Frankenstein’s Monster is Alive!!

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Re: Frankenstein’s Monster is Alive!!

Post by loki1950 »

Just a heads up each of the dll's you use will need to be compiled with what ever version of Visual Studio you are using to build the VS app there is a thread I started on using VS2010 Express that might be of use.

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Re: Frankenstein’s Monster is Alive!!

Post by travists »

OK, downloaded ermo's offshoot..... buggy beast! I've pinpointed the error he reported, it is having trouble loading just about any base.

stderr and stdout attached. been to long for me, but they started to make sense at one point.
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ermo
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Re: Frankenstein’s Monster is Alive!!

Post by ermo »

travists wrote:OK, downloaded ermo's offshoot..... buggy beast! I've pinpointed the error he reported, it is having trouble loading just about any base.

stderr and stdout attached. been to long for me, but they started to make sense at one point.
Looking at stderr.txt, it appears that the module 'traceback' is missing.

The traceback module is normally part of a full python2.7 install, which to me indicates that it might be missing from the stand-alone py27_modules.zip file shipped with the vegastrike windows executable?

Do you remember how you installed the py27_modules.zip package? Did you unpack it into modules/builtin/ ? :)
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Re: Frankenstein’s Monster is Alive!!

Post by travists »

Nope... don't remember doing much of anything with python.
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Re: Frankenstein’s Monster is Alive!!

Post by ermo »

Well, in any case, I just tried updating the Priv:WCU code to be python 3.x compatible last night (using the built-in 2to3 conversion script). It went pretty smoothly -- it changed some print statements to become proper function calls [ print "something" -> print("something") ] and rewrote some iterator and collection patterns. I'll need to do some more testing, but I'm fairly confident that this is the way to go, now that py3 is becoming the preferred version supported by VS.

Additionally, upstream builds py3 for Windows with VS2010, meaning that I can use the VS 2010 Express Edition to create a Priv:WCU specific vegastrike binary + associated python modules.

Except of course that current SVN trunk VS engine stuff is broken. I hope it gets fixed before too long.

Off topic:
<rant>
Also, what's the big deal with Star Citizen?

Sorry to go all Debbie Downer on you, but the forums suck in that they are too cluttered (they display avatars on the overview pages and generally have too many visual distractions to be fast and legible at a glance), they don't offer the right functionality, like the ability to 'like' posts (upvote, basically), and they are missing such basic features as adding links to quoted posts automatically.

And the pre-alpha hangar module is ... in heavy development, to put it mildly. I freely admit that it's a super cool feature and that I love ogling my pledge ships ... that is, when the hangar isn't broken. And thank the bit gods that the team are going to redo the upgrade console -- it needs to be taken out behind the barn and shot along with whoever conceived it in its current form.

Also, you shouldn't have to watch Wingman's Hangar to keep up with the game's development -- Q&A material on the development of the game should be easily searchable via text queries, something which most certainly should NOT be left to the community (last I saw, the WH text summary was done by a community member).

Most of all, I get the feeling that people are speculating and dreaming waaay more than is perhaps warranted -- to be perfectly and brutally honest, it almost feels as if it is (and continues to be) one big mental circlejerk. I'm interested in the game design and development part, not the tenuous at best worry wart/concern troll/silly idea/look at me posts. It would be a major boon if the forums were designed to make it easier for interested parties to follow the development discussions and progress reports from the devs -- along with the relevant feedback -- and tune out the non-essential filler/blabber posts.

Hopefully the team will manage to iterate their way to a truly usable and semi-serious space sim/game with less artificial flair/style just for the sake of it and more cool, sophisticated, high tech yet gritty and plausible realism, paired with cinematic space opera themes and artwork. Less KPS and more m/s and radians/s, please. Getting the little things right do matter for immersion.

Apropos the little things: The ships are ... ok I guess, even if most of them appear to be unsuited to atmospheric re-entry (most of them are deliberately designed to be non-aerodynamic it seems). Also, I saw a guy who points out that e.g. the Hornets have awful visibility from the pilot to the ground crew, which makes it an inherently unsafe craft to operate near people -- sort of a catch-22 for a craft which is supposedly operated out of a manned space carrier if you ask me. If true, that's unrealistic and plain bad design. And why do they have to be so effing ugly?! Couldn't they at least have made them look a little more elegant in the mould of, say, an F15, a Su-27 or a MiG-29 figher? Or make them look stealthy like the F22 or the Su PAK FA? Whenever I see a Hornet, I go *... sigh*.

At least the Avenger is coming along nicely, now that the designers listened to the community and made some much needed improvements to the interior design. No idea why its wings were designed to work as fixed airbrakes/vortex generators, though...

In case you're curious, I pledged for LTI versions of the Avenger, the 350r and the Weekend Warrior Super Hornet (mostly because the Super Hornet is at least better proportioned than the Hornet, which honestly isn't really saying much). I would also be surprised if the whole "I'll get a Constellation and then my buddies can man the turrets" deal takes off beyond the initial novelty period. I personally suspect that those Constellations (and other larger spacecraft) will be flying solo with NPC crews manning the stations a lot of the time. But good on CR for offering the option I guess. :)
</rant>
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Re: Frankenstein’s Monster is Alive!!

Post by Deus Siddis »

ermo wrote: most of them appear to be unsuited to atmospheric re-entry (most of them are deliberately designed to be non-aerodynamic it seems). Also, I saw a guy who points out that e.g. the Hornets have awful visibility from the pilot to the ground crew, which makes it an inherently unsafe craft to operate near people -- sort of a catch-22 for a craft which is supposedly operated out of a manned space carrier if you ask me. If true, that's unrealistic and plain bad design. And why do they have to be so effing ugly?! Couldn't they at least have made them look a little more elegant in the mold of, say, an F15, a Su-27 or a MiG-29 fighter? Or make them look stealthy like the F22 or the Su PAK FA? Whenever I see a Hornet, I go *... sigh*.

At least the Avenger is coming along nicely, now that the designers listened to the community and made some much needed improvements to the interior design. No idea why its wings were designed to work as fixed airbrakes/vortex generators, though...
I am glad to hear that I am not the only one peeved by SC's terrible craft design. :D

Especially the lawn-mower with a severed x-wing cockpit they call the Hornet. Or its hunchbacked little brother with the sleek aero-un-dynamics you mention. Their first website made a big deal out of the idea they weren't just creating spacecraft that looked nice, but were engineering them to make sense with "real physics". And they have such enormous talent and money going into the details of the models, textures and animations, would it have hurt so much to hire some poor aerospace engineer to advise them at the concept stage?
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Re: Frankenstein’s Monster is Alive!!

Post by klauss »

Quite expected. Try to remember, the guy designed Privateer. No great designs there either.
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Re: Frankenstein’s Monster is Alive!!

Post by Deus Siddis »

Maybe not great but they were better.

Many had or were close to having at least biradial symmetry which made them a bit more space-flavored. And the designs weren't so cluttered with detail noise as to make picturing them in your head difficult. It's like their main concern was to fill out the geometry budget for each ship, throwing in random complexity just to burn up polygons.
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Re: Frankenstein’s Monster is Alive!!

Post by klauss »

That's the most probable cause in fact.
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Re: Frankenstein’s Monster is Alive!!

Post by travists »

ermo, you'll be glad to know (I hope) that your latest version works well enough (so far) with the latest windows binaries, just drop everything into one folder. Only issue I seem to have is a lack of base art/physical bases. just a computer interface.
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Re: Frankenstein’s Monster is Alive!!

Post by travists »

I am finding one other little issue: VSsetup crashes when changing settings...
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Re: Frankenstein’s Monster is Alive!!

Post by travists »

Even better news!! Fixing my main line VS problem fixed the no bases issue. Only problem now is the setup issue.

Maybe I can summon the interest to add the wider universe ships in...
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Re: Frankenstein’s Monster is Alive!!

Post by klauss »

travists wrote:I am finding one other little issue: VSsetup crashes when changing settings...
I think you have to run it in administrator mode (dunno)
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Re: Frankenstein’s Monster is Alive!!

Post by travists »

Again you prove yourself the master, Klauss. Worked like a charm.
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Re: Frankenstein’s Monster is Alive!!

Post by ermo »

travists wrote:ermo, you'll be glad to know (I hope) that your latest version works well enough (so far) with the latest windows binaries, just drop everything into one folder. Only issue I seem to have is a lack of base art/physical bases. just a computer interface.
travists wrote:Even better news!! Fixing my main line VS problem fixed the no bases issue. Only problem now is the setup issue.

Maybe I can summon the interest to add the wider universe ships in...
klauss wrote:
travists wrote:I am finding one other little issue: VSsetup crashes when changing settings...
I think you have to run it in administrator mode (dunno)
travists wrote:Again you prove yourself the master, Klauss. Worked like a charm.
Glad you got it running. :)

And just to recap:

My lightly massaged Priv:WCU (nee Privateer Parallel Universe) Just Works(TM) with the new VS binaries, as long as you have write privileges to the folder in which the VS configuration file lives?

And what exactly does "Fixing my main line VS problem fixed the no bases issue." mean? What did the "fixing" entail? :)
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Re: Frankenstein’s Monster is Alive!!

Post by travists »

I had issues with both Vega Strike proper and your WC mod, fixing one got the other working. Still have crash issues when something blows up. More pronounced in WC, but present in both. I'd post the stderr and stdout, but for some reason, the WC mod does not seem to generate them.
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Re: Frankenstein

Post by Solon Halwinder »

Any further word on getting this running in Windows? I'm playing through the entire Wing Commander series at the moment, and would love to be able to revisit Parallel Universe. The last SVN commit I picked up had screwed-up values on the template ship entries in the CSVs, and also the dealerships were selling the templates instead of the blanks.
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Re: Frankenstein

Post by Dilloh »

Hello, sry to interrupt, stumbled over this topic by accident and read some lines. I might be able to answer pu specific questions. I am from the original team and did most of the campaign work.

I just don't want to do any time consuming work 4 I'm fully occupied with wife & kid.

And hello to anybody still around here :)
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Re: Frankenstein

Post by loki1950 »

Hi yourself Dilloh happy new year to you and the family :D have a good Christmas bock I'm sure that there will be questions on the missions you scripted :wink: lots think they are to tough :mrgreen: We going though a quite time as both of our code mavins also have family obligations yeah both pheonixstorm and kluass so I am thinking of moving our repo to git to open things up to new blood to get this ship to hanger one way or another. Ta ta for now!


Enjoy the Choice :)
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Re: Frankenstein

Post by Dilloh »

Hi Loki, thanks for the warm welcome. Same wishes to you & your beloved ones.
It looks like the reanimation of this mod (or rather, re-re-reanimation) is in its earlier stages so If someone could point me to, or sum up the most significant trouble I might be able to help.

The extra campaigns are tough, yes, it wasn't my original intention but later I was perfectly fine with that. My prime interest was to stretch the feeling of being an underdog guy in an underdog garbage hauler, so I locked a lot of items in such missions (even original Privateer parts in the earlier stages of developement). I did so because of the factor money, as soon as you got the Drayman the game was literally over, as you could fill your pockets with ease and buy any ship or item you desired. I had to build back most of these changes for they were among the most controversial ones.

Anyways, rolling back the campaigns should be pretty easy by just deleting the corresponding loading lines in campaings.py, plus resetting the lock flag in units and masterpartlist. You guys might want to keep the py campaign files anyways, they're just a few kilobytes and carry a lot of scipting and dialogue work.
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Re: Frankenstein

Post by Dilloh »

I checked github and read that ermo morned the loss of the wcj forum, well, here is a wayback snapshot (Oct 30 2012):
http://web.archive.org/web/200805230835 ... /index.php

Dunno how many posts it still holds, or maybe even the whole repo, one might want to check that.
The only thing I found on my HDD was the ranktiles of the old WCJ forum. :)
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Re: Frankenstein

Post by loki1950 »

I do have a a copy of the svn repo and some of the art assets that I was working on with xNormal to create some texture maps that chuck wanted for his cinemat pipeline so some of chuck's PU models survive :D and thanks for the archive link, been getting better at actually using blender lately as DarkVixen has been doing some comm animations since I finally upgraded to 64-bit on my Linux side.So it should be not that hard to covert that svn repo to git and open up development if that is what the community wants.

Enjoy the Choice :)
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Re: Frankenstein

Post by ermo »

So, I finally got around to rebuilding my Linux dev box and copied my local working copy of the PWCU git repo onto it from my now defunct older dev box. As a result, I've spent the better part of yesterday and today getting my py3 branch whipped into shape, fixing bugs and playtesting.

One of the things I needed to get on top of was the fact that the newest Vega Strike binaries choked on my New_Game starting save, so I had to hack around that directly in the VS source. I ended up simply having PWCU write a new save, which I then edited and copied into the PWCU source tree as New_Game, so now the game loads -- it just doesn't display the intro sequence anymore on selecting a new game. I could use some help figuring that one out...

Since I'm on fedora 21, I also needed to hack the VS cmake-related stuff to use py3.4 and not py3.3. But as it stands, my working py3 source has been merged into the master branch and succesfully pushed to the github repo in my sig. If anyone is wondering why I rebased to py3, it is because the official Windows py2.7 build files are restricted to the non-express edition of VS 2008, while py3.x is capable of being built on Windows with the newer version of VS 2010 Express out of the box if I have understood things correctly. I am just hoping to make the Windows build of the Vega Strike engine and the associated python version as painless as possible really.

@dilloh: Thanks for the heads up. I've massaged the campaigns slightly; for instance the TarsusMk2 is the sole unlockable in the troy campaign (the jump drive is available as soon as you have the money).
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Re: Frankenstein

Post by ermo »

@loki1950:

You're welcome to put up the SVN repo of the old PPU code somewhere for historical reasons; though I must admit that I'd be somewhat cross if that were to suddenly become the 'official' branch of PPU given the work I've put into getting PWCU (basically just PPU for now) to run on the newest VS engine to date, along with all the work I've done when it comes to porting it to py3. :wink:
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Re: Frankenstein

Post by loki1950 »

Your update to py3 will stick :wink: as both klauss and pheonixstorm are not active ATM so I don't have any SVN commit rights and their plan was to update the python to 3 from 2.7 anyway.I still have python 2.7 for Makehuman anyway so I don't need to change the cmake files to compile the current svn version.

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