As some of you may know, I'm working to convert Tachyon: The Fringe into the FS2 engine.
Where I keep running into a wall, however, is *how* to do things. Many times, you'll find documentation on *what* to do - but the detail stops at, for instance "insert modified tables into a .vp, using vp_insertprogramhere_".
I love karajorma's FAQ - but the detail in many of the FAQ's on that site are oriented toward capships, and tell you more about *what* to do, instead of *how* to do it, in my humble estimation.
I'll kinda go over what I've tried to do, thus far. Some of the failings have been due to other programs, but I'm sort of at a wall. I'm also quite stuck on some aspects of using 3dsmax, because what I'm doing (using models that weren't originally created for FS2) doesn't quite go through any of the accepted FAQ stages.
1. Converted all the Tach models into .3ds, because I (finally) got max working.
2. Chopped all of the thruster tails off of the models that had them.
3. Oriented them so they'll be facing right when imported, scaled them to a "normal" size for FS2 (between 10 and 25 meters - mini-fighter to largest bomber - there are also some "mega size" fighters - which should really be gunships... I'll deal with them later

)
4. Rigged several, using the FAQ for the POF exporter, on the wiki, added a shield identical to the one that is shown on the example model that comes with it.
Now, I have several models that show up in modelview, sans textures, with gunpoints, thrusters, etc. I'll put all of the texture bitmaps into the maps folder, correct?
Now... tables. Lots of posts say DO NOT edit the .tbl files - but edit .tbm's, instead - correct? (But not *how* - at least none that I've found :/) So, if you have, say, Shivan's "total installer of doom", with several campaigns, etc - do these .tbm's just go into a separate .vp file? Plus, which .tbl's are they supposed to modify? Furthermore, can .vp's be JUST the modified files, and nothing else, or do you need to add in a whole new set of the originals for it to modify, in that new .vp?
For instance, I tried to install nukemod - I put the "nukemod" folder into the main fs2 folder, where the other campaigns/mods are - but when I try to select it, no dice.
I couldn't find anything about .tbm's except for the single entry on the wiki, and not much on .vp creation for FS2_Open, or whether/how much it differs from the original .vp's. Like TBP, I'd rather have something *relatively* stand-alone that doesn't really use much, if anything, from the original FS2, by the time we're done - but for testing purposes, I *need* to know *how* to insert .tbm's, so that it references the .pof's, and *how* the .pof's reference their texture files - especially how to set up FS2_Open to access them.
I'm stuck at the point where I either have way *too* many posts to sort through, about a specific subject (spanning 3 years of updates and revisions that have, in many cases, rendered the original advice obsolete), or barely any at all, because it's just assumed that you know how/where to package a .vp, and what it's supposed to contain, and where it is to be placed. Often times, basic explanations are given along with very terse comments that just assume you know how to do the next step already.
I'm stumped. Maybe I should just make a single post, and go through all my difficulties one by one, and edit it as I solve them (or I'm helped to solve them), and find new ones to solve. I'm not complaing. I'm just a bit frustrated by the fact that there's either a dearth, or a plethora of info - it's either hard to find because there's so little, or because there's so much, over so many versions.
Any suggestions as to relevant threads? I'll volunteer to update the wiki for those references, even.
I just need to find info
