :p
Who are they? I've yet to see any camera work as detailed as mine. But there's many campaigns I haven't played.
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Axem's Vassago, definitely. Not released yet, though.
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I don't think that GW can sue you for making a mod as long as you don't earn a profit from it.
Games Workshop is notorious for vigorously defending their IP. They destroy mods for games that weren't their own if it is at all possible. :P
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Axem's Vassago, definitely. Not released yet, though.
Vassago? Never heard of it. But sounds interesting, I'll look forward to it. The 2nd chapter of my campaign that I'm working on won't be out for months if ever.
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I don't think that GW can sue you for making a mod as long as you don't earn a profit from it.
Games Workshop is notorious for vigorously defending their IP. They destroy mods for games that weren't their own if it is at all possible. :P
It would probably make more sense to just create a mod with a gothic theme but one that doesn't borrow directly from Games Workshop. I love the idea of gothic architecture myself but when looking to waste some money I didn't find any of the BFG ships appealing enough personally.
But one thing that Freespace, or space gaming in general is lacking is a sort of . . . unrealistic magic-based space opera like Spelljammers or similar. I usually find fantasy extremely boring but put into some sort of pseudo-sci fi or maybe even a steampunk setting it can become more appealing. Most such games I've found are generally limited to boardgames and never make it into any other more popular media.
Games these days seem to be just space marines in power armour pretty much.
And I think NGTM-1R is right. Games Workshop is run by a board of directors, companies like that tend to look at the bottom line. And if it's something that can infringe upon that bottom line they'll pounce on it. I've never heard of any sort of GW-related mod, though then again I've not seen a lot of mods beyond FS2 ones.
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There are a few WH40K mods in the works. There's one for L4D and there are a few for FO3 (mainly Space Marine power armor and the like). There's also a BFG mod in the works for Sins of a Solar Empire. If this mod is done, I suggest you not make it a standalone game. THQ has the exclusive right to make games in the W40K universe, free or not, and they might take offense. If its a mod, you might be okay. GW's IP restrictions are incredibly restrictive, however if you follow them chances are GW won't be angry and smite a BFG mod, especially since BFG is one of the properties they don't care about that much.
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I've actually seen a few Half-Life mods for Warhammer 40K. Just search through Mod Database.
-Thaeris
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There are some imperial guard for Flashpoint. Nice :)