[wardog300k]

Captain's log, 27.23.145. standard Essera date. I'm starting to get sick of these "supreme" GTVA fools. Three years ago I was the richest mercenary captain in the known space, until the GTVA robbed me of most of my fleet, all but the greenest of my men, and nearly every weapon, they left me with only this carrier, a few fighters and a limited amount of peashooters... but that's not all! They have cut my pay to only a quarter of the original value! I'm not the only one to be such... ruthlessly robbed, most of my friends, mercenaries, lost nearly everything they've ever had, some were even killed by the goddamn pirates. I cannot take this crap anymore. I don't give a crap about that Sol gate, or whatever it is called, I don't give a crap about their shiny new ships! No negotiation is going to work, I've gotta talk to them in the way they WILL understand, that's with brute force. I'm going to start a rebellion, some mercenaries, civs and even pirates are already willing to support me, but I need to get every man, women and vasudan that wishes to get free of these bastards. I'm on my way towards Ikeya, that should be a prime place to get some help. I know an abandoned civilian station there, it should be good enough for an HQ, at least until I capture one of the GTVA's Arcadias or even an Arcas, if I'm lucky. Its time to start a war for freedom, its time to start the liberation wars.
-George Hasbury, captain of the ISS Black Fortune, Delta Serpentis.

-A campaign connected to Inferno and Final Destination.
-Experience a civil war from the perspective of a mercenary pilot that fights against the supreme GTVA for freedom.
-Over 20 missions full of non-stop action.
-Realistic ship behavior, no more ships waiting in place to be destroyed, no more respawning waves of hostile fighters that take no care about themselves.
-You're outgunned and outnumbered, you'll need to put all your skills to test.
-Negotiate with other people to convince them to join you, or use all the guns you have and force them to join you via bloodshed.
-You're the commander in the field, call in reinforcements as you please. Need a cruiser to be blown up but you don't have the power to do it? Call in some modified freighters to deal with it!

Coming out this year, really.

[wardog300k]

Alright, first update after quite a long time...
Tables, texturing, story, and everything story-related is done. Well, actually, everything but FREDding is done, but worry not, I'm beginning the work on that too, and if it goes the speed it currently is at, expect a release by the end of the year, I'll aim for November, or if possible even October.

Anyhow, here are a few screenshots of the texturing that I've done on the ISS Black Fortune. I, myself am amazed by the results, especially 'cause its my first texturing work.

[Nyctaeus]

Well, is this a skin of Reliant of somekind? The textures looks like filtered through somekind of oil painting filter. I'm not sure if they look any better than retail ones or even, to be honest, worse than retails.

But it's not really a problem. Not a big one at least . I remember you had problems with lack of good computer to work with MediaVPs. I hope you will amaze us with storyline and gameplay, while you cannot with amazing assets.

Keep working. Don't worry about visual standards, if you don't have opportunity to include cool models and textures.

[wardog300k]

Well, it is just a regular Reliant (now called the Erebus) with the original Orion's textures that I made look damaged with random tools in GIMP. Honestly, I can't even remember what I used exactly. But I think I got the damage part. The storyline I've got should be an interesting and original experience, and the gameplay should be interesting, as instead of having big corvettes and destroyers with big beam cannons, you'll have paper freighters and transports armed with heavy pulse cannons that might blow the ship's reactor when fired and guns that can barely damage even a Fenris, plus a bunch of FRED tricks and twists.

EDIT: Here's a nice comparasion between the nameplates of a regular Erebus and the BF.

[Nyctaeus]

Incrased constrast I guess. With a comparision, I see an improvement but not a big one. It's quite hard to do anything with retail textures. They are really outdated today, and working on old textures is a real pain in the ass. I remember my early experiances dating back to 2008 if I remember correctly.
Well... If you wanted to get old and damaged look of the Reliant, than you succeed . Do You really don't have any option to support MediaVPs? With updated Orion tiles your models would like 100 times better, despite the fact that Reliant is haundred-years old model.

As for the storyline, they were a few attempts to do proper campaign from civilian/merc/pirate point of view. None of them was ever released, and even if, none of the released ones were actually a success except the Sync, Transcendent and Homesick, but they are quite different than your idea. The only one similar to your was Children of Shiva, Nuke's old, unreleased and forgotten project. It's still quite an unexplored area of setting storylines.

...and if you are really forced to make retail-quality mod, MVP patch is not a big deal. New nebulae, updated effects and ship textures are actually enough.

[wardog300k]

Unfortunately, the situation I am in means that even working with FSO is impossible, and I am forced to work in retail. Which means no DDS textures for me, actually, if I had FSO I would work on Final Destination. For the nebulae I do use lightspeed's pack, it works with retail and is better than the originals, and I have a bunch of different effects taken from FD (mostly Inferno's).

[Colonol Dekker]

Many of us started modding on retail. 

It's how I learned photoshop and paint shop pro which are both invaluable in my photography.

I say keep at it bud. If all you need to do is the Fredding then you're halfway there.

[Mito [PL]]

Unfortunately, the situation I am in means that even working with FSO is impossible, and I am forced to work in retail.

Well, while running retail only you lose a sizeable amount of interesting and useful FRED SEXPs which might be really helpful, even in a campaign not full of visual features.

Let's donate! A PC capable of running FSO, even without MVPs? I'd say that a legal copy of Freespace 2 is more expensive. 

[wardog300k]

Well, the only problem I have is the graphics card, if it wasn't so bad I would be able to run FSO easily, possibly even MVPs. However, I am saving money, little by little to upgrade the PC, but I won't be able to make any upgrade before LW is finished.

[Mobius]

Keep up the good work!

[wardog300k]

I've got some... Bad news. I was working on the campaign all this time and it has progressed, but recently I've started getting a lot of stability issues. To be exact both FRED, and the game itself are constantly crashing and I just can't get anything done. I've looked into it, but I can't fix it, no matter what I tried. Its not the mod that's causing the problems, as I've tried without anything, as well as with other mods. I'm still looking into it but I don't know when I'll be able to fix it, if even. Everything that is not FRED related is done, just like 15 missions. For the time being I'll have to put this one on hold as well. I'll work on releasing stories and such for Final Destination during that time.

[HLD_Prophecy]

I've got some... Bad news. I was working on the campaign all this time and it has progressed, but recently I've started getting a lot of stability issues. To be exact both FRED, and the game itself are constantly crashing and I just can't get anything done. I've looked into it, but I can't fix it, no matter what I tried. Its not the mod that's causing the problems, as I've tried without anything, as well as with other mods. I'm still looking into it but I don't know when I'll be able to fix it, if even. Everything that is not FRED related is done, just like 15 missions. For the time being I'll have to put this one on hold as well. I'll work on releasing stories and such for Final Destination during that time.

I'm sorry that happened. Wish I could help.