Battlestar Galactica MOD

[Bashinerox]

hey guys, this is my first topic, and post, up here in the allmighty VS forum, so here goes:

im thinking of making a battlestar galactica mod.
i kinda need ideas, so any would be appreciated.

so far ive got this:


you are a pilot for the Battlestar Galactica, and most of your actions revolve around it. many of the missions you do are found on the galactica.
the galactica, and of course the cylon's base stars (notice the "s" ), moves around the universe, and an indicator on your hud shows you where the galactica is at all times

now, this is WAY into the future, around 3 million years, where another war with the cylons aused destruction of everyone but the people on galactica. humanity rebuilt itself, creating new battlestars and such, but did not colonise any planets (might change this when planetary flight comes into business with VS, otherwise its a bit of a pain)
so alongside he Viper there will be all sorts of new fighters and such.

so, i think thats it, i need ideas for ships though..

[hellcatv]

well definitely don't forget the normal tri-wing style fighter that the humans always use...I love that one


and can't forget the Psilon fighters either--they look like thick dralthi pancake fighters

[jackS]

well definitely don't forget the normal tri-wing style fighter that the humans always use...I love that one

... those would be the vipers he mentioned

[hellcatv]

ya...did you know that ashieh is a big Battlestar Galactica fan these days?

[Bashinerox]

hmm.. im thinking of ships being in "upgrade format" i.e:

the worst ship is Viper, and then the one slightly better than it is bigger, and has more things added to it, like another cannon or something.

but have like 5 "worst ships" or classes, each having its own "stages" instead of having completely different ships.

[peteyg]

EVERYONE is a big Battlestar Galactica fan these days, Hellcat! : D


A BSG mod would be sweet. Would you be using the new series as a model, or the old one?

[Guest]

ill be using the new series. no offence to the old-school fans, but you gotta admit its just got better models

[Bashinerox]

oops, forgot to login.. ill start on the models tonight. ill probably have viper done by tomorow, so ill upload it and post the link

[hellcatv]

gotta start with the favorite

I would recommend making 1 viper, 1 carrier 1 cylon carrier 1 cylon fighter and then getting it working

many mods have gotten down the difficult path of making ALL the ships upfront and then playing a ridiculous balancing act and never get anything released...
it's best to start with a tiny download with 4 or 5 ships that's playable to spur people to help out...that's what Privateer Remake did, that's what vega Trek is doing

[Bashinerox]

ok. ill try to get the Colonial Viper, and the Cylon raider done tonight, then ill go into constructing a techdemo, and then add the galactica and basestar, release another demo, then continue work thereof

[hellcatv]

perfect...we can certainly help you get a dataset of minimum size working with vega strike


I believe the http://black-paralysis.sourceforge.net/ has such a dataset with the bare bones necessary to load up
would be a good starting place

[pontiac]

perfect...we can certainly help you get a dataset of minimum size working with vega strike


I believe the http://black-paralysis.sourceforge.net/ has such a dataset with the bare bones necessary to load up
would be a good starting place

Yes, dandandaman posted his first bare-bone release here:
http://vegastrike.sourceforge.net/forum ... php?t=3446

Pontiac

[Ravalox]

The major challenge to a Galactica mod is the scale and complexity of combat in the new series. I think battles like we saw in the new miniseries(long range flak cannons, firing solutions, dog fighting, etc) there would have to be some kind of strategic control mechanism, homeworld style perhaps or at least turn-based strategy? It sounds like I am suggesting a different engine I am not, I am talking about using vega strike in a strategic framework? I myself started building a turn-based java boardgame based on the combat in the new galactica series. I feel it's the best sci-fi on television now and its notion of combat is very well-developed.

[hellcatv]

clearly the engine can support 3rd person control of a fleet...you can already switch between ships... (just have the player control the mother ship)
the major challenge would be to to write camera views and AI's that responded to mouse click orders...it would be a few weeks/month of work, no more

[Lord Q'Daan]

If you do decide to go forward with this, I suggest checking out the neoBSG mods for FS2_open and Starshatter and maybe asking if you can use their models. The SS mod has produced a very nice Viper II and Viper VII, as well as some invented Vipers for Mk I and Mk III-VI. Some of these are more WIP than others. They've also got some sort of cruiser modelled, but it looks like it's probably just a test of how to model and texture something with ribs like that so that it doesn't have too many polies but still looks good. The FS mod, on the other hand, has a pretty decent Viper II, a nice looking Cylon Raider with an animated texture for the glowing red eye, and a multiple-LOD Battlestar model in the works. Neither of these have gotten very far overall.

As for what to shoot for, you only really need Vipers, a Battlestar, and Raiders to make for a compelling mod. A Base Star would definitely be next. The ragtag fleet, the Raptor, and made-up ships would all be nice eventually, but you really don't need anything more than the Galactica fighting off waves of Raiders with its PDBs and Viper IIs. Of course, you'll need two versions of the Battlestar eventually, one with a flight pod converted like the Galactica, and one standard model.

[Bashinerox]

hey guys, i found some models:


http://www.battlestargalactica.com/3ddo ... rt0001.htm

when i get outa tafe ill check them out, but they seem pretty good.
there doesnt seem to be any copyright information, but ill send an email first to check. hopefully ill be able to use them in these early stages, and that will greatly speed up the process of getting out a techdemo, then i can work on models later.

[hellcatv]

that's really awesome next thing you'll have to figure out how to get 'em into the engine

of course that's where we come in...
try gettin 'em loaded in wings3d (http://wings3d.org) and then save it as an .obj file

then our mesher.exe can convert it to bfxm (our engine can load obj directly, but bfxm is clearly the fastest way possible)

then you have to get a units.csv built up with that ship...and try flying yourself in one for starters

[Halleck]

Here's a quick rundown on getting ships into VS.

1. Pick a 3D modeller application. Wings 3D is good, but if you have something else it will probably also work fine.
2. Load up the model, and orient it so the nose is facing forwards along the Z+ axis.
3. Export or save model as .obj.
4. From the command line, run mesher.exe on the obj file, convert to bfxm.
5. Decide if you are going to replace an existing model with yours or create a whole new unit. Then, load up units.csv in a text editor or spreadsheet application (excel, openoffice calc) and either create a new entry for your ship or modify an existing entry so it points to your mesh.
6. Go back to your modelling application. It's time to get your mount points! Activate the equivalent of single vertex selection mode and select points where you think would make suitable weapon mount locations. Also, retrieve locations for engine mount(s) and cockpit.
7. Copy the vertex coordinates into units.csv at the appropriate location, i forget exactly what the column name is. Engine mounts are in a seperate column called LIGHT, though.
6. Once you've saved units.csv, edit a save game so that you have whatever ship you need to test. Then, load up vegastrike.
7. Rinse and repeat.

NB: There seems to be a bug in mesher that filps your UV mapping- you may have to flip your texture vertically after converting to bfxm in order to get the texture to align properly.

[dandandaman]

NB: There seems to be a bug in mesher that filps your UV mapping- you may have to flip your texture vertically after converting to bfxm in order to get the texture to align properly.

Don't tell me you forgot about this little quirk hen you made mesher jack/hellcat When I realised this one it became my favourite VS-centric model quirk ... ahead of the old converter rotation thing

Dan.a

[jackS]

NB: There seems to be a bug in mesher that filps your UV mapping- you may have to flip your texture vertically after converting to bfxm in order to get the texture to align properly.

Don't tell me you forgot about this little quirk hen you made mesher jack/hellcat When I realised this one it became my favourite VS-centric model quirk ... ahead of the old converter rotation thing

Dan.a

wasn't an issue when I did xmesh -> BFFXM. Must be in the obj->BFXM/xmesh code. I just figured it was part and parcel of translating models from rotated coordinate spaces.

[dandandaman]

Must be in the obj->BFXM/xmesh code.

Yep, you had to do it to get to xmesh, so you must have to for obj->bfxm too

Dan.a

[etheral walker]

there polycount are fairly too high.. you should better check on a microsoft flight sim site, I know there is plenty meshes,
As example:
http://www.fsplanet.com/09072003.htm (bottom of the page)

[Jennos]

Lemme know how I can help (within my limits). I love the new series.

[Bashinerox]

yeah, please! i dont have any models at the moment, cause i got a 56k connection which is stuffed atm, so im having alot of difficulty getting models from places.
and i dont have the time to sit down and do the models myself, because im flat-out at the moment, so if you could get me some decent low-polygon models, it would be greatly appreciated.
but if you want to send me a file, either send it to my email:
bashinerox__AT__hotmail.com, or post it on a website that doesnt use funny stuff:

e.g: for some reason battlestargalactica.com wont display on my browser. i looked at its source and it uses java at certain places, so yeah. dont have a clue why it wont display it, since i can use java, but it doesnt.

[Bashinerox]

ok. sorry about not having any updates, but ive had a few hiccups in my life the last few weeks. well, for now, ive finally decided to set aside thursday for construction on the mod, so things are finally taking off. im starting to make the models, and ive come to a few conclusions.

1. im going to rewrite the flight model, to accomodate a few things i want,

2. i will create as many viper and raider makes as i can, starting with viper mk2 and 7, and the old and new raider,

3. ill make a release after i get a few ships done, and again while i tweak the flight model,

4. i would really appriciate some texturing help, since i absolutely hate it

5. actually any help and ideas would be appriciated, so just pm me or send an email to bashinerox_At_gmail.com, or @hotmail.com, but i dont use that much anymore.