I DL'ed all the packs and sorted out the ones to be used. (very few didn't make the cut).. I had 1 of every ship in the game and only had 2 problems...
First, some of the ships are not big enough (needing to be 2-3 times bigger depending on the model, some are dead on accurate though, like most of the stations). So many of them need to be re-sized. when I tried to do it it crash on re-pofing so I'm not sure how to proceed.
Second there is some loose geometry on 2 ships, the 8472 Mothership, and the Krenim Timeship... I've seen this before but don't know exacly what it means. If you place it in fred you can see the lines spiking off the model into infinity , if you rotate the model and let one of these planes/lines intersect your viewpoint it locks up fred/and in extreame cases crashes it. also in game if you intersect one these now not visible lines in game it crashes FS2. That's what was happening witht that whitestar I sent Star Fury. also 2 or 3 other ships I was working on converting... I thought that one ship was crashing simply because it could hold thousands of gigas's in it's hold cause when it converted but it was because of those lines comming off it... (won't mention ship, but it's from WC)
he he...
Now that current model stability seems fine (I am using fighter tables, and they are firing both types of photons fine as a primary weapon... (they DO occasionally miss so I've upped the velocity and they are a not locking primary, for now). The Soulwolf has 3 forward firing ports. It was cool to see 3 torpedoes (2 photons and 1 quantom) practically on top of each other almost insuring oblivion should they strike their target!!! Wohoo! I'm gonna ask G.E> if he would work on a table for the DS9 model. Apparently it has 5 banks of primaries of avarious amounts (bank 1 has 4 points) ect... If I make one port a photon then all 5 of those points associated with that bank should fire red pohtons...
As for beam weapon primaries... I will try using the targeting laser or the Aurora cannon(for now) cause it is a fighter table and I don't know how to match up capship tables with models that have no turrents but DO have gun firing points on some of them...
If I can learn how to change the color and add a duration to the targeting laser, then I can simulate a primary phaser for runabouts, shuttles, and fighters, while also temporarily using them for the cap ships until real weapons can be matched up...
Right now all targeting laser varients are as long as you hold the trigger and I don't know if an AI ship will keep firing until the ship is destroyed (which would not look/feel right as even phasers run out of energy between shots and don't stay "on" as they track a target that has entered and then eluded their firing arc)...
Still the potential is cool. The ships look better than I thought they could be (really nice textures can do wonders!). The stations are enormous! And also some of them are natural carriers! I was flying through various ships and some have big hangars (no invisible textures here blocking access!!!! You can make these fighterbays or hangars, cargo docks, whatever and have ships, objects enter and leave.. Some are big enough you can park a large cruiser in!
The two shipyards and very nice (one TMP and one looks a lot like nemisis) The last one is a deluxe namisis with 9 gun points per side, overhead light fixtures and cool tight angles that can really hug the soverign class, BUT it also has those infinate lines and causes fren lock up... If someone can fix those kind of models it would be a HUGE help!!!
[EDIT] By the way poll is over and broke down like this:
2 abosolutes (mine dosen't count) + 12 STRONG YES'S = 14
1 Ucarring , but would use it counts for +/- 0
7 no or just wants ounch & pie = 7
14 - 7 means ST TC is a worthy project and if I can find some staff members to help with conversion/revisions, tables, and all the rest . then I would like to coordinate this project and try todo justice to the genre... Though most of the files are available from FS2 sector (at least Fed ones). I would release new stuff as it gets finished, like someof the other torpedoes I've been planning, bt haven't taken the time to start though I have the image files for... Problem is I have the enthusiasm and drive/willingess to commit, but I do not have the skillz needed to actually do a whole project myself (like successful resizing, this should NOT be a problem but with these models something is different)... I also need someone who has 3ds max for A2 canverting (a plugin for A2 sod model files is availible), a mapper so we can use existing ST textures (I have almost every ST texture we need)... and of course fredders and voice people. I want to make 2 storylines. 1 JUST for ST TC. and 1 that will carry over to BEYOND REDEMPTION the "all-mod" he he. (now all I need is more robots and I'll have almost everyting I want, well if I could get a buck rogers starfighter, the yamato, arcadia, and the BSG ship of lights that would be nice too (wink wink, nudge nudge)
Till next time true believers, make mine MARVEL! (a Stan Lee saying) I can't wait for The Hulk!!!!
Poll
Sign me up for the staff!